Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Stelter does a public service with this book, though those who need to read it most very llkely won't do so. It shows how the morally unsavory Roger Ailes was put in charge of Fox News by conservative Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch and turned it into a rightwing propaganda machine. Stelter also shows how far back Ailes and Trump went--and Fox's role, thanks to Ailes, in turning Trump into someone conservatives listened to about politics. It was 2011 when Ailes started a weekly call-in feature every Monday with Trump on "Fox and Friends" As Stelter says "the show reflected Ailes's hatred of Obama, fear of Muslims, and comfort with white male dominance." Trump was a natural fit, and Ailes gave him a forum to share the so-called "birtherism" that would launch Trump's political career and set the stage for his presidency. Stelter shows how Fox found the big pile of money that was available to those who could convincingly peddle the attacks and defenses that their conservative audience wanted to hear. Sean Hannity--the college dropout who Ailes had plucked from a talk radio outlet and turned into a mega-star--was so influential with President Trump that White House aides called him the chief of staff. Sometimes Trump would ask for Fox's Lou Dobbs to be patched in during meetings with his economic advisers. They were all concerned with the same thing: popularity, ratings, money and power. Stelter shows that this was a dangerous relationship before the covid pandemic in America; after it, the relationship was literally deadly.. The more Trump spread misinformation and outright lies about the pandemic--it's cause, spread and his handling of it--the more FOX championed his actions. It didn't matter that the evening hosts' pro-Trump commentaries were invariably false. What mattered was telling the Trump (and Fox) "base" what they wanted to hear. Arguably, as Stelter writes, Trump and the Fox evening hosts and those on "Fox and Friends" have been complicit in a national tragedy that will see over 200,000 Americans killed by covid-19 by Election Day. Fox's determination to keep Americans ignorant of the danger of the virus, of Trump's gross negligence throughout the crisis, and of what people should be doing to stay safe, makes them also culpable for the deaths of thousands of people who would be alive today if they were wearing masks and social distancing. Instead of relying on experts, Trump and Hannity et al played politics--it was, after all, an election year--with devastating results. Surely, there should be some accountability, and a recognition that what Fox does--in the main--is not journalism. [I deducted one star because his narrative of the Trump vendetta toward Megyn Kelly omits much essential information and a timeline that puts in perspective just how dangerous a man like Donald Trump would be if given great power. Kelly writes in her autobiography that Trump not only knew her questions ahead of time, but pressured her and her exec producer not to ask the one about his past insults to women. She refused and afterwards suspected that he had her driver slip something into a Starbucks he insisted on getting for her. She became so ill that she almost didn't go on camera that night. In her memoir, Kelly described how Trump targeted her for months in tweets and other public comments in an effort to get revenge Kelly received plenty of hate mail, and Fox was so worried for her safety that they hired a bodyguard. It ended when Ailes eventually brokered a truce--with Kelly conducting a softball interview of Trump and both of them making nice for the camera. It's a revealing story about Trump's character and relationship with Fox that Stelter's narrative would have benefitted from including. In spite of this--and the way he shortchanges how negative Fox's impact was from Bill Clinton's last term through Obama's presidency--his book does a service. It's a sincere and detailed effort to help Americans see through the propaganda and essential dishonesty of the network and hosts they trust and turn to for an understanding of the world.]