Thursday, November 30, 2017

Matt Lauer & Fox News: How Tribalism Affects the Press | National Review

Matt Lauer & Fox News: How Tribalism Affects the Press | National Review
"...When the allegations about Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes came out, the mainstream media had a field day. 
But there was no larger feeding frenzy. 
Last year it was a “Fox News” story, not a “societal problem” story. 
It took the Harvey Weinstein allegations to get the mainstream press to start asking uncomfortable questions about its own institutions. 
I can think of several reasons for this, but one that stands out is the tribalism of media itself. 
The Fox stories confirmed, to one extent or another, what a lot of mainstream liberals think about Fox or about conservatives generally: 
They’re retrograde. 
They’re bad. 
That’s the kind of thing that goes on over there. 
It’s related to what some reporters I know at Fox call the “Fox News effect”
...If Fox puts a lot of weight on a story, other outlets go the opposite direction. 
That’s why so many conservative pundits played the “If this was Bush” game during the Obama presidency. 
But back to the sexual-harassment thing. 
One of my longstanding gripes is how when conservatives do something bad, it’s proof of the inherent badness of conservatives and conservatism. 
But when liberals do something bad, it is immediately turned into an indictment of America itself..."
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