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The scene outside the Fox Television Studios, January 18, 2022, in New York
By hoary tradition, The Wall Street Journal customarily has one weekly opinion columnist who represents an alternative viewpoint to the editorial pages’ inbred, fiercely partisan, pro-plutocratic far-right-wingishness. Over the years, those columnists have ranged from Alexander Cockburn, whom the Journal plainly engaged in the hope that his far-left ravings would discredit all progressives, to its current designee, William Galston, whose politics often give intellectual voice to the viewpoints of a couple of Joes (Manchin and Lieberman).
That said, one passage in this week’s Galston column stood out for crossing the one line that the Journal must enforce for all others on its editorial pages. That passage, which ran for four full paragraphs, called out Fox News’s number one star, Tucker Carlson, for what Galston rightly termed his “moral myopia” on Ukraine and Russia before Carlson was compelled to shift gears when the latter attacked the former.
A search of the Journal’s website for the words “Tucker Carlson” also turns up a previous Galston column in which he criticized Carlson for xenophobically opposing the policy of bringing Afghans who’d aided U.S. forces to America once the Taliban seized power. The Journal’s search function, which covers the past two years, reveals no other opinion page article that mentioned Carlson even semi-critically.
During the same time span, however, the Journal’s editorialists have frequently criticized Donald Trump, who they fear will damage Republican electoral prospects by promoting unelectable far-right loonies in this year’s midterms and by seeking to regain the White House in 2024. They’ve attacked Trump’s Putinphilia, his xenophobia, and his espousal of right-wing conspiracy theories.
And yet, when Carlson and other Fox hosts have exhibited the same Putinphilia, xenophobia, and conspiracy theories, the Journal editorial pages have fallen silent, even though at this point, Carlson has a larger audience than Trump.
For which silence, there can be just three explanations:
- Paul Gigot and his fellow Journal editorialists don’t watch Fox News and have never heard of Tucker Carlson.
- Paul Gigot and his fellow Journal editorialists don’t know that Fox News is actually widely watched by American conservatives and therefore believe it has no appreciable role in shaping what Gigot and company consider to be the opinions that harm real conservatives’ prospects.
- Paul Gigot and his fellow Journal editorialists know goddam well who Carlson is, what he says, and how influential he is in promoting many of the same viewpoints for which they criticize Trump when he airs them. But they also know goddam well that they shouldn’t, can’t, and certainly won’t criticize Carlson and his ilk because he’s the leading profit center for their employers—News Corp and the Murdoch family.
If you believe 1 and/or 2, there’s a bridge connecting Manhattan, where News Corp is headquartered, to Brooklyn that I’m offering at a reasonable price.
