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This is an interesting point. However, I think it discounts something very important. Here's a quick thread. https://twitter.com/nickconfessore/status/1316030522506842112
Right-wing media, and Fox in particular, is extremely powerful and influential, especially when it comes to affecting the views of people who already subscribe to those beliefs. Fox News could make or break a Republican politician's career. Absolutely.
But Nick's point there was that it can be limiting and even harmful for a candidate to rely too much on it. If you're not someone who consumes an ungodly amount of right-wing media (I am, I do not recommend it, tbh), a bunch of the stuff Trump says probably makes little sense.
I forgot who said it first, but someone referred to it on here as the Fox News Cinematic Universe. When you have Trump going, "ALL THESE CITIES ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES AND BALLOTS RIVERS DURHAM REPORT OBAMAGATE QUID PRO QUO JOE BIDEN" the average person is probably like "wtf!?"
But it's not the alternate universe stuff that never breaks out of the Fox-iverse that's truly damaging. It's the stuff that they're able to will into the mainstream.
This happened in a big way in 2016.
This happened in a big way in 2016.
CJR published a study of how Breitbart and other right-wing outlets essentially drove the topics of discussion in 2016.
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php
Because right-wing media is such a closely connected, self-sustaining force, they can keep just about any story in the news for weeks or months at a time.
I wrote about this last year re: right-wing media's crusade against the Green New Deal. https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/lies-damn-lies-and-media-right-wing-repetition-debunked-narratives-reshapes-reality
I wrote about this last year re: right-wing media's crusade against the Green New Deal. https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/lies-damn-lies-and-media-right-wing-repetition-debunked-narratives-reshapes-reality
While most mainstream outlets covered the resolution's introduction in Congress, there wasn't a whole lot of actual *news* to come with it, to report on beyond that. https://www.mediamatters.org/cbs/nightly-news-shows-abc-cbs-and-nbc-have-virtually-ignored-green-new-deal-year
Not Fox, though. For *months* Sean Hannity and others on the network would repeat lines about banning the combustion engine and cow farts and trains built over the ocean to Hawaii and a whole bunch of other stuff that wasn't actually in it.
And it was *extremely* effective.
And it was *extremely* effective.
It's why "Green New Deal" is a boogeyman phrase on the right. It's why Trump kept bringing it up in his debate with Biden.
When Trump talks about the Green New Deal, he's not talking about the 14-page proposal; he's talking about the wild distortion that Fox has been railing on.
When Trump talks about the Green New Deal, he's not talking about the 14-page proposal; he's talking about the wild distortion that Fox has been railing on.
Repetition reshapes reality.
But back to how the Fox-iverse affects how NYT, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, WaPo, etc. covers things:
If Fox is covering something, talking about it non-stop, other outlets will feel obligated to cover it, too. It doesn't matter if it's legitimate, the coverage becomes the story
If Fox is covering something, talking about it non-stop, other outlets will feel obligated to cover it, too. It doesn't matter if it's legitimate, the coverage becomes the story
Here: watch this video @gaywonk made last year
The reason some of the Trump campaign attacks haven't hit is because they never really broke out of the Fox-iverse. Had NYT or WaPo started devoting space to investigating the claim that Biden has dementia, it would spread it, even if the articles said "this is nonsense"
In 2016, NYT and WaPo teamed up with Steve Bannon's "Government Accountability Institute" for access to anti-Clinton opposition research. The Fox-iverse was in the house. https://archive.thinkprogress.org/steve-bannon-new-york-times-washington-post-clinton-cash-d59d6492546/
This is a weird thing for a mainstream media outlet to do! https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/04/new-york-times-washington-post-fox-news-strike-deals-for-anti-clinton-research-205791
And naturally, a lot of the claims in this guy's work, about Uranium One, the Clinton Foundation, Haiti, etc., weren't exactly supported by a ton of evidence. But, you know, all the news that's fit to print, right? https://www.mediamatters.org/peter-schweizer/schweizers-anti-clinton-claims-start-falling-apart
Samantha Bee's show did a segment on him: https://www.mediamatters.org/samantha-bee/samantha-bee-explains-how-peter-schweizer-manipulates-media-amplifying-false-smears
It's not for lack of trying that the smears didn't land this time around. NYT still gave Schweizer, who fed them misinformation in 2016, a platform to try to start the ball rolling on Hunter Biden-related content. https://www.mediamatters.org/peter-schweizer/ny-times-elevates-peter-schweizer-again-and-doesnt-even-mention-his-work-breitbart
This is likely one of the reasons the voting public even recognize the name Hunter Biden. That's why it matters who these papers publish. That's an example of information that made its way into the mainstream from the Fox-iverse. I think it's mostly luck that it wasn't effective.
Here's a good piece over at CJR about that https://www.cjr.org/opinion/schweizer-times-biden-opinion.php
Right-wing media is powerful. Very powerful. But their power comes from a certain about of mainstream buy-in — something mainstream news organizations are often all-too-willing to provide as a way to prove they're not biased. (Which is itself a form of bias)
To the other point in the original tweet, about the need for a "Fox News of the left," I don't know that it's possible, and I definitely don't think it'd be a good idea. The world needs less confusion and propaganda, not more.
