"What I Learned From Three Weeks Watching Fox News Nonstop"

[Witchit]

Whoever did this deserves an award. I can't even imagine.

For the past three weeks, against my better judgment, I have been watching Fox News non-stop. I have come away from the experience with a persistent headache, an irrational fondness for The Five, and a keen sense of the many ways in which we all are screwed. Though you might not watch Fox News on a regular basis, lots and lots of people do, including President Donald Trump. The results illuminate the wisdom of the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.”

The network isn’t all garbage, of course. Shepard Smith is a quality anchor. Neil Cavuto and Bret Baier are basically fine. Geraldo sometimes speaks truth to stupid. Fox’s breaking-news work is competent and its panel discussions are occasionally enlightening. These periodic spurts of adequacy are what makes Fox News so very frustrating. They prove that Fox could be a reasonable platform for conservative news and commentary if it wanted to be. Instead, the network has chosen to travel a much more stupid path. The network flatters its viewers’ sense of moral superiority while validating all of their latent resentments, cultivating in them a constant state of righteous rage that can be easily exploited by wealthy demagogues.

For a television network that has “news” in its name, Fox News is oddly stagnant. The same guests and contributors recur across multiple programs, clearly valued less for their insights than their availability. The same topics are discussed ad nauseam, show after show after show. The same catchphrases are uttered, the same straw men erected and dismembered. It’s as if the network’s agenda is set each morning by picking topics from a hat that includes exactly three slips of paper, all of which say “CROOKED HILLARY.” It’s exhausting.

What I Learned From Three Weeks Watching Fox News Nonstop

 

[S.J.]

Deserves an award for what, demagoguery?