Despite Defamation Suit, MSNBC Bloviates About ‘Big and Garish Lies’

February 13th, 2025 6:47 PM

MSNBC may have taken their self-assured and self-righteous obliviousness to their own shortcomings to a whole new level of irony on Wednesday night’s episode of The 11th Hour, The show’s discussion panel railed against their perception of a trend of mass-misinformation by non-mainstream media sources, but seemed quite oblivious to very serious defamation charges pending against them that might well have made their indignation look a tad hypocritical at best.

Ruhle opened up with vitriol against President Trump and Elon Musk- staples of her show- saying “Elon Musk and Donald Trump, these two men- have PHD’s in chaos content creation- and we are divorced from the truth. And the problem is, the truth is often long, and complicated, and mundane. The truth doesn't fit in a push notification.”

Chris Hayes was quick to agree:

That’s well said- This is one of the- one of the real dangers, is that- competitive attention markets will select for the thing that is most attentionally salient, as opposed to something that's true. And oftentime (sic), big and garish lies are more compelling than, like- complicated truths. And we've seen this forever… Like the penny press, you know? …the lurid, the prurient, the tabloid, right?

While they were on the subject of “big and garish lies,” promoted because they were “attentionally salient,” MSNBC could, for a moment, have put the righteous indignation on pause, and just taken a good look in the mirror. In fact, even as they spoke, MSNBC was facing a $30 million defamation suit, for a story they had aired on the show of none other than Chris Hayes himself, among others.

 

 

MSNBC had baselessly dubbed a Georgia gynecologist “the uterus collector,” alleging, with no actual evidence, that this physician, who was employed by ICE to treat illegal immigrant women, had been abusing his patients and performing unnecessary hysterectomies on them.

Hayes actually conceded, before even airing the story, that he was on very shaky ground in reporting something so baseless at all, and that the only reason for doing so was that it “conjured the worst kind of like Third Reich, . . . sort of . . . Jim Crow “ imagery.

If that was not promoting “the lurid, the prurient,” and “big, garish lies” just because they were “attentionally salient,” it would have been hard to say what even would have fit that description.

Hayes seemed unperturbed, though, and cheerfully plowed ahead with his rant:

 [A]nd this is the battle, and this is the war footing upon- that has been weaponized and escalated by the platforms. It's an old tension, but it's been made more acute, and it's the- the terrain on which Trump and Musk accept- 

Ruhle interjected, “But it's easy to believe the lies when they're not impacting or hurting your day-to-day life.”

Many, though, in light of the backstory, would have thought an organization willing to stoop to levels that low and just plain sickening merely because it “conjured” the desired ugly imagery, had no business throwing stones.

To read the full transcript, click "Expand":

MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
02/12/2025
11:37 PM

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: CHRIS HAYES ON THE ‘ATTENTION AGE’]

STEPHANIE RUHLE: Then what do we do with that? Because in- Elon Musk and Donald Trump, these two men- 

CHRIS HAYES: I’ve got to find another line of work-

RUHLE: Have- have PHD’s- but in all seriousness, they have PHDs in-

HAYES: Yes-

RUHLE: -chaos content creation-

HAYES: That’s well said-

RUHLE: -and we are divorced from the truth. And the problem is, the truth is often long, and complicated, and mundane. The truth doesn't fit in a push notification.

HAYES: This is one of the- one of the real dangers, is that- competitive attention markets will select for the thing that is most attentionally salient, as opposed to something that's true. And oftentime (sic), big and garish lies are more compelling than, like- complicated truths. And we've seen this forever. I mean, if you go back to- 

RUHLE: But have we? Give us a history lesson? 

HAYES: Like the penny-

RUHLE: Because right now, I feel like we haven’t-

HAYES: Like the penny press, you know? The penny press- the sort of lurid tabloid- we have a whole set of adjectives- we describe the lurid, the prurient, the tabloid, right? Like- back when Benjamin Day starts The New York Sun, he sends the first court reporter to New York City courts, where he has accounts of- death, mayhem, murder, right? And people are poring over that and he's-

RUHLE: Yeah!

HAYES: -selling tons of papers. He then escalates it one step, and he writes a week-long series of accounts of life on the moon. And this is a blockbuster seller, okay? Because he says there's- it's totally fabricated, of course- there's some professor who has a telescope, he can show there’s life on the moon. There are mat- there are a- bat species on the moon. And- and what you- the sort of fundamental issue is that in competitive attention markets, there is a battle between the truth and what's attentionally salient. Right? There is a battle between- as Walter Lippmann put it, in the 1920s, in the phantom public- he's writing about the treaty of Versailles and he says, ‘the American people have a great interest in what happens in Versailles, but they're not interested in it.’

RUHLE: So-

HAYES: So this-

RUHLE: So-

HAYES: -this- and this is the battle, and this is the war footing upon- that has been weaponized and escalated by the platforms. It's an old tension, but it's been made more acute, and it's the- the terrain on which Trump and Musk accept-

RUHLE: Okay. But it's easy to believe the lies when they're not impacting or hurting your day-to-day life.

HAYES: Yes, although- you know- I mean- the thing that I- I would say is, yes. And when you and I were both here during COVID, we both did our level best to try to, like- navigate the complicated information environment. And I would have thought that if there was ever a moment where the meteor hits Earth and everyone has to be like, ‘well, it's real,’ it would have been COVID. But even that (sic) people were like, ‘no, I don't like the vaccine.’

RUHLE: It got worse.

HAYES: It got worse. 

RUHLE: And where do you think we go from here?

HAYES: I think there's a few things happening. One is, that I think you have to maintain focus, and I think focus is power- 

RUHLE: “You” being whom?

HAYES: All of us. Focus is power. I mean, for us who are making television shows, we-  every day, we have to resist the urge to chase after the ball that gets kicked, because focus is power, and distraction is a means by which fact- power is diffused.

(…)