On WNYC's On The Media, Media Matters’ Angelo Carusone explains how Fox’s COVID-19 misinformation “changed the relationship” with the rest of news media
As a result, media outlets are “not just covering” network hosts’ texts on January 6, “but they’re giving the context”
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On WNYC radio, Media Matters’ Angelo Carusone explains how Fox’s COVID-19 misinformation “changed the relationship” with the rest of news media
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From the December 17, 2021, edition of WNYC’s On the Media
BROOKE GLADSTONE (HOST): Angelo Carusone, CEO and president of Media Matters, a left-wing nonprofit that tracks misinformation in the right-wing media, told us why this particular Fox controversy is different from so many others — and why the coverage is better, too.
ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT, MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA): Because the rest of the news media has a much clearer lens to understand the relationship between Fox News and the rest of our civic and political landscape.
GLADSTONE: Hmm, because of the Trump years, or because of the recent texts? What has provided that clarity?
CARUSONE: It is partly attributable to the Trump years, for sure. But I actually think COVID changed the relationship between the rest of the news media and Fox News. Early on, Fox was calling it a hoax. They got a little bit of blowback for that. But when they went all-in on hydroxychloroquine, and then Trump himself started championing it, I think that that was the clearest illustration of the Trump-Fox pipeline.
And so if you fast-forward to now, when you see a moment like this, you know, the information media is not just covering it, but they're giving the context — which is that, you know, not only was Fox helping build the scaffolding for the attacks on January 6, but running cover for Trump in the aftermath of it, while simultaneously, as these texts exposed, being pretty clear that they attributed it in part to him.