On MSNBC's Ayman, Angelo Carusone discusses the right-wing media strategy to counterprogram Democratic National Convention
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From the August 26, 2024 edition of MSNBC's Ayman
AYMAN MOHYELDIN (HOST): You and your colleagues over at Media Matters, Angelo, you have been looking into and covering this insane voter fraud conspiracy that Maria Bartiromo just threw out there, completely unverified, completely unvetted, and probably deliberately. I think she knew what she was doing when she did this. She’s hiding behind, or Fox is hiding behind that it wasn’t confirm that she said that.
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ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT & CEO, MEDIA MATTERS): The chaos that we’re seeing in a lot of ways is a reflection of the fact that there’s no center of gravity in the right-wing media right now. It’s worth noting that this is the first election in 30 years where Rush Limbaugh is not the single largest get out the vote operation in the country. And the effects of that are felt every single day. And the chaos that you see in the larger right-wing media, they don’t know what to echo. They’re a chorus without a conductor.
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MOHYELDIN: Let me ask you about another aspect of this coverage. And that was what – and something you guys have been tracking at Media Matters, something that Fox did. They did not show a single minute of any of the Republicans who spoke at the DNC. And there were notable names that were there. People who were in Trump’s inner circle, people like Stephanie Grisham at one point, people like former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, Olivia Troye, Adam Kinsinger. They have all endorsed Harris, condemned Trump, not a single minute of their speeches or addresses televised to the Republican base through Fox at all.
CARUSONE: Yeah, and that’s really consistent. Let’s not forget that they’re also the one that had the scoop that Mike Pence wasn’t going to be endorsing Donald Trump either, this is a while ago, and even though they were the ones that broke that news they only gave it a few seconds of coverage on the network, less than 4 minutes total, even though that was an explosive story at the time.
So part of their strategy right now is not only to amplify and pull up from the dregs of the internet these conspiracies and these theories and sort of really push this election being stolen narrative but then also to do exactly what you just did. So it’s what they’re covering but also what they’re not covering and they’re not going to cover anything that’s going to give a permission structure to a whole bunch of their audience that is likely to potentially be willing to vote not for Donald Trump and that’s what they’re doing. They’re suppressing that part of the information stream.