On the April 9 edition of SiriusXM’s Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang, Media Matters’ Sharon Kann spoke about The Atlantic’s firing of Kevin Williamson after Media Matters uncovered a National Review podcast in which Williamson affirmed his belief that people who have abortions should be hanged. Kann told host John Fugelsang that such comments -- particularly given the podcast format in which they were discovered -- demonstrate the importance of investigating the “fragmented media space”:

JOHN FUGELSANG (HOST): You went through a lot of Fox News to find these comments.

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SHARON KANN: After that, we kind of figured too that -- I think it’s something that’s very interesting about our current media environment and something that my team has been increasingly interested in looking at across the spectrum of news outlets, not just Fox, but how access to different media platforms or the creation of this fragmented media space where people can get all their information from Facebook or from podcasts, how that’s impacted the veracity of information that’s even put out, particularly about abortion. So after we did -- looking at all of his Fox News appearances -- we found out he had had a podcast with another National Review writer Charles Cooke and decided to dig into that and do another post.

Kann further explained that the fragmented media space is creating a pipeline that helps extremists end up on mainstream outlets, including shows like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight:

FUGELSANG: What do you think is the public impact of trolls finding a voice in highly respected publications? I mean, this phenomena is not going to lessen in the years to come, is it?

KANN: I don’t think it will lessen. I think hopefully people’s consciousness will be raised about it, and there will sort of be a higher standard of attention paid, both among people who are inputting or receiving that information and when people are making hiring decisions. I think more broadly, I mean, the effect of trolls is something that we’ve been reckoning with I think on a national platform level since the election, but I think in the aftermath we’ve been continuing to think through. You know, in the context of just trolling you’ll hear a lot -- we’ve done some work that you can find on our website about how, at least in the context of anti-abortion sentiment, there are people who will go and agitate on platforms specifically dedicated to being anti-abortion and spreading misinformation who will then agitate on Twitter, agitate on Facebook, and find themselves on Tucker Carlson’s program.

FUGELSANG: Yep.

KANN: And so I think attention to the pipelines that are being operated through and attention to what type of sentiment is getting pickup and going from just communities of trolls to a wider platform will be increasingly important.