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Rupert Murdoch’s racist media empire has been outed yet again for spreading lies that serve right-wing political interests.
The Murdoch-owned Fox News and the New York Post helped conjure the anti-immigrant “caravan” hysteria in 2018, which in many cases implied liberals were willfully allowing a dangerous migrant-led invasion of the United States. The fearmongering aligned with white nationalist ideology such as the "replacement theory," which alleges liberals are deliberately trying to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants. And this adherence to xenophobia appears to be how Fox News, the Post and several other conservative outlets became media partners to yet another anti-immigrant hoax.
Over several days, conservative outlets pushed flimsy allegations that homeless veterans were being kicked out of their temporary housing in a hotel to make room for migrants.
After right-wing tabloid The New York Post published the sensational report last Friday, Fox News and Newsmax ran wild with it, devoting dozens of segments (and countless online articles) to the indignation of “people who served our country and need a little boost” getting displaced by “illegals,” all while “these hotels are selling their soul for a check.”
In the Post article published May 12, Sharon Toney-Finch, who runs the nonprofit Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, offered a sob story of sorts: “Our veterans have been placed in another hotel due to what’s going on with the immigrants."
Republican New York state Assemblyman Brian Maher helped spread the claim in an appearance on Fox News and introduced legislation that would prohibit the displacement of homeless veterans. The intent seems to have been pretty obvious here: Use sympathy for veterans as a rhetorical cudgel to bash migrants and those who support the humane treatment of migrants.
The problem with Maher parroting the story is that it's apparently totally false. Now, the New York Republican, who called the purported evictions an “absolute embarrassment on all fronts,” has plenty to be embarrassed about himself.
He told the Post last Thursday that when he pressed Toney-Finch on the allegations in a private conversation, she admitted the alleged incident was made up.
"This is someone who I worked with over the last three years — but she did reveal to me that this is not something that took place," Maher said.
In a report published last Friday, New York-based Mid Hudson News spoke with seven men who said they were part of a group of unhoused people asked by Toney-Finch's group to pretend to have been displaced by migrants at a hotel. Some of them said they were offered cash and alcohol for their participation.
Toney-Finch has denied paying the men. In an interview with The Associated Press, she declined to say whether her initial story was true and suggested it was all a misunderstanding.
The Post added an "editor's note" correcting its original story, while Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who helped spread the claim, was compelled to issue an on-air correction.
I love when lies are debunked and those who spread them are exposed. And it’s clearly better than not for this lie to be outed as such, as far as I’m concerned. But I do wonder if the damage has already been done here.
In my experience, one’s capacity for racism and xenophobia isn’t like a rubber band. It doesn’t return to form once it’s stretched. It’s more like a shirt that loses its elasticity and starts to take the form of the thing stretching it. And it seems many people on the right had their limits tested with this story.