Taxpayer-funded PBS and NPR loathe Fox News like all leftists do, and both promoted ex-CNN host Brian Stelter's second Fox-bashing book Network of Lies. On Thursday, PBS NewsHour anchor Amna Nawaz ran Stelter through his usual talking points about Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, but concluded with the Big Picture, as reporters panic about how their coverage of Donald Trump won't prevent his re-election:
PBS promotes Brian Stelter's last anti-Trump/anti-Fox News book: "I think your segment earlier this week about autocratic behavior, about the language Trump is using is really important. We need to see that all across the American media, including in the right-wing media." pic.twitter.com/nOtPNi6uwE
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) November 19, 2023
AMNA NAWAZ: When you step back and look at how we today, journalists today are covering this election, do you feel like we have learned lessons from the past?
BRIAN STELTER: Well, I think your segment earlier this week about autocratic behavior, about the language Trump is using is really important. We need to see that all across the American media, including in the right-wing media.
And that's where I doubt we're actually going to see the honest conversations that need to be had about the impact of Trump's rhetoric and his promises about a second term. But let's take the non-FOX media for a moment. Yes, we need fact-checking. We need more of that. But we also need history-checking. We need reality-checking.
This is bigger than just facts at this point. This is about two different realities that are colliding, one that is much more tied to truth and the reality, and then this other story that Trump is selling about revenge, about grievance, about retribution.
Stelter thinks there's someone out there who hasn't heard their incessant Trump warnings: "I would like to see the coverage amped up quite a bit on that front in order to help people who are not news junkies. I feel like I know what's going on, but most people are tuned out right now about the 2024 election. It's time to tune in."
On Tuesday's Fresh Air talk show on NPR, Stelter blabbed for more than a half-hour on the same points. Host Terry Gross mocked Tucker Carlson's exit: "Well, if Lachlan is focused on advertising, I mean, Tucker Carlson's extremism cost the network a lot of money. A lot of the sponsors pulled out. They had to rely on My Pillow (laughter) for - as a primary sponsor."
As opposed to NPR, where we are the involuntary sponsors. It continued:
GROSS: you just talked about how Tucker Carlson moved to Maine and Florida after an attempt to invade his home. And a lot of the things he said on the air led to attacks on other people, people who he considered villains. Their lives were at stake. Their families' lives were threatened. But when it happened to him, he got out of town.
STELTER: That's right, he had the resources to up and leave. I do think the protest at his home [in D.C.] that night was a big deal. I also think he did exaggerate some elements of it. The police report does not match up with his version of events, but it did rattle him to have protesters at his door.
And look, I get it. It's one thing for Tucker to send me a dozen donuts as a prank, as as he did one day. It's another thing when a right-wing activist shows up in your basement, as happened to me in New York City one day -- shows up in your basement with a camera and a microphone, pestering you with questions about some crazy conspiracy theory.
It's funny sometimes that NPR people ask what Fox News shows are like, as if they have never seen it for a minute in their lives:
GROSS: So Jesse Watters replaced Tucker Carlson on the air. What is his show like? How does it compare to Tucker's show?
STELTER: I would say Watters is more of a mainline Republican. He's not a part of the so-called new right the way that Carlson is. He's not as isolationist, for example, when it comes to U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine. So in some ways, Watters is a little bit more of a - I hate to use the word mainstream because I think it's not an appropriate word for the Republican Party in 2023, but he is somewhat more mainstream than Carlson was. That said, Watters has never met a conspiracy theory that he didn't like. He routinely assails Democrats as the enemy. He barely even refers to Biden by his last name. Of course, he prefers Joe - right? - as an insult. So you have that kind of -- what I think is a very extremist posture that's now just baked in and assumed to be the norm all across Fox.
How is it "very extremist" to mock Joe Biden and "routinely assail Democrats as the enemy"? If that's true, then aren't all the leftist networks "very extremist" mocking Trump and routinely assailing Republicans as very dangerous?
