On SiriusXM's Tell Me Everything, Media Matters’ Andrew Lawrence describes the right-wing information bubble Fox creates for its viewers
Lawrence: “When you talk to a Fox News viewer about Portland, Milwaukee, all these different big cities, they will tell you that it's been burned down because they haven't heard otherwise"
Published
On SiriusXM's Tell Me Everything, Media Matters’ Andrew Lawrence describes the right-wing information bubble Fox creates for its viewers
Citation
From the September 15, 2022, edition of SiriusXM’s Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang
NAYYERA HAQ (HOST): You have also spent some time analyzing this narrative that's been built up about crime. And it comes off the heels of the "defund the police" activism. Reality is, no police department has lost funding. Yet somehow, there is the sense that crime is just out of control, right? Like, actually, it's one that most cities' murder rates are down. But I guess it's petty crime, the kind that people see on the street, may be up. But what are Republicans doing with this focus on crime?
ANDREW LAWRENCE (GUEST): Well, it's, you know, I would say it's not just a focus on crime. It's a focus on crime in blue states and blue cities. That's where it always comes from. And, you know, they go after Chicago relentlessly, they go after New York, they go after Los Angeles. If you talk to any Fox News viewer, ask them about Portland, they will tell you that Portland burned to the ground.
HAQ: They literally think it doesn't exist anymore.
LAWRENCE: They don't think it exists anymore. And that's not hyperbole, like, I am telling you. And the reason why they think that is because Fox News, particularly prime time -- Tucker, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham -- tell them this every single night. They say that it was burned down by the Black Lives Matter movement and by antifa, you know. And talk to any Fox News viewer about if they want to travel to New York or Washington D.C., they'll say that it's a crime-ridden, you know, s-hole and that they can't -- that they would never go anywhere near it. And I mean, I live in D.C. It's not the case at all.
So, it's this -- but again, this is, like, it's part of this universe that they've created. And, you know, the thing about Fox News at this point, particularly in the last few years, they really are very insulated in this bubble, you know. I mean, we have statistics, on our website at Media Matters, showing that murder rates are actually much higher in red states than they are in blue states. Fox News is never going to have somebody on air to point that out, you know, because it just goes against the narrative. And that's the little bubble that they've created.
And so that's why, you know, when you see -- when you talk to a Fox News viewer about Portland, Milwaukee, all these different big cities, they will tell you that it's been burned down because they haven't heard otherwise.