It’s not enough to describe Fox as Trump’s propaganda wing. Because it is equally accurate to say that Trump is their mouthpiece. Investigations are still underway to see how effective Vladimir Putin has been at pulling Trump’s strings. But for Sean Hannity, the back door is always open.
The New Yorker article points out something that other reporters have noticed since before Trump even moved in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; Fox has not just special access, but a role within the “team.” Sean Hannity isn’t just on the phone with Trump at night, he’s visiting with him in the West Wing, or with Trump when he travels, all at times when other reporters are being held at a distance by the Secret Service. Fox gets not just exclusive access and exclusive insight, they also have unlimited influence. They speak, Trump repeats, Trump speaks, they defend. Fox has had forty-two exclusive interviews with Trump over the last two years. The rest of the media, all together … ten. It’s no mistake that CNN has gotten exactly none, because when Trump declares that he doesn’t like CNN, or NBC, or ABC, he has a good reason. It’s not that they’re likely to ask difficult questions or say unflattering things. They are the competition to FoxTrump.
The article also opens up something that wasn’t as immediately obvious to the regular viewer of either Trump or Fox—just how much Fox did to handicap other Republican candidates and make sure that Donald Trump came out on top. Whether it was airtime, a preview of debate questions, or some shade thrown at rivals, Trump got what he needed to “surprise” the Republican Party … thanks to the entity that had, over a decade, become the absolutely only acceptable source of information within that party. With Fox completely wedded to his victory, the idea that Trump would lose the Republican contest was effectively nil. Though, considering that Sean Hannity was actually on stage with Trump during the campaign, maybe this shouldn’t have been such a surprise.
As the Washington Post reports, FoxTrump is also not happy about the New Yorker report poking a finger into their symbiosis. With the publication of Mayer’s report, Fox went on the attack. Trump followed dutifully, repeating statements by both Carlson and Hannity before declaring how “degraded” the magazine has become.
If the tweets only prove the more evidence for the connections Mayer pointed out, it doesn’t really matter. FoxTrump has obliterated the boundaries between news and opinion as certainly as they have the barriers between press and White House. Whatever Trump says is truth. Whatever Hannity says is truth. Whatever anyone on Fox says is truth. And anyone who says otherwise isn’t just fake news, but a threat to the single, unified body politic of FoxTrump.
But what the New Yorker article clearly details that should be daunting isn’t just the extent to which Fox backs Trump’s play and makes it possible for him to be as horrid as he wants to be, it’s the extent to which Trump’s play is simply their play. The amount of Trump in FoxTrump may be no more than a orange teaspoon in a sea of Murdoch. Trump sits in the chair, but words and music are provided by the other, much larger, portion of this merged organism.
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