Googling shows that apparently he looks like Colonel Sanders now:
I mean honestly, is it intentional?
What concert is that?
You know… I don’t know! It was the first gif that came up when I typed in NPR…
I’m loving the Stalin-esque dynamics at Fox, now. You tell the truth about the election? You get fired. You lie the way you’re supposed to? You also get fired. Everyone’s going to be paranoid and second-guessing themselves to hilarious effect, I’d imagine.
You almost made me feel sorry for…nah, still chuckling.
Personally, the reason was very clear.
Tucker Carlson had to go because he managed to convince the rest to suppress facts just so he can keep up his ratings. He had basically promoted himself to be the head of fox news since nobody would say no to him. He outright called for the head (figuratively) of those who dare contradict him with facts. TC basically turned entire Fox News into a MAGA propaganda machine just so he can keep his ratings.
It’s no longer Fox News. It’s Fox MAGA Propaganda.
There’s nothing wrong having a more “conservative” bent to the news, and Fox had done that in the past years. However, when Trump and MAGA arrived, the “truth is malleable” opinion seems to have taken hold at Fox News, esp. when Trump started calling anything he didn’t agree with “alternative news”. Its as if Fox News suddenly found itself being “the MAGA-blessed news” (i.e. mainstream) and it’s suddenly desperate to hold onto it, much like Trump wanted to hold onto the presidency by Jan 6th insurrection, that their base morals are compromised.
This is a case of the tail wagging the dog, and that tail is Tucker Carlson.
And that tail is now a liability, a cancer, that must be excised.
The question is, how deep this goes.
“Faux News was not a problem until Trump” seems like a pretty odd take on the situation
47Soul:
Found it by entering the same search on the Giphy site, where it has a little more information
They’ve been flat-out lying on that network for decades. Remember the “Death Panels” nonsense during the Obama administration? The lies and distortions used to justify George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq? The breathless coverage of supposedly widespread but almost nonexistent third-trimester elective abortions during the Clinton years?
Make no mistake, Uncle Rupie always has someone lined up as a scapegoat. Always. Not that Carson doesn’t deserve that role, but be assured it’s SOP at all Murdoch entities.
There’s nothing wrong with having a conservative “bent” to the news. It’s when they start denying reality that Fox News really became a problem.
I’m not going to go into the history of the death panel origin, we can all check Wikipedia for that. My point is news back then did NOT deny reality. It was an op-ed that started it, and it was always an op-ed, and AFAIK, no news, not even Fox News, agreed with the op-ed. They simply reported it. Several Fox analysts did refute it.
There is no denying that Fox News suppressed anything during the election that would make MAGA looked bad during Trump-et years. That’s QUITE DIFFERENT from minimizing its importance or playing preferences, IMHO, much like that Harris chick lamenting departure of TC while almost cheering dismissal of Don Lemon from CNN. I think there’s a difference between minimizing the news, and suppressing the news. Maybe it’s a blurry line, maybe it’s only in my head, but IMHO, Fox crossed that line.
Rockefeller Republicanism was years dead in the party when Ailes and Murdoch started Faux News. “Conservativism” after Reagan and Thatcher were elected regularly involves denying various aspects of reality, which is at odds with the concept of good-faith journalism. The line was crossed long before 2015, and it was a willful decision on the part of the founders of Fox News.
Fox has the ethics of fentanyl dealers too: “So what if it’s killing them, they’re paying fucking billions for it!”
More and more it feels like the run up to the Iraq war, where the most transparent lies were passed off as established fact and anyone who dared question them as anti-American, is something we’re all just supposed to pretend never happened.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias” was a joke from that time. Because of course there’s something wrong with having a conservative bend to the news – conservatives make things up. How many more decades do we need to keep having basic science and history and human existence turned into culture war nonsense because the right doesn’t like the facts?
Conservatism ideally wouldn’t be entirely “anti-growth” like that’s some kind of moral pole to orient society around. An anti-growth society won’t live long as there’s no way to support a society on the principle of not having one in the future. At a certain point denying all information or knowledge that seems “new” stops being very viable. Hell, ideally conservative wouldn’t be a party alignment either.
“where the most transparent lies were passed off as established fact and anyone who dared question them as anti-American”
I distinctly remember a Jewish relative at the time telling me I should get out of the country because I’m a traitor for saying I didn’t believe the WMD claims. They’re still republican. Whose a traitor now asshole?
There are well-respected news outlets with conservative bents (like the Wall St Journal, or The Economist for international news), but (1) they aren’t in broadcast media (where most people get their information, (2) they are clearly elitist so they get viewed with the same populist contempt more mainstream print media, and (3) they don’t try to mold their stories reflect their audiences’ feelings and prejudices.
IIRC, a long time ago, Carlson lamented the fact that there is no “conservative” alternative to the NY Times. He was wrong then too, but at least he verbalized the essential issue: that ideologies need facts to thrive, and that when the facts aren’t there, ideologies either evolve or create their own reality. When conservative information outlets like Fox (and OANN/NewsMax) can’t find ways to match factual reality to their ideology, so they go the full fascist route, creating an alternative (and ugly) universe where their audience will live.