Friday, April 21, 2023

Fox News didn't have to apologize, so 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' did it for them

Happy Flashback Friday! As I quoted "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in Fox and Dominion settle — silly to serious reactions from Colbert, CNN, and MSNBC, "After settling with Dominion for $787.5 million, Fox News will not have to acknowledge its election lies on the air." I found that disappointing, commenting that "This is probably the best outcome both companies could have achieved — Dominion gets the money while Fox doesn't have to publicly retract its statements on air — but not a good result for truth or democracy. Unfortunately, neither truth nor democracy are parties to the suit." However, not all entertainment value has been lost, as Colbert and his writers and editors created An Apology From Fox News.

The settlement in Fox’s defamation lawsuit doesn’t require them to apologize on their network, so Stephen makes them apologize on The Late Show! Elsewhere, the former president’s new NFT collection is out of this world, and the Iowa state senate passed a bill loosening restrictions on child labor.
Fox News didn't have to apologize, so "The Late Show" crew did it for them. It's the next best thing to the real thing, and I'll take it. Also, I hope CBS and the show submits this clip to the Television Academy for an editing nomination at the Emmys. The show deserves it.

Despite 'SNL' snickering at Trump's NFTs last December, he decided that they were enough of a money-maker that he issued some more. I think they're just as silly the second time around and so did Colbert and his audience.

I think relaxing child labor laws is not a good way to deal with a labor shortage. I prefer raising wages and improving working conditions so more adults will return to the workforce. Instead, Iowa has joined Arkansas and several other states in permitting teens to work more. I find that worrisome and a reversal of a century of progress.

I suppose I'll get to the coronation of King Charles III in a future post, but I'd rather have my readers follow me over the jump for a retrospective about all the political posts from the back catalog I haven't already covered.


I begin with CNN and MSNBC report on the connections between U.S. conservatives and the Canadian trucker protests from February 10, 2022. I didn't record it making the cutoff for the most read posts of any month, although it actually topped both 'Good Night Oppy' wins five Critics Choice Documentary Awards and News coverage of marching bands in the 2022 Macy's Parade for Thanksgiving, both with 261 raw page views, at 267 for 38th place during November 2022. I caught it when I looked at the top posts for calendar year 2022 and saw that it had 2,744 raw page views on December 31, 2022. The post ended the twelfth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News with ~2,130 raw page views, ranking it ninth overall by that measure.


The entry ended the blogging year with ~2,840 raw page views all time. While it seems it was one of the entries earning most of its views through the "French Connection" that dried up on December 26, 2022, it has maintained a low but steady popularity since then, so it might show up again next year. However, I'm not holding my breath.


I'm more certain about how Duggan re-elected as Detroit Mayor again plus firsts for mayors of Dearborn, Hamtramck, and Jackson November 3, 2021 earned its place. My notes say it got ~1,820 default and 1822 raw page views from just one day of Russian viewing during Labor Day. That was enough to make it the most viewed post during September 2022. The ~1,820 default page views held until the end of the blogging year, while the raw page views increased to ~1,840. Both were enough to rank the post seventh by the former stat and 16th overall by the latter. Thank you, I suppose, but whatever the Russians are doing, I'd rather they do less of it.


That one day of whatever the Russians were doing contributed to the bulk of the ~2,370 page views the post has accrued over its lifetime. Unless the Russians return, this post won't reappear next year.

Stay tuned for an Earth Day post tomorrow.

Previous posts in this series Previous retrospectives about the back catalog.
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