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One word that is not missing when describing the characteristics of American politics today is "political polarization." The phenomenon of liberals and conservatives, unable to find common ground at all, becoming uncomfortable with each other whenever they disagree and eventually antagonizing each other, is not new in Korean politics. But when it comes to the extent of political polarization, especially in the post-Trump era, the United States is on a different level. The most stark example of this is the nightly cable news.
The cable TV market in the United States has grown rapidly since the mid-1990s. Cable news channels also grew rapidly. For a long time, in broadcast news, the most important thing was to convey the facts, and the opinions of anchors and reporters had to be completely excluded. Cable news has broken the iron rules of over-the-air TV news. Eventually, in cable news, the opinions of the anchor begin to be more important than the facts covered by the reporter.
It is very difficult to cover the facts thoroughly. On the other hand, opinions that don't need a solid basis can be broadcast with just one well-spoken anchor. As viewers respond more to comments that cause emotional cheers or anger than to understand complex facts, cable news is increasingly filled with stories people want to hear rather than facts they need to know. "Cider" became more rampant news than "sweet potato," and a huge echo chamber was established where only like-minded people gathered. Rather than the ability to understand and easily convey different aspects of complex events, the ability to cool what viewers want to hear has become a necessary virtue for cable news anchors.
Fox sign anchor Tucker Carlson gave up being newspaper and became "No. 1 news"
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch entered the cable news market in 1996 with Fox News, and has enjoyed the greatest success in terms of viewership and revenue. Murdoch, who served as interim CEO and president of Fox News after Fox News CEO Roger Isles was fired in 2016 for allegedly committing sexual misconduct, still heads parent News Corp, which oversees his media empire.
Scratching an itch, "Cider Broadcasting" was the key to Fox's rise to prominence in the cable news market and its huge success. With a series of news criticism and discussion programs that weigh opinions more than facts, Fox has won viewer support for news that is hard to call news in the traditional sense and has become the "No. 1 news" among cable news (in viewership and revenue).
Since then, other cable news outlets have followed Fox News by carrying more and more of the anchor's arguments and criticisms, albeit with different political leanings. MSNBC's Rachel Meadows and CNN's Anderson Cooper are not just reporters known for their scoops, but anchors who deliver news based on a solid point of view. And Tucker Carlson quickly became the main anchor on the fringes of Fox News with the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
Tucker Carlson was, in fact, an unapologetic broadcaster and host who floated around several broadcasters. After moving to Fox in 2009, he continued his career as a weekend morning anchor who was rarely called a flagship broadcaster, and 2016 was literally the year of the Fortune Breaker. Thanks to Donald Trump.
In the United States, there is no obligation for the media to be neutral in elections. Newspapers often follow their own election reporting principles of separating facts from opinions, while publicly endorsing a particular candidate through editorials. Inside Cable News Fox, which initially weighed opinions more than facts, early in the 2016 Republican primary, there was a debate over which candidate to push. With a majority of viewers leaning conservatives and a lot of Republicans, Fox News was of primary interest to which Republican candidate it would push. But at the beginning of the primary, there wasn't a single anchor or broadcaster at Fox who supported Donald Trump.
At this point, Tucker Carlson raises his hand. It's hard to imagine now, but back then, not many people thought of Trump as a serious candidate. Tucker Carlson became Trump's spokesman at Fox. Throughout his career, he thought a populist like Trump could be eaten within the Republican Party, but Carlson wasn't convinced or accurately predicted Trump's surge. I was lucky. That wasn't usually luck either.
As we all know, Trump, the Republican nominee, defeated Hillary Clinton in the general election to win the presidency. For Fox, Carlson saved him from being branded an incompetent broadcaster who didn't recognize the great man who would become president of the United States early on. Rupert Murdoch gives Carlson a big prize. Carlson was the anchor of Fox News' weekday primetime 8 o'clock news. On November 11, six days after Trump was elected, "Tucker Carlson Tonight" premiered.
Far from being politically neutral
If Fox News is politically neutral, that's newsworthy. It's not just Fox, it's other cable news channels. Cable news coverage focuses on commentary rather than facts.
So there's nothing wrong with Tucker Carlson plastering his news with stories defending and glorifying Trump. Rather, that's exactly what Fox News told them to do as the main news anchor. That way, you can keep Trump supporters loyal viewers of Fox, and viewership is directly tied to ad revenue.
Carlson represented Trump early on in Fox, but he also read the psychology of Trump supporters accurately, picked out and coordinated targets they might be angry about, and pinpointed exactly what they were worried about. As far as Trump supporters were, there was no one like Carlson to make viewers cry, laugh, and listen to them with skill.
But when Carlson is so good at being Fox's signature Trump cheerleader, problems naturally arise. Carlson has gone beyond being a Fox news anchor and is starting to influence important Republican decisions more and more directly. This is partly due to the lack of strategists around Trump, who had a short political career, and his nature of improvising everything on his own. Being able to move Trump supporters was huge.
People who want to look good to Trump lined up to appear on Tucker Carlson Tonight. Calling in big politicians, Carlson speaks his mind without hesitation. Trump supporters are enthusiastic about Tucker Carlson speaking for himself. For example, during Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's appearance, Carlson was vocal about illegal immigrants and asked Governor Abbott why he wasn't mobilizing the National Guard to strengthen security at the border. The Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard rests with the Governor. A few days after the broadcast, the Texas National Guard was dispatched to the border.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made headlines last year when he returned from a plane dropping Latino immigrants at Martha's Vineyard. They sent illegal immigrants to wealthy neighborhoods in the Northeast, where most people support the Democratic Party, and sent a message that says, "You should go through the difficulties that Southern states go through." As expected, conservatives cheered, and progressives outraged, calling it typical populism and disregard for immigrants' human rights. But Governor DeSantis has publicly stated that he got all of these ideas from none other than Tucker Carlson.
Republicans went through a huge setback in the process of choosing the speaker of the House earlier this year, even after winning the House majority in last year's midterm elections. That's because far-right lawmakers took issue with Kevin McCarthy's lone candidacy for getting along too well with the "hypocritical progressive elite" that Trump supporters hate most, and they didn't vote for it until the end.
It was Tucker Carlson who publicly urged McCarthy to demand what he demanded on the air every day. If we define power as the power to get others to do what we want, regardless of their will, Tucker Carlson has reigned supreme in the Republican Party.
Floating and lying broadcasts are fine, but...
Although Trump lost the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson remains a Fox News anchor and icon. "Tucker Carlson Tonight" naturally becomes a hotbed of hatred and attacks on President Biden, the Democrats, Washington's establishment elite, and xenophobia, as well as the 2020 election fraud, the conspiracy theories surrounding the January 1 attack on the Capitol, President Biden, the Democrats, Washington's establishment elite, and xenophobia. Then, a lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News quickly finds Tucker Carlson at bay.
Dominion is a company that makes voting machines used in U.S. elections. After Trump's defeat in the 6 election, pro-Trump and far-right media outlets spread baseless conspiracy theories that there was massive irregularities in the counting and counting of votes, and that the results were fabricated because the voting machine was flawed. Tucker Carlson, of course, was one of those who added a voice to this. Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for defamation.
In the United States, where freedom of expression is highly valued, defamation lawsuits are usually difficult for plaintiffs to win, but this time, in an unusual move, the evidence adopted by the courts was so clear that many of Fox News lost. The two sides eventually agreed to $2020.7 million in damages, about KRW 8 trillion. Fox News has admitted to defaming Dominion Voting Systems by spreading fake news.
According to emails and text messages from Tucker Carlson and his associates that came to light during the lawsuit, Tucker Carlson did not believe most of the conspiracy theories. Even though we know it's an outrageous slander, the show has amplified and reproduced conspiracy theories, so it's deceiving viewers. It's typical of rhetoric and hypocrisy, but the truth is that Fox News and Murdoch don't seem to care that Carlson lied on the air. The important thing is to keep the viewers glued, and to do that, someone has to keep saying what they want to hear so they can get paid for advertising and no subscriptions.
Perhaps Carlson's accusations against Rupert Murdoch and other Fox News executives, or his accusations and insults at former President Trump, were made public during the lawsuit, which touched Rupert Murdoch's backlash. (In fact, no one knows exactly why Carlson was abruptly fired.)
Add to that the PDs, staff, and reporters who were Carlson's colleagues at Fox News who accused Carlson of being sexually insulted and molested by Carlson, and sued Carlson. Since Carlson has been making statements on the air that have been accused of sexual misconduct, not to mention his death, it's not surprising that this happened, but Fox has a good justification to fire Carlson anyway.
Whether it's political propaganda or lies, you can say anything in the news as long as the ratings are good, but you may have decided to fire them because it's unacceptable to make your whole workplace a terrible place to work. We don't know exactly why, but anyway, Tucker Carlson couldn't even say goodbye to viewers like that and was kicked out of his anchor position.
▶ Read the New York Times column: U.S. broadcaster fired No. 1 ratings anchor overnight
Coincidentally, the day after Carlson's dismissal was announced, one of CNN's anchors, Don Lemon, was also fired. CNN did not give an exact reason, but like Tucker Carlson, it did say that sexism and sexual harassment comments directed at women were a problem.
(The rest of the story is from the soup)