I rolled my eyes a bit when I saw last week that Boston-based freelance reporter Luke O’Neil had written about people whose family members had been essentially brainwashed by Fox News. I rolled my eyes because the ubiquity of Fox News talking points is just the lay of the land if you live in a red state. Of course the network affects how people think about things and how they relate to loved ones who don’t toe the constantly-moving line of conservative pundits.
I can’t mention O’Neil without bringing up another piece he wrote last week that more or less encouraged waiters to tamper with the food of Trump officials. For a sense of the kind of tampering I’m talking about, consider that one of O’Neil’s biggest regrets is “not pissing in Bill Kristol’s salmon.” The Boston Globe edited the op-ed online several times before removing it altogether, and O’Neil told The Washington Post that the piece was meant to be tongue-in-cheek and he “wasn’t really advocating to piss in somebody’s food. That’s crazy.”
All that aside, and despite my initial dismissiveness, I’m glad O’Neil wrote about the toll Fox News has on relationships. For its most loyal fans, Fox News is more than a television network. It’s a code that defines what’s right and wrong. What is right is always changing, but what hasn’t changed is the assumption that every person with the wrong opinions is politically naïve, if not abhorrent and morally bankrupt.
Other partisan news organizations, such as Fox’s liberal foil, MSNBC, get facts wrong and run manipulative content. However, Fox News is the most mainstream journalism organization to systematically limit its audience’s access to information in order to present a certain view of the world. For those Fox News faithfuls, the network’s gradual shift further and further to the right wasn’t much of a change, because they were shifting, too.
On the other hand, Michael J. Socolow, an associate professor of communication and journalism at the University of Maine, thinks Fox News doesn’t have much political influence. Moreover, he argued in a piece last week that journalists elevate the perceived power of Fox News by writing about things like the Trump administration’s relationship with the network.
“The reality is that most of us don’t live on ‘Planet Fox,’ nor are we subjects of the Murdoch Empire,” Socolow wrote. “Criticism from The New Yorker and The New York Times only helps Fox News gain credibility with its constituents – the viewers at home, and the Republican Party in Washington. Such attention proves that Fox News continues to frighten its enemies.”
Those of us who live in red states recognize Fox News talking points in local and state politics. At times, I’ve been around enough coded language drawn from “Fox and Friends” or host Sean Hannity that it goes well beyond noting that Fox News does indeed have a bit of an influence. And while it’s doubtful that Fox News can actually change people’s minds, the network has a demonstrated ability to do something far more dangerous – radicalize.
Before he left Fox News, host Bill O’Reilly molded information to fit a desired narrative, but his approach was even-handed compared to the worst offenders on the network now. Downplaying the network’s influence on the White House and its penchant for misinformation doesn’t rob Fox News of the influence it has on individuals and information across the country.
For his part, O’Neil helped document this last week. One person told him, “I hate what that channel and conservative talk radio did to my funny, compassionate dad. He spent the last years of his life increasingly angry, bigoted and paranoid.” One said, “I can only talk to my dad about the weather. Anything else will set him off, even football.” Another told O’Neil that she stopped talking to her mother, who believes Democrats are murdering children.
O’Neil wrote: “Whatever the actual direction of causality, there are many, many Americans who blame Fox News for changes in their loved ones, and many people out there who feel as though their friends and family members have been lost to a 24/7 stream of right-wing propaganda.”
While Fox News is far from the only culprit, it’s made a business of slanting the truth to fit its needs, no matter the impact to its viewers. Many Americans consume Fox News on a regular basis, and If anything, we should be doing more to hold them accountable, not discouraging coverage of what they do.
Contact Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@bigiftrue.org. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
An excerpt from this piece also ran in our newsletter, Hard Reset. Sign up for Hard Reset here.
Shepard Smith seems to be a legitimate unbiased news person at Fox. All the others appear bias to me.
Shepard Smith is a leftist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But he’s a leftist and if you agree with his views or see him as reasonable, it probably means you share his leftist sympathies. Again, NTTAWWT. But to pretend that he’s “unbiased” is only a direct manifestation of confirmation bias–a condition which journalists suffer from to the nth degree. While this is normal–all humans suffer from it–journalists at least should be trained to know when they’re projecting their own biases into their work, since the integrity of their profession depends on avoiding this, or at least being explicit when engaged in punditry vs reporting. Since most journalists seem to be preoccupied with Fox News partisan bias (which is undeniable) without any concern for the bias of NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC or all the other (mostly struggling) mainstream outfits, it undermines their credibility for those of us who genuinely seek nonpartisan journalism and know we aren’t getting it from Fox…and sure as heck aren’t getting it from CNN or WaPo.
Shepard Smith is an interesting case though. Openly and unapologetically liberal, also (in recent years) uncloseted, one would think that his heavily rightwing viewers would be in a fury. And while they often grumble about his bias, they continue to watch him, indicating that, yes, the conservative viewership of Fox News is willing to tune in to an openly gay man vocalizing his leftist worldview. Is there an equivalent on CNN–an Mormon correspondent who routinely articulate pro-life and pro-gun views? What about NYT? Or even ABC/NBC/CBS? We both know the answer to this question. Fox News, as rightwing partisan as it is, still at least makes passing reference to leftist views without agitating its customer base. Heck, it also has Juan Williams, who may only be center-left but is clearly not overtly conservative (yet still too conservative for NPR apparently!). If a lefty site were to venture into similarly uncharted rightwing territory, you know as well I do that their viewership would through a conniption fit. The leftosphere does not want their narrative tainted in the slightest by wrongthink. In other words, they “systematically limit [their] audience’s access to information in order to present a certain view of the world.”