Thursday's postcard, and the unheeded warnings of the Fox News "Brain Room"

March 30, 2023

Western meadowlark, shouting its spring son on a lichen-encrusted basalt outcropping near the Whitman/Adams County line yesterday morning

More evidence for why Fox News is a societal menace

I struggle to find the best analogy for what Fox News has done not just to its audience but, by extension, to the rest of us who (unlike ardent Fox News viewers) opt to live in a reality-based universe.

The best I can think of this morning is that it’s as though Kellogg’s or General Mills decided it was okay to put a new brain and liver poisoning ingredient in its breakfast cereal because loyal viewers like the taste so much that it would be bad for business to remove it. (For the record, I first wrote about this emerging phenomenon in 2010, in a lengthy piece entitled Stuck in Stupid, focusing on then-new social science research showing that when people who dine on misinformation that supports their misguided beliefs are shown the errors, a shocking percentage of them ask for a larger spoon and simply double-down on their beliefs.)

The only problem with the toxic breakfast cereal analogy is it doesn’t speak well enough to the broader harm. It poisons not just those who eat the bad cereal but the entire root-zone of civil society.

As the devastating discovery in the Dominion lawsuit has shown, Fox News knowingly broadcasting baseless conspiracy theories about the supposed theft of the 2020 presidential election that (even according to Trump’s hand-picked attorney general) Donald Trump lost fair and square. It fueled an insurrection to bring down the U.S. government, one that nearly succeeded. Fox News commentators and guests like “My Pillow” magnate Mike Lindell reiterate the central tenet of what it means to be a Republican these days, which is to at least tacitly accept Trump’s claims that the election was stolen and allow this falsehood to fester. It frames and inflames the violence in our partisanship, and all but precludes bipartisan progress to address urgent problems like climate change and gun violence, etc.

Fox News’ misbehavior (which is rife in other right-wing media as well) is not an isolated story, nor even an isolated “big” story. It’s a systemic and toxic phenomenon that affects every other issue/problem we confront.

With that, here’s the latest dramatic twist in the story, from slides that Dominion is using in its lawsuit against Fox News, slides that were redacted at Fox’s behest but which the judge in the case has now decided should not have been redacted.

As a side note, I’ll insert that although Fox News actually has a so-called “Brain Room” that is supposed to be the research and reality-vetting instrument in the Fox News editorial process. It turns out that the “Brain Room” does surprisingly good research on its own. But, as the Dominion discovery proves, it’s not the equivalent of the editorial standards divisions of non-partisan media that have the power to intervene in the editorial process to stop the airing or publishing of false information.

You can read more about yesterday’s revelations here (NBC News), and here (The Guardian).

—tjc