Fox News 'not in the business of informing their viewers': Media Matters senior fellow

Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz added significant credence to critiques of Fox News that the network exists to indulge its audience's confirmation biases and personal beliefs rather than inform.

Gertz shared his frank assessment with The Bulwark Editor-in-Chief Charlie Sykes on Wednesday's edition of the conservative publication's podcast during a discussion regarding Fox hosts' roles in peddling former President Donald Trump's bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

"I wanted to just drill down a little bit on this. Why is this happening? And I have several different layers to this question. Why is Fox News doing this? Now when they are faced with a billion-dollar-plus lawsuit for their lies about the election. The week after we had this incredible embarrassment of riches from the document dumped showing the text messages and the emails, the hypocrisy, the duplicity, the dishonesty. Why is Tucker Carlson doubling down on this? And why has Fox News letting him?" Sykes wondered.

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"So I think that these two things are not really inconsistent. If you look at these text messages, what they reveal is that people like Tucker Carlson are willing to spread things that they personally believe are untrue," Gertz replied.

"Yeah," Sykes added.

"Because they know that that is what their viewers want to hear. What I think is the key text message from all of these dumps is Tucker Carlson, telling Laura Ingraham, that he personally found the lies from Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani unbelievably offensive. But, quote, 'our viewers are good people and they believe it.' I think that is the key that unlocks Tucker Carlson's show and a lot of the rest of Fox News," Gaetz explained.

"They are not in the business of informing their viewers. They are not in the business of teaching their viewers. They are in the business of telling their viewers what they believe is correct," Gertz stressed. "And what Tucker Carlson's viewers believe is correct in part because they're inclined to believe this in the first place, in part because Tucker keeps telling them that, is that the January 6th attempted coup and insurrection was no big deal and that if anything, it is an attempt to attack them personally. And so that is what he is serving up to them."

Listen below via Media Matters for America or at this link.

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