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Why is Tucker Carlson never held accountable for constantly being wrong and misleading?

  • "Of course, Carlson’s program isn’t promoted as objective," says Philip Bump, offering a long list of instances just in the past year where Carlson uttered false statements on his Fox News show. "It’s part of Fox News’s opinion coverage, which: fine," Bump adds. "But it’s opinion coverage in which Carlson makes assertions of fact that often collapse under the scrutiny that he never bothers to pay them. Fox News’s lawyers at one point infamously defended him from a slander allegation. The 'tenor' of the show, they argued, should make clear that Carlson is not 'stating actual facts.' Viewers were expected to understand that he was engaged in 'non-literal commentary.' That said, Carlson regularly promotes his claims as reporting that the mainstream media is withholding. Skip through a few of the links above; you’ll likely find one or more instances in which Carlson asserts that he is sharing something 'they won’t tell you.' He casts himself directly as revealing a hidden truth, as being the only person willing to 'state actual facts.' And when those “facts” are revealed as falsehoods, the revelation almost never gets any sort of correction. Millions of people watch Carlson’s show and hear these claims. Others watch his segments picked up on other Fox programs or the Fox website. But there’s no effort or even any apparent mechanism to ensure that viewers are learning actual facts."

    TOPICS: Tucker Carlson, Fox News Channel, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Cable News