One of the reasons that Tucker Carlson is successful at what he does is because of where he does it.
Carlson hosts a television show on a cable-news network that is deeply invested in his success. The New York Times’s recent exploration of Carlson’s influence and power at Fox News made clear the extent to which the network is focused on supporting his efforts. And given that his efforts (which sit on the “opinion” side of the network’s porous dividing line for its content) regularly roam into the domain of the exaggerated or fictional, that means there’s little impetus for the network to hold him to account.
Consider the nature of television relative to other formats for a moment. When you read this article, for example, you can return to it, over and over. You can step back and reread the preceding paragraph, mull it over, consider it. You can read this whole article again in a week or a month. What I say can be easily challenged and debated.
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