U.S. Media Sociologist Blasts Scribes For Not Criticizing Fox News

US media sociologist Jeremy Littau has blasted American news networks and journalists, in general, for giving a free pass to the lies and disinformation peddled by Fox News, a network that can hardly be described as abiding by the principles of standard journalism.

Photo Insert: A Fox News sponsored town hall with then US President Donald Trump

In a recent interview with John Stoehr for Raw News, Littau explained that since Fox News has degenerated into a personal propaganda network of defeated US President Donald Trump, there is no sense in treating it with kid gloves and institutionalizing it as representing “the other side” while the cardinal principle of the profession is the dissemination of truth.

“The press has a habit of treating political coverage and politics as separate categories. There are exceptions, but daily political coverage is churned out by news outlets as if the media environment itself isn't a factor. I think a lot about what Walter Lippmann wrote in Public Opinion almost 100 years ago, that one of the most powerful functions media have is creating narratives out of facts. Politics doesn't happen in a vacuum, but rather it is shaped by media narratives,” he argued.

“What's happening now with Fox is at the nexus of two longer-term trends: the rise of conservative media over the past 30 years and the fracturing of the media landscape. The narrative power pre-1990 was for a general audience. Conservative media is only trying to reach a loyal fraction of that audience. Its rise has coincided with technology change that allows people to self-isolate in their media use.”

“Those powerful narratives are not just shaping a large portion of the electorate anymore. This is Lippmann's idea on steroids. They have become the way that a portion of the electorate sees reality. So when Fox personalities behind the scenes are saying the 1/6 insurrection was a horrible event but going on the air downplaying it, they've been caught misusing that power. That is a damning thing for their claim to be doing news, and it's dangerous for our democracy,” Littau added. Accuracy has been trashed by Fox News.

“The modern convention that a journalist is there to report the facts, not be chummy with sources and not be the story, gets exposed in moments like this. But objectivity really denies humanity. Journalists depend on sources for access and safety.

“What might help: sustained storytelling about what Fox is, what role it plays. It should be embedded in stories about everyday political fights. It's hard to really understand anything in politics without assessing the role of conservative media. You have to expose audiences to the sources and vectors of bad information. It's not enough to fact-check,” Littau concluded.

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