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I grew up watching television news delivered by professional men in jackets and ties who spoke soberly in measured tones and rarely, if ever, let on what they thought or felt. (That’ll tell you how old I am.)
Tucker Carlson was not like that. Whatever you thought of him – a truth-telling messiah or a lie-spouting devil – Carlson, who got fired this week by his employer, Fox News, had a so-called news show in which he turned the objective, aloof newsman model not just on its head. He threw it out the window.
And that, writes communications scholar Jacob L. Nelson, is how Fox’s star broadcasters, including and especially Carlson, found enormous success. They embraced “an authenticity-as-a-form-of-populism approach,” Nelson writes. “They presented themselves as more ‘real’ than the ‘out-of-touch elites’ at other news organizations.”
That populist authenticity may not have delivered actual, factual news, but it sure delivered ratings and revenue. Nelson notes that in the end, Fox – including Carlson – became trapped by what its audience wanted, which was lies about the 2020 election. That just cost the network a $787.5 million settlement in a defamation case – a case that led, quite possibly, to revelations that cost Carlson his job.
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Naomi Schalit
Democracy Editor
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Fox News Host Tucker Carlson speaks during the 2022 Fox Nation Patriot Awards on Nov. 17, 2022, in Hollywood, Fla.
Jason Koerner/Getty Images
Jacob L. Nelson, University of Utah
Tucker Carlson and his employer, Fox News, had an incredible understanding of what their audience wants: a kind of authenticity that is not genuine but instead manipulative.
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‘Our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years,’ an old Thomas Jefferson, right, wrote to an even older John Adams, left.
Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Maurizio Valsania, Università di Torino
Americans have long nurtured mixed feelings about age and aged leaders. Yet during the country’s founding, a young America admired venerable old sages.
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U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, speaks during an event at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
KC McGinnis/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Steffen W. Schmidt, Iowa State University
Democrats may have pushed Iowa out of the early-state presidential nominating lineup, but Republicans are sticking with Iowa first.
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Sung-Yoon Lee, Tufts University
The ‘Washington Declaration’ unveiled during the state visit by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol gives Seoul a greater role in coordinating a nuclear response strategy.
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Nareg Seferian, Virginia Tech
Recent studies on mass violence have turned the spotlight on the resilience of targeted individuals and communities.
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Caroline Light, Harvard University
Laws shielding from prosecution those who kill and maim citing self-defense have spread across the states and may be fueling a ‘shoot now, think later’ mindset among homeowners.
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Marc Arsell Robinson, California State University, San Bernardino
Washington isn’t a state that typically comes to mind in discussions about student-led protests from the Civil Rights Movement. A Black history professor seeks to change that with a new book.
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Rashad Shabazz, Arizona State University
Shielding police from accountability can only lead to more brutality, misconduct – and multimillion-dollar settlements.
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Arianne Chernock, Boston University
No US president has ever attended a British royal coronation – but history shows that they signal intent by whom they choose to go in their stead.
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Naomi Cahn, University of Virginia; Sonia Suter, George Washington University
Many people wonder how courts can rule in contradictory ways. But it happens relatively frequently.
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Renee Ragin Randall, University of Michigan
The short stories of modern Iraqi writers Hassan Blasim and Diaa Jubaili show that the 2003 invasion and subsequent war in Iraq are not at the heart of contemporary Iraqi literature.
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Michael J. Socolow, University of Maine
Scholars, preservationists, archivists, museum educators and curators, fans and the public are meeting in late April in the nation’s capital to figure out how to preserve broadcasting’s history.
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Ahmet T. Kuru, San Diego State University
There’s a lot at stake in the May 14 presidential election. Will Turkey continue to be ruled by a populist Islamist government or return to a path of secular democratization?
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