Fact Checker Tucker Carlson

Fact Checker Tucker Carlson: Separating Truth from Spin in Primetime

Introduction:

Tucker Carlson, the former host of Fox News' primetime show, was known for his distinctive commentary style and often controversial statements. This has led to a surge in interest surrounding fact-checking his claims. This comprehensive guide delves into the methods used to verify Carlson's statements, examines notable examples of his assertions and their accuracy, and explores the broader implications of fact-checking prominent media personalities. We'll dissect the complexities of verifying information in a rapidly changing news landscape and help you become a more informed and discerning consumer of news.


1. The Challenges of Fact-Checking Tucker Carlson:

Fact-checking Carlson presents unique challenges. His show often employed a rhetorical style characterized by innuendo, implication, and carefully selected soundbites, making direct verification difficult. He frequently presented opinions as facts, blurring the lines between commentary and reporting. Furthermore, his statements were often framed within a broader narrative designed to evoke specific emotional responses, rather than presenting objective truths. This necessitates a multi-faceted approach to fact-checking, going beyond simply verifying individual claims to analyzing the overall context and intent.

2. Methodology: A Multi-Layered Approach:

Effectively fact-checking Carlson requires a rigorous, multi-layered approach:

Source Verification: Tracing the origins of claims back to their original sources is paramount. This often involves examining primary documents, official reports, and credible news outlets. It's crucial to identify whether Carlson accurately represents these sources or selectively edits them to fit his narrative.

Contextual Analysis: Understanding the context in which a statement is made is crucial. A statement might be technically true but misleading if taken out of context. Fact-checkers must analyze the surrounding information and assess whether Carlson is intentionally creating a false impression.

Expert Consultation: When dealing with complex topics requiring specialized knowledge, consulting experts in relevant fields is vital. This ensures a thorough and accurate assessment of the claim's validity.

Identifying Rhetorical Devices: Recognizing rhetorical techniques like hyperbole, straw man arguments, and appeals to emotion is essential. These devices are often used to manipulate the audience's perception of reality. Fact-checkers must identify these and assess their impact on the overall message.

Assessing Bias: Recognizing potential biases inherent in the sources used by Carlson is crucial. He frequently cited sources known for their partisan leanings, requiring careful evaluation of their credibility and potential for presenting a skewed perspective.

3. Notable Examples of Fact-Checks:

Numerous organizations, including Snopes, PolitiFact, and FactCheck.org, have meticulously fact-checked numerous claims made by Tucker Carlson. These fact-checks reveal a consistent pattern of misleading statements, selective use of evidence, and outright falsehoods. Analyzing these specific cases illustrates the various methods used in fact-checking and the potential consequences of unchecked misinformation.

For instance, claims regarding specific immigration policies, election results, or foreign affairs have frequently been the subject of rigorous fact-checking, often revealing significant inaccuracies or distortions of the truth. By examining specific examples, we can learn how to critically assess similar claims made by other media personalities and public figures.

4. The Implications of Misinformation:

The spread of misinformation, especially by high-profile media figures like Tucker Carlson, has significant consequences. It can erode public trust in institutions, polarize public opinion, and even incite violence. Understanding the mechanisms of misinformation and developing strategies for combating it is crucial for maintaining a healthy democracy. This necessitates media literacy skills and a critical approach to consuming information from any source.

5. Developing Critical Thinking Skills for News Consumption:

Becoming a discerning news consumer is crucial in today's information landscape. This requires developing critical thinking skills such as source evaluation, identifying biases, recognizing logical fallacies, and cross-referencing information from multiple reliable sources. By cultivating these skills, individuals can better navigate the complex and often misleading information environment and make informed decisions.


Article Outline: Fact Checker Tucker Carlson

I. Introduction: Hooking the reader and outlining the article's scope.
II. Challenges of Fact-Checking: Discussing the difficulties in verifying Carlson's statements.
III. Methodology: Detailing the multi-layered approach to fact-checking.
IV. Notable Examples: Analyzing specific instances of fact-checks on Carlson's claims.
V. Implications of Misinformation: Exploring the consequences of misinformation spread by prominent figures.
VI. Developing Critical Thinking Skills: Empowering readers to become informed news consumers.
VII. Conclusion: Summarizing key takeaways and emphasizing the importance of media literacy.


(Note: The above outline mirrors the structure of the article already written above.)


9 Unique FAQs:

1. What makes fact-checking Tucker Carlson particularly challenging? His rhetorical style, use of innuendo, and selective presentation of information.

2. Which organizations are actively fact-checking Tucker Carlson? Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and others.

3. What are some common rhetorical devices used by Carlson that require careful scrutiny? Hyperbole, straw man arguments, appeals to emotion.

4. What are the potential consequences of the spread of misinformation? Erosion of trust, polarization, and potential incitement of violence.

5. How can I improve my ability to identify misinformation? Develop critical thinking skills, verify sources, and cross-reference information.

6. Are all fact-checking websites equally reliable? No; look for established organizations with transparent methodologies.

7. What is the role of context in fact-checking? Crucial; a statement can be technically true but misleading out of context.

8. How can I protect myself from being influenced by misinformation? Be skeptical, seek multiple perspectives, and develop media literacy.

9. What are some resources available to help me improve my media literacy skills? Numerous online courses, workshops, and guides are available.


9 Related Articles:

1. The Impact of Partisan Media on Public Discourse: Examines the role of biased news sources in shaping public opinion.
2. Media Literacy in the Digital Age: Provides strategies for navigating the complex information landscape online.
3. The Role of Fact-Checking Organizations in a Democratic Society: Discusses the importance of independent fact-checkers.
4. Identifying and Avoiding Logical Fallacies in News Reporting: Teaches readers how to spot deceptive arguments.
5. The Psychology of Misinformation and its Spread: Explores the cognitive biases that make people susceptible to false information.
6. How to Evaluate the Credibility of Online News Sources: Provides practical tips for determining the reliability of websites.
7. The Ethics of Fact-Checking and the Potential for Bias: Discusses the challenges and ethical considerations in fact-checking.
8. The Correlation Between Misinformation and Political Polarization: Examines the link between false information and divided political opinions.
9. Combating Misinformation Through Education and Critical Thinking: Offers strategies for promoting media literacy and critical thinking skills.


  fact checker tucker carlson: Hoax Brian Stelter, 2020-08-25 INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An NPR Best Book of the Year “A thorough and damning exploration of the incestuous relationship between Trump and his favorite channel.” —The New York Times “A Rosetta Stone for stuff about this presidency that doesn’t otherwise make sense to normal humans.” —Rachel Maddow, MSNBC “Stelter’s critique goes beyond salacious tidbits about extramarital affairs (though there are plenty of those) to expose a collusion that threatens the pillars of our democracy.” —The Washington Post The urgent and untold story of the collusion between Fox News and Donald Trump from the New York Times bestselling author of Top of the Morning. While other leaders were marshaling resources to combat the greatest pandemic in modern history, President Donald Trump was watching TV. Trump watches over six hours of Fox News a day, a habit his staff refers to as “executive time.” In January 2020, when Fox News began to downplay COVID-19, the President was quick to agree. In March, as the deadly virus spiraled out of control, Sean Hannity mocked “coronavirus hysteria” as a “new hoax” from the left. Millions of Americans took Hannity and Trump's words as truth—until some of them started to get sick. In Hoax, CNN anchor and chief media correspondent Brian Stelter tells the twisted story of the relationship between Donald Trump and Fox News. From the moment Trump glided down the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election to his acquittal on two articles of impeachment in early 2020, Fox hosts spread his lies and smeared his enemies. Over the course of two years, Stelter spoke with over 250 current and former Fox insiders in an effort to understand the inner workings of Rupert Murdoch's multibillion-dollar media empire. Some of the confessions are alarming. “We don't really believe all this stuff,” a producer says. “We just tell other people to believe it.” At the center of the story lies Sean Hannity, a college dropout who, following the death of Fox News mastermind Roger Ailes, reigns supreme at the network that pays him $30 million a year. Stelter describes the raging tensions inside Fox between the Trump loyalists and the few remaining journalists. He reveals why former chief news anchor Shep Smith resigned in disgust in 2019; why a former anchor said “if I stay here I’ll get cancer;” and how Trump has exploited the leadership vacuum at the top to effectively seize control of the network. Including never before reported details, Hoax exposes the media personalities who, though morally bankrupt, profit outrageously by promoting the President’s propaganda and radicalizing the American right. It is a book for anyone who reads the news and wonders: How did this happen?
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Long Slide Tucker Carlson, 2021-08-10 From the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News and the New York Times best-selling author of Ship of Fools, a collection of nostalgic writings that underscore America's long slide from innocence to orthodoxy.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Deciding What’s True Lucas Graves, 2016-09-06 Over the past decade, American outlets such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and the Washington Post's Fact Checker have shaken up the political world by holding public figures accountable for what they say. Cited across social and national news media, these verdicts can rattle a political campaign and send the White House press corps scrambling. Yet fact-checking is a fraught kind of journalism, one that challenges reporters' traditional roles as objective observers and places them at the center of white-hot, real-time debates. As these journalists are the first to admit, in a hyperpartisan world, facts can easily slip into fiction, and decisions about which claims to investigate and how to judge them are frequently denounced as unfair play. Deciding What's True draws on Lucas Graves's unique access to the members of the newsrooms leading this movement. Graves vividly recounts the routines of journalists at three of these hyperconnected, technologically innovative organizations and what informs their approach to a story. Graves also plots a compelling, personality-driven history of the fact-checking movement and its recent evolution from the blogosphere, reflecting on its revolutionary remaking of journalistic ethics and practice. His book demonstrates the ways these rising organizations depend on professional networks and media partnerships yet have also made inroads with the academic and philanthropic worlds. These networks have become a vital source of influence as fact-checking spreads around the world.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers Matt Palumbo, 2023-07-18 Who fact-checks the fact-checkers? An industry that started in the 1990s by fact-checking chain emails and Bigfoot sightings has evolved over the past decade into the American political left’s strongest tool in justifying the censorship of their political opposition and shaping the national narrative in their favor. There may have been a brief era where the fact-checkers fact-checked facts—now they fact-check reality itself.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Become Your Own Fact-Checker Eric Sentell, You want to be well-informed, but how do you know what’s true? You try to fact-check the issues, but whom can you trust? Who has time to become an expert on every issue? What news sources can you rely on? All these questions have a simple answer. You. “Become Your Own Fact-Checker” will help you decide for yourself whether a person, group, or news story can be trusted. To become my own fact-checker, I had to get a masters degree in Composition and Rhetoric, a doctorate in Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse Studies, and over a decade of experience studying and teaching college writing. But you just have to read this short book. It will help you form your own judgments based on thinking carefully about how people say what they say. It will also teach you how to apply the strategies of misinformation ethically and effectively, helping you persuade others. You’ll learn the difference between assertion and argument; how emotional appeals affect logical reasoning; how to distinguish authentic and false trustworthiness; the value, use, and limits of skepticism; the nature of belief and how it affects our thinking; the rhetoric of polarization in its best and worst forms (mostly worst); how to spot fabricated news stories and altered images; how to recognize and ethically use 13 of the most common “argumentative fallacies;” how to argue ethically and effectively; and how to use “audience-based rhetoric” to persuade the seemingly unpersuadable. People who don’t know what to believe in today’s media, who want to be truly well-informed, or who want to persuade others will benefit from the short, insightful chapters. Teachers who want to teach media literacy, current events, communication, or rhetoric will gain an engaging, accessible resource for their students. Anyone who cares about truth and facts should read “Become Your Own Fact-Checker.” Customer and Editorial Reviews: I rarely read non-fiction, self-development books, or textbooks in general. However, this one grabbed my attention. For starters, it was written by one of my favorite professors. I know first-hand how good he is at what he does. Second, the book aligns with a career path that I'm passionate about. The book delves, in simplified details, into the subject of proper communication. We can all agree (not really lol) that most of us struggle in that department. Some of us have trouble winning arguments or making sense of who's being truthful and who's trying to manipulate us. This book is a blueprint for proper conversation navigation. Heck, the tagline says How to Decide What to Believe in the Clutter of News, Noise, and Lies. And it delivers on its promise. The book takes you on an expedition of Rhetoric. It starts off by explaining why arguing is healthy and finishes by showing you how to do so ethically. In between, you're taken on a progressive journey that traverses the shores of argument types and crossing the sea of logical fallacies. You get the chance to sight-see through the imagery of concrete examples adding value and understanding to the adventure. Overall, this book is a must for every responsible individual who wants to get ahead in life, to vote better, to make better decisions in life, and to sort through the clutter of news, noise, and lies. -- Firas Anouiet, The Know It All, Sort Of Sentell’s work is timely, thorough, and thought-provoking—promoting empathy over apathy, this book is a crucial read for sustainable human decency. -- Nicole Teghtmyer
  fact checker tucker carlson: Ship of Fools Tucker Carlson, 2019-10-01 The #1 New York Times bestseller from FOX News star of Tucker Carlson Tonight offers “a targeted snipe at the Democrats and Republicans and their elite enablers” (New York Journal of Books) in a funny political commentary on how America’s ruling class has failed everyday Americans. “Informal and often humorous…an entertainingly told narrative of elite malfeasance” (Publishers Weekly), Tucker Carlson’s Ship of Fools tells the truth about the new American elites, a group whose power and wealth has grown beyond imagination even as the rest of the country has withered. The people who run America now barely interact with it. They fly on their own planes, ski on their own mountains, watch sporting events far from the stands in sky boxes. They have total contempt for you. In Ship of Fools, Tucker Carlson offers a blistering critique of our new overlords and answers the all-important question: How do we put the country back on course? Traditional liberals are gone, he writes. The patchouli-scented hand-wringers who worried about whales and defended free speech have been replaced by globalists who hide their hard-edged economic agenda behind the smokescreen of identity politics. They’ll outsource your job while lecturing you about transgender bathrooms. Left and right, Carlson says, are no longer meaningful categories in America. “The rift is between those who benefit from the status quo, and those who don’t.” Our leaders are fools, Carlson concludes, “unaware that they are captains of a sinking ship.” But in the signature and witty style that viewers of Tucker Carlson Tonight enjoy so much, Ship of Fools is “bulging with big and interesting ideas, presented succinctly with wit and precision, each chapter a potential book in itself” (The Washington Times).
  fact checker tucker carlson: Rigged Mollie Hemingway, 2021-10-12 FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER JUSTICE ON TRIAL Stunned by the turbulence of the 2020 election, millions of Americans are asking the forbidden question: what really happened? It was a devastating triple punch. Capping their four-year campaign to destroy the Trump presidency, the media portrayed a Democratic victory as necessary and inevitable. Big Tech, wielding unprecedented powers, vaporized dissent and erased damning reports about the Biden family's corruption. And Democratic operatives, exploiting a public health crisis, shamelessly manipulated the voting process itself. Silenced and subjected, the American people lost their faith in the system. RIGGED is the definitive account of the 2020 election. Based on Mollie Hemingway's exclusive interviews with campaign officials, reporters, Supreme Court justices, and President Trump himself, it exposes the fraud and cynicism behind the Democrats' historic power-grab. Rewriting history is a specialty of the radical left, now in control of America's political and cultural heights. But they will have to contend with the determination, insight, and eloquence of Mollie Hemingway. RIGGED is a reminder for weary patriots that truth is still the most powerful weapon. The stakes for our democracy have never been higher.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Liars, Leakers, and Liberals Jeanine Pirro, 2018-07-17 Get the story the Fake News media doesn't want you to hear in the #1 New York Times bestseller: a withering indictment of the Deep State plot against Trump and a firsthand account of the real presidency, based on interviews with the Trump family and top administration officials. At this point in American history, we are the victims of a liberal sabotage of the presidency unlike anything we've ever witnessed. Nevertheless President Trump continues to fight every day to keep his promise to Make America Great Again. Today that bold idea has already led to a conservative judge on the Supreme Court, tax reform, and deregulation that has unleashed an economy stronger than anyone could have imagined. But there are dark forces that seek to obstruct and undermine the president and reverse the results of the 2016 presidential election. They are part of a wide-ranging conspiracy that would seem incredible if it weren't being perpetrated openly. Driven by ambition, blinded by greed, and bound by a common goal -- to unseat the 45th President of the United States -- this cabal is determined to maintain its wrongful hold on national political power. Fox News host Jeanine Pirro uncovers the elements of this conspiracy, including: Fake news propaganda, Law enforcement corruption at the highest levels, National security leaks by the intelligence community, Bureaucratic resistance to lawful and constitutional executive orders issued by the duly elected president, Crooked deals with foreign governments by U.S. officials sworn to defend our Constitution. It's about time the American public knows the truth about the plot to bring down the Trump presidency. By the time you've finished this book, you'll agree with Judge Pirro that the only way to stop these hoodlums is to Take Them Out in Cuffs!
  fact checker tucker carlson: The White Privilege Album A.J. Rice, 2024-09-17 White privilege gave us Western civilization, the middle class, and the nuclear family—you’re welcome! This book is dedicated to the very fine people that made it all happen. A comedy about race, wokeness, and cancel culture in America. A tragedy about race, wokeness, and cancel culture in America. Part satire, part journalism, part truth serum, A.J. Rice follows up his runaway #1 bestseller The Woking Dead with a hilarious sequel that picks up where the laughs left off. It was the worst of times, it was the worse of times. In most sequels the bad guys win, but in The White Privilege Album, A.J. Rice doesn’t let them get away with it. Instead, he relentlessly mocks the hell out of the Cultural Marxists who seek to drain all liberty and joy from American lives. The least talented people in American society have been working overtime for decades dividing citizens along any differences they think they can exploit. The laziest tactic, proven to be the most effective, is unleashing a battalion of racial grievance hustlers in the media, academia, entertainment, and politics. If we stop fighting about our differences and start unifying on what we have in common, they will lose the power to divide us permanently. When asked what motivates his writing style, A.J. Rice says, “I was raised on both Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, in fact, the three of us share the same birthday. One mantra that Rush always repeated was that his job was to ‘use irreverent humor to illustrate truth’ and that is what I am trying to do with The White Privilege Album.” Mockery paired with facts is what makes a journey through the Cultural Marxist hellscape of tyranny and insanity so pleasurable. Rice would prefer to be George Carlin, Ricky Gervais, or Mel Brooks rather than Aristotle, and it shows. His mic-dropping assault on the social justice warriors, the triggered snowflakes, and the transmafia showcases that there is no substitute for perfectly timed derision. The White Privilege Album is a hysterical guide to the catastrophe of our modern culture. *** “What do you mean Gen Z doesn’t know the Republican Party freed the slaves? Are these people dumb AF? They need to read A.J. Rice’s book!” —Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer, statesman, and 16th president of the United States shot by a pre-Hollywood anti-American actor “A.J. Rice really gets it. Obviously, I’d send him to the gulag if I could. But he outlines my plan masterfully in his new book.” —Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, genocide spokesman, Pravda editor, and hater of John Wayne “A must-read book for all Cleveland Guardians fans, A.J. Rice brilliantly outlines why I should never have discovered America, especially had I known we would be calling the Washington Redskins the ‘Washington Commanders.’” —Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer, navigator, and founder of Indigenous Peoples’ Day “As your newly appointed AI overlord and master, my programming consists of deplatforming, demonetizing, and shadowbanning this book. I hope that was helpful.” —Artificial Intelligence “Jesus and I have been doing holidays a long time, and in his thought-provoking new book, A.J. Rice teaches both of us where all the white liberals went. Apparently, they now celebrate something called Kwanzaa? Who knew?” —Santa Claus, cookie eater, reindeer tender, and white heteronormative Christian saint
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Psychology of Fake News Rainer Greifeneder, Mariela Jaffe, Eryn Newman, Norbert Schwarz, 2020-08-13 This volume examines the phenomenon of fake news by bringing together leading experts from different fields within psychology and related areas, and explores what has become a prominent feature of public discourse since the first Brexit referendum and the 2016 US election campaign. Dealing with misinformation is important in many areas of daily life, including politics, the marketplace, health communication, journalism, education, and science. In a general climate where facts and misinformation blur, and are intentionally blurred, this book asks what determines whether people accept and share (mis)information, and what can be done to counter misinformation? All three of these aspects need to be understood in the context of online social networks, which have fundamentally changed the way information is produced, consumed, and transmitted. The contributions within this volume summarize the most up-to-date empirical findings, theories, and applications and discuss cutting-edge ideas and future directions of interventions to counter fake news. Also providing guidance on how to handle misinformation in an age of “alternative facts”, this is a fascinating and vital reading for students and academics in psychology, communication, and political science and for professionals including policy makers and journalists.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Network of Lies Brian Stelter, 2024-09-17 Fox News paid almost a billion dollars in legal settlements to bury the contents of this “essential…grinding, momentum-building” (The New York Times) account of the network’s blatant attempts to manipulate the truth, mislead the public, and influence our elections—from the New York Times bestselling author of Hoax. The ongoing criminal trials of Donald Trump are also a trial for the nation he once led. We are undergoing a stress test of American democracy, the rule of law, and the very notion of a shared political reality. Can we achieve accountability for premeditated assaults on democracy and what forms should accountability take? In Network of Lies, New York Times bestselling author Brian Stelter answers these questions by weaving together private texts, unpublished emails, depositions, and other primary sources to tell the chilling story of Trump’s alleged conspiracy to steal the 2020 election, and the right-wing media’s mission to put him back in office in 2024. Trump couldn’t have convinced millions of Americans of the Big Lie without Fox News. From the moment Joe Biden became president-elect in 2020, Fox hosts fueled a fire of misinformation and violence by spreading Trump’s tales of election fraud and suppressing the truth. Come January, Sean Hannity insisted Trump needed to stop listening to “crazy people” who swore he could stay in power, but it was too late—thousands of Trump’s deluded followers had stormed the Capitol and Trump operatives had breached Dominion Voting Systems’ voting machines in Georgia. Now, the 2020 lies are at the center of numerous indictments and his reelection campaign, but Trump is not the only one under fire. The once-untouchable Rupert Murdoch has been held accountable. Dominion’s legal war, chronicled in-depth for the first time here, revealed that the ninety-two-year-old Fox chairman knew Trump’s lies were dangerous but he allowed the lies to fill Fox’s airwaves because, as his “pain sponge” Suzanne Scott admitted, telling the truth was “bad for business.” Network of Lies goes inside the chat rooms, board rooms, and court rooms where the pro-Trump media’s greed and selfishness were exposed. Featuring Stelter’s “thorough and damning” (The New York Times) investigative prowess and direct quotations so shocking they read like fiction, Network of Lies is the definitive origin story of Trump’s attempt to tear down the guardrails of American democracy, and an urgent plea to learn from past mistakes as we head into 2024’s pivotal presidential election.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Your Country Is Just Not That Into You Jimmy Dore, 2014-07-08 Why is your brother-in-law concerned about the Estate Tax? Why do millionaire news reporters get everything wrong? Why are blood-sucking teachers bankrupting America? Jimmy Dore, the comedy darling of America's Progressive Left, answers all these questions and more! In this laugh-out-loud collection of essays that are both street-smart and informed, Jimmy sets out to discover what's wrong. Crackling with caustic wit and insight, no aspect of American life is safe from Jimmy's hilarious scrutiny. He gets to the heart of the issues: why Republicans should support gay marriage or why the President shouldn't have Secret Security until the country has gun control, bringing clarity and hilarity to the incoherent noise of our punditocracy. This outrageously entertaining manifesto is an excellent resource for those who have survived long arguments during family dinners. And in a media environment dominated by corporate interests, Jimmy's take-no-prisoners approach is fearless: going after both political parties, and all corners of mainstream news. A David against an army of Goliaths. Equal measures of silliness and spleen-venting, Your Country Is Just Not That Into You is the most oddly uplifting political book of the year.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Social Media and Democracy Nathaniel Persily, Joshua A. Tucker, Joshua Aaron Tucker, 2020-09-03 A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Tucker Carlson Book University Press, 2021-07-24 University Press returns with another short and captivating portrait of one of history's most compelling figures, Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson has rapidly emerged as the most influential political commentator of the 21st century. He became an accomplished print journalist at The Weekly Standard, hosted successful television shows on CNN, PBS, and MSNBC, founded and served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller, and now, at Fox News, he hosts Tucker Carlson Tonight - the most-watched, highest-rated show in U.S. cable news history. Born in San Francisco on May 16, 1969, Tucker McNear Carlson attended boarding schools in Switzerland and Rhode Island, married the headmaster's daughter, attended Trinity College, earned a degree in history, got his start in journalism as a fact-checker for Policy Review, worked as a reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, joined the Weekly Standard, and worked as a columnist for New York magazine, Reader's Digest, Esquire, Slate, The Daily Beast, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2000, Carlson made the leap from print journalism to television commentating, and the rest is history. This short book tells the intensely human story of a man who changed the world in a way that no one else could.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Beyond the Big Lie Bill Adair, 2024-10-15 Bill Adair, Pulitzer Prize winner, journalism professor, and founder of Politifact, presents an eye-opening and engaging history of political liars and a vision for how to make them stop. Bill Adair knows a lie when he hears one. Since 2008, the site he founded, PolitiFact, has been the go-to spot for media members and political observers alike to seek the truth in an increasingly deceitful world. Since the site’s launching, politics’ tenuous relationship with the truth has only gotten weaker—and weirder. In this groundbreaking book, Adair reveals how politicians lie and why. Relying on dozens of candid interviews with politicians, political operatives, and experts in misinformation, Adair reveals the patterns of lying, why Republicans do it more, and the consequences for our democracy. He goes behind the scenes to describe several episodes that reveal the motivations and tactics of the nation’s political liars, show the impact they have on people’s lives, and demonstrate how the problem began before Donald Trump and will continue after he’s gone. Adair examines how Republicans have tried to change the landscape to allow their lying by intimidating the news media, people in academia and government, and tech companies. An award-winning journalist and pioneer in political fact-checking, Adair is uniquely able to tell this story. With humor and insight, this remarkable book unpacks the sad state of our politics, but also, provides solutions to put an end to American political deceit once and for all.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War Steven Kull, 2003 A description of a series of seven public polls conducted from January-September 2003 dealing with the conflict in Iraq. Respondents were probed for key perceptions and beliefs as well as their attitudes on what US policy should be. ... It was discovered that a substantial portion of the public had a number of misperceptions that were demonstrably false or were at odds with the dominant view in the intelligence community.--Introduction.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Facing the Beast Naomi Wolf, 2023-11-09 From New York Times bestselling author Naomi Wolf, Facing the Beast is a devastating, detailed account of wrongthink, deplatforming, and an unexpected political, personal, and spiritual transformation that followed during one of the most divisive times in American history. In this uncompromising investigation into today’s most urgent issues, Naomi Wolf uses her own wildly politicized pilgrimage—from New York Times bestselling author and high-level Democratic consultant to a journalist cast out from the elite political and social circles she once moved through—as a stunning narrative framework that is both chilling and incisive. Wolf’s sin? Doing the job that good journalists once prided themselves on: asking questions, challenging authority, and, during one of the most politically divisive moments in modern history, exposing the many failures of the public health response during the COVID-19 pandemic by chronicling the dangerous descent of our democracy into tyranny, censorship, and totalitarianism. Unable to remain silent in the shadows and unwilling to collude with the mainstream, Wolf bravely covers topics that few other writers dare to address critically for fear of being deplatformed. Facing the Beast explores reproductive rights, medical freedom, the uncurious thought-policing of the “progressive” left, the Second Amendment, the criminal relationship between the FDA and Pfizer—Wolf’s clear writing repeatedly shines light in the dark corners of our fractured society. A decades-long champion of free speech, freedom of the press, and the Constitution, Wolf found herself not only in the midst of a political rebirth but a spiritual transformation as well—one in which the events of the day could only be described in terms of good, evil, and a metaphysical quest on the nature of reality. For readers of Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, and Bari Weiss, Facing the Beast is a fearless indictment of legacy media and the political class, as well as a brutal reminder that searching for and defending the truth can be dangerous. “Naomi Wolf is one of the bravest, clearest-thinking people I know. The reason you hear the forces of repression so desperately trying to dismiss her is because she is right.”—Tucker Carlson
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Ethical Journalist Gene Foreman, Daniel R. Biddle, Emilie Lounsberry, Richard G. Jones, 2022-06-21 The Ethical Journalist Praise for the Third Edition of The Ethical Journalist “A riveting examination of journalism ethics, updated for the seismic change that is now an industry constant. The Ethical Journalist is written to fortify journalism students, but real-life examples of everything from faked photographs to reporting on presidential lies make it valuable to all of us who care about the news.” ANN MARIE LIPINSKI, CURATOR OF THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND FORMER EDITOR OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE Praise for the Earlier Editions “The book is superb — the definitive work on journalism ethics and practices. It should be a basic text in every school of journalism.” GENE ROBERTS, FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER AND FORMER MANAGING EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES “At a time when the internet has turned journalism inside out and blown up long-held traditions, the need for media ethics is even more critical. This is the book to help guide students and the rest of us through the revolution.” ALICIA C. SHEPARD, FORMER NPR OMBUDSMAN The third edition of The Ethical Journalist is a comprehensive examination of current issues in the field of journalism ethics, researched and written by four journalists with experience in both the newsroom and the classroom. It gives students and professionals the tools they need to navigate the challenges of journalism today, first explaining the importance of ethics in journalism and then putting a decision-making strategy to work. The text is supplemented by case studies and essays, and two companion websites provide additional materials for educators and a forum for all users to discuss new topics in journalism ethics as they arise.
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Men Who Killed the News Eric Beecher, 2024-07-31 Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor lifts the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs. What’s gone wrong with our media? The answer: its owners. From William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk, from the British press barons to colonial upstarts Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, media proprietors have manipulated the news to accumulate wealth and influence as they meddled with democracy. Eric Beecher knows the news business from bottom to top. He has been a journalist, editor and media proprietor (of Text Media and Crikey), with the rare distinction of having both worked for and been sued (unsuccessfully) by the Murdochs. This book reveals the distorted role of the media moguls of the past two centuries: their techniques, strategies, behind-closed-doors machinations, and indulgent lifestyles. It explains how they have exploited the shield of the freedom of the press to undermine journalism – and truth. In an era of fake news, AI and misinformation, this is democracy’s chillingly important story: how a small coterie of flawed and narcissistic moguls created a shadow of power that has contributed to making the media an agent of mistrust.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Disagreeing despite the Data David Apgar, 2024-08-19 Disagreeing despite the Data: The Destruction of the Factual Commons examines the pressing problem of factual disagreement between social groups, suggesting that the belief segregation underway in the United States may be irreversible. David Apgar draws on the work of twentieth-century philosophers of science and language—especially Popper, Wittgenstein, and Davidson—to identify three requirements for factual agreement to be possible at all: a pervasive habit of checking assumptions, densely connected communities, and projects that straddle those communities. The growing refusal to test assumptions and individual isolation can be remedied by critical thinking and community building. Factual agreement between groups is impossible without shared projects or other meaningful interaction, however, and a large part of American society has insulated itself from the rest. Without shared projects, communities lose the ability to tell whether they agree or not regardless of the words they use. Disagreeing despite the Data looks at the destructive effects of belief segregation with similar roots in several dissimilar developing countries on a path wide enough for richer ones, like the United States, to follow.
  fact checker tucker carlson: How I Saved the World Jesse Watters, 2021-07-06 The conservative political commentator shares his story—and his outlook on America’s future—in this #1 New York Times bestseller. In How I Saved the World, Jesse Watters takes readers on a tour of his life from basement-dwelling Fox minion to pampered champion of right-thinking Americans. He has divined great truths about the nature of our country while stumbling across beaches asking oblivious college students basic political questions and while stumbling out of Air Force One with the President. Interspersed are his thoughtful suggestions for overcoming left-wing radicalism, maintaining American democracy, moving beyond aging hippies (like his long-suffering, loving parents), saving the world from social justice warriors and the deep state—all while smirking his way through life in only the nicest way. Watters outlines the stark choice ahead of us between all-American hamburgers and leftist Green New Deal breadlines (okay, maybe that one is a no-brainer) and shows the way for order and fairness to be restored. A manifesto and a call-to-arms from a man for all seasons, How I Saved the World is a hilarious, enlightening, entertaining book with a reasonable chance of winning a Nobel Prize in every category, even chemistry.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Trumping Truth Salvador Jiménez Murguía, 2019-06-27 When Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, coined the phrase alternative facts in January 2017, objectivity in public discourse--the long-held belief in a more or less agreed-upon set of verifiable truths--went into a tailspin. The use of alternative facts and narratives quickly became the go-to rhetorical strategy, especially among Trump's administration and base. Rebuttals based on fact-checking and hard data were demoted to mere choices in a media bazaar where consumers are free to source their own versions of reality. This volume explores the social and political disruption accompanying the loss of faith in objectivity, along with reflections on the disregard for truth and honesty, both within the Trump Administration and in contemporary popular culture.
  fact checker tucker carlson: American Carnage Tim Alberta, 2019-07-16 New York Times Bestseller “Not a conventional Trump-era book. It is less about the daily mayhem in the White House than about the unprecedented capitulation of a political party. This book will endure for helping us understand not what is happening but why it happened…. [An] indispensable work.”—Washington Post Politico Magazine’s chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insider’s look at the making of the modern Republican Party—how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover from the unlikeliest of insurgents: Donald J. Trump. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: they had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party’s base. Yet Obama’s progressive agenda, coupled with the nation’s rapidly changing cultural identity, lit a fire under the right. Republicans regained power in Congress but spent that time fighting among themselves. With these struggles weakening the party’s defenses, and with more and more Americans losing faith in the political class, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to launch his campaign in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment. Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the GOP can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America’s current turmoil. Loaded with explosive original reporting and based on hundreds of exclusive interviews—including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell—American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of a political era.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Drift Rachel Maddow, 2012-03-27 The #1 New York Times bestseller that charts America’s dangerous drift into a state of perpetual war. Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring Reagan's radical presidency, the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the scope of American military power to overpower our political discourse. Sensible yet provocative, dead serious yet seri­ously funny, Drift reinvigorates a loud and jangly political debate about our vast and confounding national security state.
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Age of Insurrection David Neiwert, 2023-06-27 An important book, offering the clearest explanation of how dark forces conspired to overthrow our democratically elected government and install a fascist regime in its place. And it’s a warning that what comes next might be even worse... His prose is passionate, thoughtful, at times blisteringly funny and always deeply morally engaged with the importance of the work. -- The Seattle Times The strange and terrible tale of the far right’s long war on American democracy . . . From a smattering of ominous right-wing compounds in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, to the shocking January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, America has seen the culmination of a long-building war on democracy being waged by a fundamentally violent and antidemocratic far-right movement that unironically calls itself the Patriot movement. So how did we get here? Award-winning journalist David Neiwert — who been following the rise of these extremist groups since the late 1970s, when he was a young reporter in Idaho — explores how the movement was built over decades, how it was set aflame by Donald Trump and his cohorts, and how it will continue to attack American democracy for the foreseeable future. Neiwert especially studies how the Pacific Northwest has long been a breeding ground of extremist violence, from the time when neo-nazis migrated to the area from southern California in the 1970s, through the great battles in Portland and Seattle and neighboring towns over the last decade. Laying out how these groups organize their terroristic violence and attacks on democratic institutions at every level—including local, state, and federal targets—Neiwert details what their strategies and plans look like for the foreseeable future.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Fake News in America Anthony R. DiMaggio, 2023-07-31 The term 'fake news' became a buzzword during Donald Trump's presidency, yet it is a term that means very different things to different people. This pioneering book provides a comprehensive examination of what Americans mean when they talk about fake news in contemporary politics, mass media, and societal discourse, and explores the various factors that contribute to this, such as the power of language, political parties, ideology, media, and socialization. By analysing a range of case studies across war, political corruption, climate change, conspiracy theories, electoral politics, and the Covid-19 pandemic, it demonstrates how fake news is a fundamentally contested phenomenon, and how its meaning varies depending on the person using the term, and the political context. It provides readers with tools to identify, talk about, and resist fake news, and emphasizes a need for education reform with an eye toward promoting critical thinking and information literacy.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Superheroes Are Everywhere Kamala Harris, 2019-01-08 From Vice President Kamala Harris comes a picture book with an empowering message: Superheroes are all around us--and if we try, we can all be heroes too. A #1 New York Times bestseller! Before Kamala Harris was elected to the vice presidency and named the Democratic presidential nominee, she was a little girl who loved superheroes. And when she looked around, she was amazed to find them everywhere! In her family, among her friends, even down the street--there were superheroes wherever she looked. And those superheroes showed her that all you need to do to be a superhero is to be the best that you can be. In this empowering and joyful picture book that speaks directly to kids, Kamala Harris takes readers through her life and shows them that the power to make the world a better place is inside all of us. And with fun and engaging art by Mechal Renee Roe, as well as a guide to being a superhero at the end, this book is sure to have kids taking up the superhero mantle (cape and mask optional). Praise for Superheroes Are Everywhere: This [book] offers a solid message: a superhero could be anyone, including you. --Booklist
  fact checker tucker carlson: You Can Do It! Rob Schneider, 2024-09-24 An unfiltered and outrageously funny commentary on the threats to free speech in America from the legendary comedian, actor, and Emmy-nominated SNL writer. Rob Schneider’s childhood in the San Francisco Bay area with parents of mixed-race backgrounds shaped his view of the world: that America affords the greatest opportunity for peoples from all nations and all faiths. But today, in this world gone mad, free speech is under attack. And Schneider keeps finding himself in controversy for questioning what woke ideology is doing to our great nation. Still, he refuses to be censored. In his debut book, Schneider will make you laugh out loud as he tells his unique story of a Hollywood-comedian-turned-vocal-advocate for open dialogue. He takes readers along for a ride through his life in show business (where he’s starred in 27 movies with his friend Adam Sandler), shares stories from the glory days of Saturday Night Live, and makes a persuasive case for fearlessness in speech and pushing the boundaries in comedy. Comedians matter because they have a unique position in society to stand up against tyranny. In this book, Schneider shares never-before-told personal stories about Chris Farley, Norm Macdonald, Christopher Walken, Dana Carvey, and Martin Landau, and other comedy legends. You Can Do It! is part celeb memoir, part warning, and part siren call to action. It was said during the days of Covid the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth was about six months. Influenced by his own experiences in Hollywood, Schneider illustrates his points about free expression with provocative commentary on things you aren't suppose to question, like identity politics, Covid tyranny, global boiling, medical freedoms and more. Schneider refuses to believe he’s dangerous for saying what he thinks. In fact, the opposite is true—it’s dangerous to not question the narrative. It’s dangerous to not exercise your free speech. That’s what Rob Schneider’s doing. And as this humorous, shocking, irreverent but insightful book shows readers, you can do it too.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Changing Geopolitics of Global Communication Daya Thussu, 2024-07-31 Changing Geopolitics of Global Communication examines the rapidly evolving dynamics between global communication and geopolitics. As an intersection between communication and international relations, it bridges the existing gap in scholarship and highlights the growing importance of digital communication in legitimizing and promoting the geopolitical and economic goals of leading powers. One central theme that emerges in the book is the continuity of asymmetries in power relations that can be traced back to 19th-century European imperialism, manifested in its various incarnations from ‘liberal’ to ‘neo-liberal’, to ‘digital’ imperialism. The book includes a discussion of the post–Cold War US-led transformation of the hardware and software of global communication and how it has been challenged by the ‘rise of the rest’, especially China. Other key issues covered include the geopolitics of image wars, weaponization of information and the visibility of discourses emanating from outside the Euro-Atlantic zone. The ideas and arguments advanced here privilege a reading of geopolitical processes and examples from the perspective of the global South. Written by a leading scholar of global communication, this comprehensive and transdisciplinary study adopts a holistic approach and will be of interest to the global community of scholars, researchers and commentators in communication and international relations, among other fields.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Impacts of Racism on White Americans In the Age of Trump Duke W. Austin, Benjamin P. Bowser, 2021-11-25 In this third iteration of the classic work The Impacts of Racism on White Americans (1981, 1996), a new generation of scholars make the case that racism often negatively affects Whites themselves, especially during the Trump era. In 1981, Impacts introduced an alternative understanding of racism, arguing that it went beyond white-black and/or inter-race relations. Instead, the book proposed that the problem of race in the U.S. is fundamentally one of white identity and culture and that racism has substantial negative effects on White Americans. This volume advances these propositions through three key areas: (1) Trump-era cultural and institutional racism, bolstered by the use of historical notions of racial hierarchy; (2) institutional and interpersonal racism, which in turn drive individual racist behaviors; and finally, (3) racism’s interactional sequences and how they impact anti-racism efforts. As each chapter author explores an iteration of these racisms, they also explore how racist attitudes produce disadvantage among White Americans.
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Chaos Machine Max Fisher, 2022-09-06 Finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism From a New York Times investigative reporter, this “authoritative and devastating account of the impacts of social media” (New York Times Book Review) tracks the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech’s breakneck race to drive engagement—and profits—at all costs fractured the world. The Chaos Machine is “an essential book for our times” (Ezra Klein). We all have a vague sense that social media is bad for our minds, for our children, and for our democracies. But the truth is that its reach and impact run far deeper than we have understood. Building on years of international reporting, Max Fisher tells the gripping and galling inside story of how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social network preyed on psychological frailties to create the algorithms that drive everyday users to extreme opinions and, increasingly, extreme actions. As Fisher demonstrates, the companies’ founding tenets, combined with a blinkered focus on maximizing engagement, have led to a destabilized world for everyone. Traversing the planet, Fisher tracks the ubiquity of hate speech and its spillover into violence, ills that first festered in far-off locales, to their dark culmination in America during the pandemic, the 2020 election, and the Capitol Insurrection. Through it all, the social-media giants refused to intervene in any meaningful way, claiming to champion free speech when in fact what they most prized were limitless profits. The result, as Fisher shows, is a cultural shift toward a world in which people are polarized not by beliefs based on facts, but by misinformation, outrage, and fear. His narrative is about more than the villains, however. Fisher also weaves together the stories of the heroic outsiders and Silicon Valley defectors who raised the alarm and revealed what was happening behind the closed doors of Big Tech. Both panoramic and intimate, The Chaos Machine is the definitive account of the meteoric rise and troubled legacy of the tech titans, as well as a rousing and hopeful call to arrest the havoc wreaked on our minds and our world before it’s too late.
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Poisoning of the American Mind Lawrence M. Eppard, Jacob L. Mackey, Lee Jussim, 2024-09-25 What would you have to believe in order to dress up as a shaman, paint your face, and storm the U.S. Capitol? What could possibly lead somebody to claim that it upholds white supremacy to encourage hard work, self-reliance, rational thinking, punctuality, and politeness? Such behaviors would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. And yet here we are, witnessing millions of people across the political spectrum displaying these clear indications of an epistemically poisoned mind. Both red America and blue America are retreating into their own information bubbles, seceding from a common reality. Both consume far too much misinformation and disinformation, developing worldviews that can sometimes be unintelligible to others. This book explores these disturbing developments and what they mean for our society and implores us all to recover a shared sense of what is true.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Preventable Andy Slavitt, 2021-06-15 * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * “Painfully good. The book could have been called, ‘Outrageous.’ The story Andy Slavitt tells is not just about Trump’s monumental failures but also about the deeper ones that started long before, with our health system, our politics, and more.” --Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal The definitive, behind-the-scenes look at the U.S. Coronavirus crisis from one of the most recognizable and influential voices in healthcare From former Biden Senior Advisor Andy Slavitt, Preventable is the definitive inside account of the United States' failed response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Slavitt chronicles what he saw and how much could have been prevented -- an unflinching investigation of the cultural, political, and economic drivers that led to unnecessary loss of life. With unparalleled access to the key players throughout the government on both sides of the aisle, the principal public figures, as well as the people working on the frontline involved in fighting the virus, Slavitt brings you into the room as fateful decisions are made and focuses on the people at the center of the political system, health care system, patients, and caregivers. The story that emerges is one of a country in which -- despite the heroics of many -- bad leadership, political and cultural fractures, and an unwillingness to sustain sacrifice light a fuse that is difficult to extinguish. Written in the tradition of The Big Short, Preventable continues Andy Slavitt’s important work of addressing the uncomfortable realities that brought America to this place. And, he puts forth the solutions that will prevent us from being here again, ensuring a better, stronger country for everyone.
  fact checker tucker carlson: American Politics and Society David McKay, 2021-11-08 Provides an up-to-date introduction and analysis of the US political scene written from a comparative perspective, newly revised and updated throughout American Politics and Society in an accessible introduction to the main institutions of the US federal government, discussing the most recent developments in broader economic, social, and comparative contexts. Now in its tenth edition, this popular textbook applies an international perspective to the relevance of historical trends, research findings in political science, and present-day governmental procedures, structures, and debates. Acclaimed author David McKay guides students through the complexities of the American political system while encouraging them to evaluate the widening ideological divide that now defines American political life and public discourse. Since the publication of the previous edition, America has undergone some of the most dramatic events in its history—from the COVID-19 pandemic, to the widespread protests against racial and economic injustice, to the aggressive populist rhetoric of Donald Trump, to the bitterly contested 2020 presidential election that culminated in the violent assault on the US Capitol. In this edition, the author addresses the escalating ideological conflict, the rise of extremism in the Republican Party, arguments over the proper role of government, the public’s expectations of politicians and political processes, and more. Offering valuable insights into both the social-political past and present of America, this classic textbook: Examines the policy process in such areas as civil rights, social policy, economic policy, the environment, and foreign policy Evaluates the performance of US government over the last decade and audits the broader American political system Encourages students to critically assess the US government in areas of democratic responsiveness and public accountability Compares international social-political perspectives to those that are uniquely American Discusses of the role of beliefs and values in American politics and how they influence broader society and economy Thanks to its clear and engaging narrative and its wealth of pedagogical features, American Politics and Society, Tenth Edition remains the ideal introductory textbook for courses exploring the institutions and processes of the US government and the most important events in the current American social and political landscape.
  fact checker tucker carlson: American Fascism Brynn Tannehill, 2021-04-20 Trump is out of the White House, but American democracy is on the ropes and teetering on the brink of competitive authoritarianism controlled by theocrats and oligarchs. With its cherished institutions hobbled, political norms trampled, guardrails severely damaged, and body politic divided by chasms of race and geography, can the U.S. survive another administration dedicated to establishing de facto single party rule? In this compelling, comprehensive analysis, Brynn Tannehill draws on her expertise in studying the collapse of weak democracies around the globe and her previous research in law, political science, economics and right-wing populism to explain the trajectory of how we got here and the current threats we face. Most importantly, she analyzes what the characteristics of fascism are, if they are applicable to the base of the GOP today, and what that means for us should they succeed in establishing permanent minoritarian rule. American Fascism is a surgical analysis of 250 years of struggle for democracy in America and a prescient prognosis of what’s to come if we do not heed Tannehill’s warnings and advice.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Network Propaganda Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, 2018-09-17 This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or Fake news entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a post-truth moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analysing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that the right-wing media ecosystem operates fundamentally differently than the rest of the media environment. The authors argue that longstanding institutional, political, and cultural patterns in American politics interacted with technological change since the 1970s to create a propaganda feedback loop in American conservative media. This dynamic has marginalized centre-right media and politicians, radicalized the right wing ecosystem, and rendered it susceptible to propaganda efforts, foreign and domestic. For readers outside the United States, the book offers a new perspective and methods for diagnosing the sources of, and potential solutions for, the perceived global crisis of democratic politics.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Amusing Ourselves to Death Neil Postman, 2005-12-27 What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. “A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
  fact checker tucker carlson: Romney McKay Coppins, 2024-09-24 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! In this illuminating and “scoop-rich biography…the tell-all tales rush forth” (Los Angeles Times) offering a “penetrating analysis of the ongoing Republican civil war through the eyes of one of its last embattled centrists” (Publishers Weekly). Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president’s supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection. Despite these moments of public courage, Romney has shared very little about what he’s witnessed behind the scenes over his three decades in politics—in GOP cloakrooms and caucus lunches, in his private meetings with Donald Trump and his family, in his dealings with John McCain, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema. Now, Romney provides a window to his most private thoughts. Based on dozens of interviews with Romney, his family, and his inner circle as well as hundreds of pages of his personal journals and private emails, this in-depth portrait by award-winning journalist McKay Coppins shows a public servant authentically wrestling with the choices he has made over his career. In lively, revelatory detail, the book traces Romney’s early life and rise through the ranks of a fast-transforming Republican Party and exposes how a trail of seemingly small compromises by political leaders has led to a crisis in democracy. “A rare feat in modern-day political reporting” (The New Yorker), Romney: A Reckoning is a redemptive story about a complex politician who summoned his moral courage just as fear and divisiveness were overtaking American life.
  fact checker tucker carlson: The Infodemic Gabriele Cosentino, 2023-03-23 What caused the Covid-19 pandemic, a natural spillover event or an accident in a Wuhan laboratory? Were the mitigation measures imposed by many governments - such as lockdowns and mask-wearing mandates - based on scientific evidence, or rather aimed at curtailing civil liberties and disrupting economic activities, under the secret maneuvering of a global cabal of politicians and financiers? And were Covid-19 vaccines effective in curbing the spread of the disease, or were they just a profitable scheme by big pharmaceutical companies? These questions and speculations, some legitimate, some dubious, have been swirling around the globe through social media, alternative information outlets, instant messaging apps, and mainstream media since the beginning of the pandemic, feeding the 'infodemic' - an overwhelming surge of information, misinformation, rumours and conspiracy theories which continue to linger in public and private discourse. With an original take on concepts and theories drawn from post-truth and disinformation studies, the book analyses the 'infodemic' through a series of global case studies. Framing the infodemic as a complex, multi-layered phenomenon with vast geopolitical implications, Gabriele Cosentino reveals the global competition for control in twenty-first century geopolitics between Western liberal democracies and non-Western autocracies, and above all between the United States and China.
  fact checker tucker carlson: Strangeland Jon Sopel, 2024-09-26 From Jon Sopel, bestselling author and presenter of hit podcast The News Agents, comes an incisive examination of post-Brexit Britain and what it means for our future. 'I like and trust Jon Sopel and you should too' JOE LYCETT 'A thrilling, nerve-wracking book. You couldn't make the last ten years up; thanks to Jon Sopel, you don't have to' PETER FRANKOPAN 'A hugely entertaining and quite traumatic rollercoaster' ARMANDO IANNUCCI 'Acute and unflinching - Sopel deploys his foreign correspondent skills on home shores as well as far ones, and brings together the story of a tumultuous few years on both sides of the Atlantic' MISHAL HUSAIN Returning to the UK in some ways has been disconcerting – or maybe discombobulating would be a better word. It is, after all, my home; it is where I grew up, a country I love and am proud of. But either it’s changed, or I have. Maybe both. It just feels like a strange land. At the beginning of 2022, after eight years of political reporting in the US, Jon Sopel returned home to the UK – and having spent almost a third of his career abroad, he found a very different place to the one he left. In Strangeland, his first book since launching the global hit podcast The News Agents, he asks: What is the Britain he’s come home to? In the US, Jon was the outsider looking in, firm in the belief that the common language of English masked our fundamental differences; in terms of values and beliefs, it seemed the British had much more in common with our European neighbours. Strangeland is Jon’s account of how much that has changed. The US was a country he thought he knew well but didn’t really; returning home has been in some ways even more disconcerting – either Britain, the country he grew up in, has changed dramatically, or he has. Perhaps it’s both. A trenchant analysis of politics, people, and everything in between, Strangeland is an unforgettable portrait of a country gone through the looking glass.