By Ranjona Banerji
Tucker Carlson is possibly the most famous rightwing TV anchor in the developed world; “the face” of Fox News. And even those of us who do not watch Rupert Murdoch’s channel, know of Carlson. Fox News, with its mix of news, bigotry, RW and Trump propaganda and misinformation, is the lodestar for most of India’s TV channels. They have embraced the Fox News model and even bettered it in some cases.
Last week, Fox News settled a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, for $ 787.5million. Fox and anchors like Carlson had claimed on air that Dominion’s voting machines had flipped results and could easily be hacked. These claims had already been debunked. However, what Carlson said on air was at odds with his private messages which emerged during legal proceedings gearing up for the big lawsuit.
As The Economist points out, anchors are not bigger than the channel. Carlson replaced the very popular Bill O’Reilly, who was sacked after sexual misconduct charges were made. The departure of Arnab Goswami from Times Now did not improve Times Now’s “journalism” in any way. He was just replaced by two other equally reactionary, bigoted propagandist anchors.
That old, old truism about no one being indispensable is proved once again. People are fickle and just move on to the next big thing. And there are always unscrupulous careerists who care nothing about their profession. Fame, glory, popularity, money, that is what drives them. You see them everywhere but perhaps the glamour of being a TV anchor attracts a larger proportion of such specimens.
The parallels of reactionary bigotry and outright RW propaganda between channels like Fox News and India’s TV channels are striking. And yet there is a dichotomy in the correlation between the ambitions of the anchor and the demands of the channel. Carlson fawned over Donald Trump, even in a recent interview, and yet in his private messages said he passionately hated Trump, or words to that effect.
Are Indian anchors similarly trapped in their roles of hate-spreaders? Are they human under all that makeup? Many people said that of Goswami, for instance. But Goswami just became worse after he began Republic. Now his funding was directly connected to the BJP system, he became even more reactionary, losing all pretensions of journalism. So all these other star anchors who lose jobs and find others, like Sudhir Chaudhury of Zee News who carried his baggage of hate and lies to India Today.
The channel may only remind you – as it has with Carlson – who is finally “boss”. But this does not mean that it expects better or more journalism. It wants more of the same, but hopefully lawsuit and consequence-free. Did someone like Carlson have a choice? Of course he did. If he hated Trump so much, he could have refused to interview him. Why didn’t he refuse? Because he is a true professional? Of course not. It is because his persona and his popularity were more important than his principles.
I cannot recommend enough that all journalists and TV anchors watch and rewatch the 1976 classic, Sidney Lumet-directed film, Network. Everything that has gone wrong with journalism, and especially TV, is there in Paddy Chayefsky’s amazing script. And the performances by Peter Finch, William Holden and Faye Dunaway. It’s like a doomsday prediction and now we have made it all come true.
A new Carlson will appear. Nothing will change. And the public will continue to be fooled and falsely enraged.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.