The episode is the culmination of a long trend at Fox, which began as an antidote to perceived liberal bias and has devolved into a cesspool of anti-immigrant hysteria, climate-change denial, cultist support for President Trump and assaults on “elites,” including legitimate news operations. The skimpy offering of legitimate news (e.g. Fox News Sunday’s interviews, “Special Report with Bret Baier”) has been subsumed to right-wing froth and faux news designed to cement a-factual dogma (e.g. “Fox & Friends,” “The Five,” Hannity, Tucker Carlson). When much of Fox programming abandoned coverage of the biggest story in decades — the possible obstruction of justice by the president — the facade of legitimate journalism crumbled.
The debasement of conservative debate and dumbing down of the Republican Party cannot be blamed entirely on Fox, talk radio and absence of adult supervision in previously upscale conservative circles, but its role in transforming the party of ideas into the party of “alternative facts” — better known as lies, rumors and crackpottery — cannot be overstated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...rid_collaborative_1_na&utm_term=.c253cd0bcd50
The debasement of conservative debate and dumbing down of the Republican Party cannot be blamed entirely on Fox, talk radio and absence of adult supervision in previously upscale conservative circles, but its role in transforming the party of ideas into the party of “alternative facts” — better known as lies, rumors and crackpottery — cannot be overstated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...rid_collaborative_1_na&utm_term=.c253cd0bcd50
