Carlos Maza of Vox says Americans are living in “hell” created by Fox News and its ability to thwart an “ideal” industry filled with “gatekeeping.”
A recent video titled “You’re watching Fox News. You just don’t know it” for the liberal website’s 6 million YouTube subscribers lamented the industry’s inability to marginalize Fox or render it culturally irrelevant.
“In an ideal world, political journalism looks like this,” Mr. Maza said May 24 in a scene depicting journalistic gatekeeping. “On either side, you’ve got the parties fighting for the attention of the press. And in the middle you’ve got journalists, sorting out what’s important and what’s just partisan bull—t. This is called gatekeeping, and it’s one of the most important things journalists do.”
“Political operatives can spin whatever talking points they want, but ultimately it’s journalists who decide what we pay attention to,” he continued. “That is in an ideal world, and we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in hell, and in hell, there’s Fox News.”
Independent journalist Tim Pool blasted the commentary in a video of his own titled “Ratings Collapse And Layoffs Are Making The Media Go Crazy.”
“As these companies lay more and more people off, they turn to cheaper and cheaper individuals to hire,” he told 464,000 subscribers. “They turn to people who can generate click-bait and rage-bait articles that will make them some money — and the activists emerge. We then see completely nonsensical and insane stories like this from Vox. … They actually state things like Hillary’s email scandal only became news because Fox willed it so, which is an insane conspiracy theory that says one important thing to me: Vox and the other progressive digital media outlets like it are in the minority and the fringe but from their bubble they think everything is far right and a right-wing conspiracy.”
The media watchdog NewsBusters also weighed in, saying: “What’s especially humorous is when liberals pretend that they don’t have a ’partisan front group’ network like Fox. MSNBC is somehow nonpartisan. So is CNN. The Washington Post can decry democracy dying in darkness under Trump, and they’re still nonpartisan. … This hatred of debate and engagement with opposing ideas comes from the people who call themselves … Democrats.”
Vox’s video has tallied more than 910,000 views since its publication.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.