A former Fox News political editor reveals how news organizations have succumbed to the temptation of “rage revenue” through slanted coverage that drives political division and rewards outrageous conduct.
Rage
revenue-addicted news companies are plagued by shoddy reporting,
sensationalism, groupthink, and brain-dead partisan tribalism. Newsrooms rely
on emotion-driven blabber to entrance conflict-addled super users.
In Broken
News, Chris Stirewalt, celebrated as one of America’s sharpest political
analysts in print and on television, employs his trademark wit and insight to
give readers an inside look at these problems. He explains that these companies
don’t reward bad journalism because they like it, but because it is easy and
profitable.
Take it
from Stirewalt: As a top editor and election forecaster on Fox News’ decision
desk during the 2020 election, he knows firsthand what happens when viewers
(including the president of the United States) become more accustomed to
flattery and less willing to hear news that punctures their bubbles.
Broken News
is a fascinating, deeply researched, conversation-provoking study of how the
news is made and how it must be repaired, with surprising takeaways about who’s
to blame. Stirewalt goes deep inside the history of the industry to explain how
today’s media divides America for profit. And he offers practical advice for
how everyday readers, listeners and viewers can (and should) become better news
consumers for the sake of the republic.
This is a
book for those who care about our country—and want the news to do the news
again.
Broken News review: Ex-Fox News editor has broadsides for both sides
Chris Stirewalt helped call Arizona early and right,
enraging Donald Trump. He has harsh words for the US media in general
Stirewalt’s book is both a critique of the media and a
rebuke of his former employer and Trump. He spares no one
Lloyd Green
Sun 28 Aug
2022 02.00 EDT
Late on 3
November 2020, Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden. In that moment, Rupert
Murdoch’s US flagship upended Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Chris Stirewalt,
a decade-long Fox News editor, was part of the team that put the state in the
Democrat’s column. One insurrection and two months later, he was told to leave
the network.
Fox called
it a layoff amid a broader “restructuring” across the channel. Others,
including Stirewalt, shared a different view: he and more than a dozen others
had been sacrificed to mollify Trump, Republicans and Fox’s fanbase.
“I got canned
after very vocal and very online viewers – including the then-president of the
United States – became furious,” Stirewalt writes.
According
to Stirewalt, viewer anger had bled on to Fox’s bottom line: “The high ratings
born of a presidential coup attempt in the midst of a global pandemic were
never going to be sustainable, but the decline was sharper than industry
experts expected.”
The suits
in the Fox C-Suite and elected Republicans demanded scalps. But Stirewalt would
have the last word.
This past
June, he appeared before the January 6 committee. Under oath, he testified that
Biden won and Trump lost. He also accused the ex-president and his minions of
seeking to “exploit” a systemic “anomaly”.
Specifically,
during the 2020 election, in states like Arizona where same-day votes were
counted before mail-in ballots, Republicans appeared to lead early on election
night.
Generally,
Democrats tended to vote by mail or before election day while Republicans
appeared at the polls on election day itself. On the night, as the hours pass,
an apparent Republican advantage may evaporate, leaving little but a red mirage
– and enraged viewers.
Stirewalt’s
book is both a critique of the media and a rebuke of his former employer and
Trump. He spares no one. The Washington Post, the New York Times, MSNBC and Joe
Scarborough all fare poorly too.
In response
to the book, a Fox spokesperson issued a statement saying: “Chris Stirewalt’s
endless attempts at regaining relevance know no bounds.”
Stirewalt’s book is both a critique of the media and a
rebuke of his former employer and Trump. He spares no one
Substantively,
Stirewalt contends that much of the news business is about the pursuit of
ratings. In part, the media inflames passions to monetize all that passes
through its domain. No story is insignificant if it can double as clickbait.
Stirewalt
says Fox News failed to prepare Trump followers for the possibility that he
would lose to Biden, a failure far beyond negligence. Fox News, he writes,
stoked “black-helicopter-level paranoia and hatred”, in order to entice viewers
to buy a $65 “Patriot” streaming service. These days, Fox is facing rather
higher costs, battling defamation lawsuits arising from repeatedly airing
Trump’s “big lie”.
As for the
Times, Stirewalt attacks the paper of record for using its 1619 Project, which
casts American history in light of racism and slavery, as a vehicle to “upsell
super-users from subscriptions to $35 books”. He also characterizes the 1619
Project as a “frontal assault on the idea of America’s founding as a new birth
of freedom that it very plainly, if imperfectly was”.
Stirewalt’s
devotion to journalism spills on to the page. He places a premium on individual
freedom and the classic liberal tradition. He is sympathetic to the
intellectual underpinnings of liberalism and conservatism but casts a wary eye
toward progressivism and nationalism. He takes both to task for fetishizing the
collective will and distorting history.
“Progressivism
seeks to ameliorate the problems of humankind,” he writes “… but not
necessarily within the framework of the American system or the humanistic
concept of human rights.”
By
contrast, “nationalists believe that the appropriate aim of the federal
government should always be the improvement of life for the greatest number of
Americans, even when that comes at a cost to individual rights greater than a
strict reading of the constitution would allow”.
Steve
Bannon, Sohrab Amari and JD Vance might disagree. Or not.
Stirewalt
also tackles the issue of the media and politicians being cowed by their bases.
As Stirewalt sees it, the threat of the mob – real and virtual – leads people
to avert their gaze from our national train wreck.
He knocks
“liberals who believe in free speech” but “look at their shoes when people are
shouted down or fired for their beliefs”. Likewise, he takes to task those
“seemingly normal members of Congress” who went “along with Trump’s efforts to
steal a second term”.
Not
surprisingly, Stirewalt has little patience for performative politicians. He
lumps together Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and pairs Marjorie Taylor
Greene with Rashida Tlaib. He suggests such figures excel at triggering
partisan outrage but lack Trump’s entertainment chops.
“They’re
Showtime after 10pm,” Stirewalt cracks. “Trump was hardcore.”
Stirewalt
is unsparing in his takedown of Cruz. Broken News recalls the Texas senator’s
groveling for Tucker Carlson, for referring to the January 6 insurrection as a
“violent terrorist attack on the Capitol”. Cruz was a “quavery mass of regret
and humiliation” on Carlson’s show, Stirewalt writes.
Turning to
Carlson, Stirewalt lets us know the Swanson frozen-food heir is loaded, yet at
the same time rails against the “big, legacy media outlets”. There is a lot of
cognitive dissonance in prime time. For good measure, Stirewalt reminds the
reader that Carlson’s employer is a “multinational corporation led by an
Australian billionaire who owns arguably the single most powerful news outlet
in America”.
Stirewalt
offers no easy way out. He “urges us to question our own assumptions when
consuming news” but does not assure us that doing so will actually lower the
volume and temperature. He hopes we can see the other side of the political
divide, but sounds uncertain. He provides plenty of food for thought.
Broken
News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back is
published in the US by Hachette
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