Angelo Carusone: Fox News is validating election lies to reflect “right-wing fever swamps” and retain its viewers
Carusone: “Fox isn't tethered to reality anymore. They're a reflection of the right-wing media fever swamps.”
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From the June 25, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): Angelo, are there people at Fox News who say what Bill Barr has said, that these conspiracy theories about fraud were B.S.?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): No. I mean, Fox isn't tethered to reality anymore. They're a reflection of the right-wing media fever swamps. And that's really different than what they were.
Fox was always a political operation. Political operations are responsive to a political constituency, but they're not reflections. They sort of engage and steer. But that's not the case anymore. Fox is a reflection of the right-wing media fever swamps.
And how that ties into the discussion you were having with Ben earlier, where you pointed out that we're in a post January 6th world and we don't necessarily ask that question enough. And what the significance of it is, and Ben was noting that one of the things that's different in this cycle is the notion of a stolen election has not just been incubated, but it's germinated. These seeds now have grown into small plants.
And so Fox being a reflection of an audience means that if they're pumping more of those lies and that misinformation into the space, they're validating it and they're making the reality, the action of that reality and all those externalities, much more likely.
And Rupert Murdoch himself acknowledged, because we saw during the Dominion filings, that only Fox News could have corrected the record when it came to the election being stolen. They chose not to. So, that's the significance why this matters so much.