Ben Smith, former editor of BuzzFeed and former media columnist for the New York Times, held a public interview Thursday with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson as part of the launch of his new outlet, Semafor.
There was no lack of pressure against the invitation, but Smith insisted and, live on YouTube (from 1h26min30s), went on the attack.
“Why have you been such a fly-paper for racists?” he asked, after showing a video of Carlson saying that Democrats want more immigrants to “replace” “legacy” or traditional American voters.
For his part, Carlson accused Smith of “carrying water for” those “who have all the power”, a reference to the Democrats.
There were 20 minutes of discussion, which in itself answered the official question of the event, which was “if and how journalism can work in a hyperpolarized scenario”. From what you’ve seen, you can’t.
On the other hand, Tuesday night on Carlson’s show, also already on YouTube, there was agreement in an interview with Glenn Greenwald, also on “media scenarios” (reproduction above).
The presenter showed an excerpt from his conversation with Bolsonaro, in which he says that Fox News would be “very welcome in Brazil”, where there is no “counterpoint” outside the Jovem Pan program “The Dots on the I’s”.
Carlson gave the floor to Greenwald, who commented, “One of the things that exists in the US and doesn’t exist in Brazil is a more pluralistic media, even if it’s just Fox News.”
“The country has been dominated by four or five families who control almost all the media. And their ideology is not right or left, but the preservation of established power.”
And now, Greenwald continued, “the Brazilian left talks about Globo, long its worst enemy, with admiration” because it “has become completely hostile to Bolsonaro.”
This too is “repeatedly censored by Big Techs. Facebook and Google are dictating to Brazilians what they can and cannot hear, including from their democratically elected president.”
Carlson closed by saying that Brazil “is a reflection of our society”.
THE ANCHOR
Joe Biden, reading a speech shown by CBS, among others, apparently said what appeared as an instruction on the teleprompter, “end of quote, repeat sentence”, which was separated by a pro-Republican profile on Twitter and went viral.
Up until Elon Musk joked, with an image from the comedy “The Anchorman”: “Whoever controls the teleprompter is the real president!”
