The Daily Beast Podcast - Brian Stelter: Watching Fox News’ Propaganda Can Make Liberals Smarter

Episode Date: June 20, 2021

Brian Stelter, CNN media reporter and author of Hoax, knows way too much about Fox News. He joins Molly Jong-Fast in this bonus episode to tell her how the network has changed since the election and Jan. 6, the battle with Newsmax for viewers and news about Fox’s Decision Desk Director that may or may not be public yet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the new abnormal. Today we have an extra special guest with Brian Stelter, who's the host of reliable sources, as well as the author of Now in Paperback, Hoaxed. One note before we get started, there's a new way for members to get notified when exclusive episodes drop or when there's a live recording of the new abnormal. Head to the Daily Beast.com slash membership slash newsletters to sign up for email alerts. Welcome back to the new abnormal Brian Stelter. Thank you.

It is abnormally wonderful to be here. Oh, well, we're so abnormally happy to have you. Please expect this wordplay for the rest of the episode. A lot has happened since you published hoax, and you and I are both like big watchers of Fox News because it really is a bellwether and what is happening in the conservative world. Talk to me about what you see that's different from the hardcover to the paperback. Well, I really did have to rewrite the entire book,

because Fox went further and further to the right in the past, really in the past six months since Biden and the riot. I opened the paperback edition with the day of the riot and Kevin McCarthy calling into Fox pleading for help because he's hoping to get through to Trump via Fox News. But, you know, really it's Fox running further to the right in response to Newsmax and One America News and the GOP's radicalization. You know, people who thought it was bad in the Trump years that the network was moving away. from the facts and minimizing news. That was true, but it's gotten a lot worse. I remember that moment in January right after the insurrection where it looked like they might not shop the big lie and then they saw that Newsmax was picking.

Newsmax and OAN were picking up the true believers. Can you talk about that? That seems like a really important moment. I think it really is. November 7th and the audience's reaction to the. Biden's victory is a really telling moment because you were right that Fox did not go all in on the big lie right away. First of all, they announced Biden was president-elect almost same time as CNN and the rest of the networks. They were 15 minutes late. But they did call Arizona.

Well, that's right. They called Arizona first, which is the first reason why the audience rebelled. They told the truth about Arizona. And at the end of the week, they told the truth about Biden becoming president. There was a segment of the audience, not the majority, but a significant minority that fled to Newsmax that day. You can actually, I went back and I pulled the numbers. You can actually see it happen in real time. You can see the audience go over to Newsmax because, look, they wouldn't, Newsmax's pitch to the viewers is very clear.

We have not accepted reality like Fox has. We will not offend you with the truth. You know, Chris Ruddy, the head of Newsmax was on the phone with Trump. He was bragging to me. The Newsmax has not called the election for Biden. So that was a way to win viewers. And it did. It worked.

It drew viewers away from Fox. And so what do Fox do? They went deeper into the voter fraud swamp. They went deeper into the voter fraud depths to try to win the viewers back. Fox fired its decision desk. I wouldn't say fired the decision desk. I would say that they did lay off a number of staffers. They did lay off people in the brain room, which is their research department.

They did let go Chris Steyerwalt, who was on the air explaining the decision desk decision. They were all these moves they made to basically, you know, I hate to say this, but like they brag about their journalism while they fire journalists. Yeah. That's what they did in the winter. But the reason I hesitate about the decision desk is here's what we don't know. And I don't know if we can break news here on your podcast, but we don't know if Arne in Michigan, who's the head of the decision desk.

We don't know if he's coming back in 2022 or 2024. He's basically always been like a consultant to Fox. You know, he once memorably said the New York Times, Ben Smith, that he didn't really report to anyone. He's just going to have a free agent to. who was there every two years to make projections. So if you look at his Twitter account today, I've just pulled it up, it does currently say he's still the consultant and the director of the Fox News Decision Desk. But my understanding is he may not know if he's coming back in the future.

And that's going to be a test. That's going to be a test for Fox. Look, maybe they're going to hear this podcast and they're going to say, Brian, you're an idiot. Of course he's coming back and then they'll confirm it. And then you'll make some news. Right. I think a lot is up in the air right now. Chris Steyerwalt being severed, that was a big moment because he was a public on-air face,

defending Fox's news coverage, defending the decision desk, and to see him get pushed out, let's just put this way, that wouldn't happen at a normal news organization. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that wouldn't happen in normal news. Talk to me about what's happened at late night at Fox, because that is also sort of an interesting, like it does seem to me that they've figured out that their viewers are dying off and they're trying to pick up younger viewers and it's not working. Well, I like to say there's a new 55-year-old born every day. There's constantly new folks that are growing up and getting older and watching more Fox. But you are right, they have a demo problem in much the same way cable news across the board is constantly trying to draw in more 25 to 54-year-olds.

Greg Gutfeld getting the 11 p.m. hour is another sign of Fox moving further to the right. That 11 p.m. hour was more of a newscast. It was a right-wing newscast, no doubt. It was a conservative newscast, but it still smelled like news, looked like news, had some news reporters on the air sometimes. And they replaced it with a comedy show, like literally a comedy show, gut felled with an exclamation point. And the excuse, not that funny. Was people need a reason to laugh in the Biden years. We need a way. And of course, they moved that newscast to midnight. But here's the thing. It worked. The ratings are really strong. Oh, really?

The show is doing well for Fox. So it once again shows what the audience wants. The audience wants to be entertained, to be reassured, to be comforted, to be not necessarily to be challenged. And they like, and they want Gunfeld to do that for them. You know, I guess it's a cup of tea that I personally can't. swallow, but it's good. What are you seeing? Like, the thing that I have been

sort of impressed with, and I've read a lot about, and I'm curious to know what your feelings are, is this that Biden is, and we saw this last week, was Vice President Harris. I think I wrote about this last week, so it's, like, very top of mind for me, and I know it's something that you have observed. It does seem like she gets criticized

for things he gets a pass for. It is absolutely true that Vice President Harris is demonized on Fox, like almost no one else. Clearly, Biden is not a great target. If we're just viewing this purely as like a political strategy session, if you are a right-wing producer of television news or television content, Biden's not an easy target. It's old white guy. It makes some mistakes and some gaffes, but not that easy to hate. Right now I'm looking at Fox and they're talking about Ilhan Omar. Obviously, much easier figure to hate if you are the the Fox base. And I think that's true for Kamala Harris as well. She's absolutely been a frequent

target. The whole narrative about why won't she hold a press conference? Why won't she go to the border? That's a narrative that's trickled into the rest of the media, but really started on Fox. And we have to watch out, I think, for those. By the way, some of those narratives might be legit. I'm not claiming everything Fox says is totally made up with nothing. But we need to observe when a when a right-wing anti-democrat narrative takes hold and passes through the rest of the media body. Right. And I mean, what I've seen so much with these, the border, is that Republicans love to go to the border, right? Like, we've seen this last year, we've seen so many border Republican senators on border trips. You'll remember Ted Cruz and the, in the, you know,

the shirt tucked into the pants with the, you know, up there. a speech. And there was, I just feel like we've seen so much of this. And it does seem like Republicans love the border, but you don't actually make policy at the border. I, I do not aware of any, uh, a lawmaking body, any, any, uh, any capital hill type place on the border. No, the, um, the entire focus on the border also feels like, uh, you know, a fox. I don't want to say it's entirely a fox. narrative, but Fox is the beating heart of the GOP and really largely sets the agenda for the GOP. So I think what we can say is we know that if Trump would want a second term, the coverage would

just be very, very different. Yeah. I'm curious to know, do you think that we're going to see Democrats holding hearings about what has happened? Like, where do you see this going now? It strikes me that Democrats are not learning any of the media lessons from Trumpism. I wonder about that. Not my job to worry about that, but I understand if you do. I wonder about it. And I end this new edition of hoax quoting a liberal voice at Fox who says, the Biden team has no idea what they are up against. Now, obviously the counter to that is Biden's approval reigns are strong. He's at least in some cases advancing an agenda through the Congress. But if you're not watching Fox and listening to the radicalized nature of the network, I think you're missing what's happening in American politics. Even though Biden's not an easy to, target. The way they talk about him, the way they talk about Democrats were at large is dripping

with hate in a way that that's not true 10 years ago. It was not true on Fox the way it is today. You can do a lot to object to about Fox in the past, but it's different now. It is radicalized. And I wonder if Democrats who like to tune out the network or only watch the network via Twitter clips actually understand it. Yeah. I do think it does seem to me, and I'm curious to know if you agree with this, it seems important for Democrats to watch Fox more than ever, and not to help their ratings, but really to see what the Republican messaging is up to. Well, it's what I say about a balanced media diet. A balanced media diet has to include a lefty and right-wing content and all the rest. And hopefully a lot of just real straightforward down the middle news. But to observe Fox as a political operation, to observe its propaganda, does make you, I think, a smarter news consumer, a more savvy media consumer. Do you see any good news coming down the pike?

Good news. About what? About anything. Just give me something not to be depressed. But it seems like Tucker's really ratcheting up the red-agric, and that's always something we can be saying. Have you seen anything in that front lately? Well, that is where, when I say radicalization, Tucker's really what and who I am talking about.

And I believe he really means it. You know, I talked to sources for the paperback of hoax. you know, to interrogate this question, how much is it real? How much is it a performance? I believe it's, it's, there's a lot that's real there about his belief that the countries at this crisis and that they were in this war and that, you know, it's life or death, all that shit that we hear all the time on the air. A lot of these stars really do buy it.

They really do believe it. Bill O'Reilly used to say, who's looking out for you? And now Tucker is the heir apparent to Bill O'Reilly. the biggest star on Fox by far. But Tucker doesn't say who's looking out for you. Tucker says no one's looking out for you. Tucker's message is deeply pessimistic, dark, debilitating. He says, he says, you're on your own, the elites hate you, they've forgotten about you, they're against you.

It's a conspiratorial view of the country that I don't recognize, but clearly some of his viewers do. And the only optimistic take I can give is that most people see through it. Most people solve through Trump's lies. Most people don't live in that horrifically dark and pessimistic country that is portrayed in Fox prime time. But some do. And I wish I could get to know those folks better and show them things aren't quite as bad as they might think. Trump and Bill O'Reilly are going to go on a grievance tour. Yeah, they are.

Can we talk about that? Can we go? It's going to be in like Paxitani, right? It'll be in like deep red. And it's going to be portrayed as like a history thing. O'Reilly used to go out on tour of Bill Maher. Not Bill Maher. Oh my gosh.

Can you imagine? I was like, man, I missed that. That would be fascinating. No, no, no. Sorry, I was talking about Dennis Miller. Dennis Miller. And they did these stage shows. You know, these things make a good, these things make a good amount of money for these stars.

So Trump's going to do it with O'Reilly this time. And it's going to be about, you know, Trump's. successes and O'Reilly will probably do a couple of those gentle O'Reilly questions that make it sound like he's tough, being tough on Trump when he's not. But it is remarkable that there's, you know, that that's, you know, if we're viewing Trump as a possible 2024 contender, who he stands next to, who he aligns with is quite revealing. Yeah, I mean, he really has found the one person who's more alleged sexual harassment complaints. Thank you for getting that word in. I'll tell you something. I'll tell you something. I'll tell him about, I'll tell him about Riley. I don't know if everybody knows this. His latest book, number one on the New York. York Times list. Yeah. The reason why that struck me as interesting is, he doesn't really do any national media anymore to promote these books. It used to be when he launched a book, he would go on the Today Show or GMA.

Well, he stopped doing that after the sexual harassment allegations came out because he didn't want to talk about them or because the shows didn't want to book him. I don't know a while. But anyway, the fact that he can still hit number one, it just speaks to the fact that some of these guys who they're not on your TV screen anymore, they might seem like they faded away to obscurity. they still do have significant fan bases. Yeah, I'll say.

So you're saying Matt Gates has a future in writing history books. I am, well, look, Newsmax came out there and interestingly said, no, we wouldn't hire Matt Gates. I was surprised they closed the door so tightly. That's what I would say. Do you have any thoughts on that? Because that seems very out of character for Newsmax. A couple things have happened. One is that the ratings have come back down.

So they had a moment where they were remarkably strong. There was a day, it must have been in November at CNN, and we get these overnight ratings reports. You know, the next day we get the numbers, and there's a spreadsheet. It's Fox, CNN, MSNBC, a few other channels. And one day they added Newsmax. And I felt like that was a moment where, you know, okay, something's changed.

Fox does not have a monopoly on a right-wing TV anymore. There are competitors out there to Fox. Newsmax is one of them. And so, and you can feel it. You can feel it happen. So the ratings have come back down. They've added a lot of shows to their schedule. they don't actually have an open time slot right now. I mean, obviously they could always make a move, but they've kind of set themselves up for the Biden years. They would tell you that they are, you know, in their position now. And maybe that has something to do with it.

It is just totally fascinating. What are you like watching right now in right wing media? Greg Kelly's Twitter feed. Who among us is not watching Greg Kelly? No, what I do is I wait. My kids wake me up by 6 a.m. So I watched the first 15 minutes of Fox and Friends. And that gives me a very good sense of what's going to come down that day, what the Fox priorities are, what the GOP priorities are. That is really an agenda setting, you know, feature on the Fox Airwaves. And, you know, it used to be that the newscaster in the day were a bit different than Fox and Friends. But now it's all so similar. The narrative is so clear all day that you can actually get a good sense of it from 15 minutes of Fox and Friends.

That is fascinating and also terrifying. And also now I'm going to watch the first 15 minutes of Fox and France. You will appreciate the television production quality. You might get really intrigued by the relationship between the hosts. Brian Kilmeet is a live wire. He gets really feisty. Steve Doocy, you know, as he, I don't know this is showing his age, but he's really become the, so he's on laugh.

He's become the voice of reason. he is the much more level-headed, like can't, you know, cool. And then Ainsley Earhart, of course. Ainsley, can't we all just get a long Earhart? Who, you know, why are things so ugly? Why is there so much polarization? Why are people so intolerant? She asks from the Fox News.

I feel like this is an opinion piece waiting to happen. I feel like your hair's going to get blonder naturally by watching this, Molly. Yeah. One might even say white. Thank you so much, Brian Stelter. Please come back. And the book is hoax, and it's in paperback. We're very happy to have you.

Thank you. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the New Abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh,

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