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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one."
March 11, 2019 Issue
The Making of the Fox News White House
Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house
By Jane Mayer
Sean Hannity recently joined Trump at a rally. Greta Van Susteren, a former Fox host, calls the move an egregious mistake.
Illustration by Tyler Comrie; photograph from Getty
In January, during the longest government shutdown in Americas history, President Donald Trump rode in a motorcade through Hidalgo County, Texas, eventually stopping on a grassy bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The White House wanted to dramatize what Trump was portraying as a national emergency: the need to build a wall along the Mexican border. The presence of armored vehicles, bales of confiscated marijuana, and federal agents in flak jackets underscored the message.
But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadnt been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen huddling with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannitys seventh interview with the President, and Foxs forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as fake news.
Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Foxs chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasnt existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginias Miller Center and the author of Messengers of the Right, a history of the conservative medias impact on American politics, says of Fox, Its the closest weve come to having state TV.
Hemmer argues that Foxwhich, as the most watched cable news network, generates about $2.7 billion a year for its parent company, 21st Century Foxacts as a force multiplier for Trump, solidifying his hold over the Republican Party and intensifying his support. Fox is not just taking the temperature of the baseits raising the temperature, she says. Its a radicalization model. For both Trump and Fox, fear is a business strategyit keeps people watching. As the President has been beset by scandals, congressional hearings, and even talk of impeachment, Fox has been both his shield and his sword. The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the others lead. All day long, Trump retweets claims made on the network; his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, has largely stopped holding press conferences, but she has made some thirty appearances on such shows as Fox & Friends and Hannity. Trump, Hemmer says, has almost become a programmer..........................
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"Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one." (Original Post)
riversedge
Mar 2019
OP
world wide wally
(21,744 posts)1. Hannity is Shitler's Minister of Propaganda
Stuart G
(38,436 posts)2. k and r nt.