Former Fox News politics editor says network stoked 'paranoia and hatred'

Source: The Guardian

Former Fox News politics editor says network stoked ‘paranoia and hatred’

Chris Stirewalter, who was forced out after Donald Trump’s electoral defeat, says Fox failed its viewers with 2020 election coverage

Ramon Antonio Vargas
Mon 22 Aug 2022 16.43 BST
Last modified on Mon 22 Aug 2022 18.12 BST

A former Fox News politics editor who was forced out of the conservative television network shortly after its opinions hosts’ preferred candidate Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential race has said that the channel failed its viewers with its election coverage.

In his upcoming memoir, Chris Stirewalt says Fox News resigned its duty to prepare Trump followers for the possibility that he would lose, instead stoking the “black-helicopter-level paranoia and hatred” which fuels white supremacist groups but translates into big ratings.

Stirewalt’s Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machines Divides America and How to Fight Back also reiterates the belief held by many that Fox fired him because he always defended – even on-air – his team’s decision to declare Joe Biden the winner of Arizona’s 2020 electoral college votes on the same night that polls closed.

The call enraged Trump, prompting the incumbent president and his allies to mount a pressure campaign aimed at getting Fox to retract the decision while that camp pushed forth lies that electoral fraudsters in other battleground states were stealing the election for Biden.

The New York Times obtained and reported on an advance copy of the book.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/aug/22/chris-stirewalter-fox-news-book-trump-2020-election