Comment by embedding-shape
7 days ago
> It cannot be understated the role that Fox News has played to get us to this level of division.
Yeah, it's been a sharp shift, as someone who've watched/read Fox News (and other news of course) for decades out of the US. Fox News always been a bit strange with it's vitriol, but at one point, I can't remember if it was around the middle of Obama's second term, or later, but it took a really sharp turn further into emotional reporting and partisanship. Again, Fox always been a bit special, and other news channels also did similar turns further into their sides, but I can remember seeing the change as it was happening.
There is another documentary I quite liked in similar vein but on an individual level, called "Dear Kelly", that follows a far-right conspiracy theorist and tries to give some understanding into Kelly's struggles and radicalization. Released independently and can be found here: https://www.dearkellyfilm.com/
The fact that ragebait is the most effective way to drive engagement (and therefore to make money off of a captive audience) feels like the first falling domino that sunk us into our current predicament. Certainly the Murdoch empire made its fortune that way.
If the future has justice, Murdoch heirs will have to deal with the same consequences as the Sacklers.
The crime by Fox News is not that they presented a viewpoint, but that they did so at scale, in a knowingly disingenuous manner, to derive financial benefit, for decades.
The other children are also cowards for not taking the legal fight over the inheritance of Fox equity to the limit.
+1 on the Dear Kelly film! While I don't think it explains everyone's radicalization, in this scenario I can see how Kelly fell down his hole of disillusionment