Steve Sack, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, MN
Our Quote of the Day comes from Washington Post Media Critic Eric Wemple, writing about the furor over Fox News’ Tucker Carlson’s comments about immigrants and immigration that sparked a furor on social media and has caused a chunk of advertisers to flee his show.
In October, Tucker Carlson boasted about how he could say anything he wants to say on his prime-time Fox News program: “I have complete editorial freedom and the support of the company. So, like, when I’ve been criticized, they’ve been like, ‘We support him.’ I can’t think of a clearer sign of support than that,” said Carlson in a National Review podcast hosted by Jamie Weinstein.
Prescient remarks: On Dec. 13, Carlson said on his program that immigration makes the United States “dirtier,” not to mention more poor and more divided. The next day, Pacific Life announced it would reevaluate its advertisements on the program, and at least 15 other companies — including TD Ameritrade, job site Indeed, Voya Financial and Jaguar Land Rover — have taken similar actions.
Fox News’s response? We support him.
And then, after some reporting and analysis he nails it and gives us our Quote of the Day:
What’s clear from the public record, however, is that Fox News has abdicated a central function of any bona fide news organization, that of supervising one of its opinion hosts. Or any of its opinion hosts, including conspiracist in chief Sean Hannity, who once said, “Nobody tells me what to say on my show. They never have and frankly they never will. I’m not that type of person you can say, ‘Go on air and say this.’ That’s been the beauty of Fox News all these years. They leave me alone.”
As advertisers bolt from Carlson’s show, there’s a debate out there regarding whether these campaigns are good things or bad things. Let the opinions flow, though we’d like to add one point: When the record is as long as it is for someone like Carlson, these campaigns, good or bad, are inevitable. As Carlson and Hannity attest, laissez-faire editorial policies have their charms — as well as their perils: If ownership won’t police the hateful content, someone else will.
Indeed, it has now come down to “the marketplace,” which may or may not involve boycotts fanned by social media. If you look at media models decades ago, there were far more “gatekeepers” in broadcasting and on newspapers (which have now been greatly downsized). The advent of political entertainment talk radio, political weblogs which in some cases (such as The Moderate Voice) give codes to writers who are trusted to put up their own posts, and wild-west-style social media have reduced the number gatekeepers. Who in the “olden days” also in effect served as corporate standards and branding protectors.
This is Fox’s business model (after all, Roger Ailes basically merged political entertainment talk radio with news to create Fox News). And while it can control what it allows to go out under it’s name, it can’t control the reactions of some who not just disagree with a given opinion host but who feel the opinion hosts have cross the line when it comes to norms involving hate speech.
But are there solid norms anymore? If not, then the sight of advertisers yanking their ads off an opinion host’s show is partsimply of the new game. Fox has chosen to define in branding itself a specific way to appeal to the audience and demographic it seeks to whip up, grow and deliver to advertisers. Clearly, some of the advertisers don’t want Fox’s branding to shape their branding.
Sometimes gatekeepers are not a bad idea.
For more reaction to this Washington Post piece GO HERE
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.