0:02

Courtney Bud had a conversation last

0:04

year that left her shaking. It

0:06

was with a family member. It

0:09

was about politics. He made the

0:11

comment, Trump is a good man.

0:13

I just, on such a basic

0:15

fundamental level, just couldn't see any

0:18

reason in that statement. It'd be

0:20

an understatement to say that Courtney

0:22

does not agree with this. But

0:25

what upset her was who was

0:27

saying it. Somebody who might not

0:29

only love but really respect for

0:31

his intelligence and also his ethics

0:34

and his moral compass. It felt

0:36

like they weren't just disagreeing, but

0:38

living in separate realities. Ron McFarland

0:41

has been looking for a common

0:43

ground with his sister. He thinks

0:45

she's misinformed. You know, she gets

0:48

a lot of things from social

0:50

media and things of that nature.

0:52

Ron is a Trump voter. His

0:54

news sources include Fox and podcaster

0:57

Joe Rogan. I kind of like

0:59

him. He says he tries to

1:01

watch CNN and other sources, but

1:04

ultimately, Ron thinks most news intentionally

1:06

misleads. Where is the truth? I'm

1:08

always trying to search for the

1:10

truth. It used to be, even

1:13

just a few decades ago, that

1:15

Americans largely used and trusted the

1:17

same news sources. Now the way

1:20

we get basic facts about the

1:22

world is polarized. We are increasingly

1:24

split into separate bubbles absorbing different

1:27

information that paints conflicting pictures of

1:29

the same events. In that environment,

1:31

how can we govern together? How

1:33

can we reach the consensus that

1:36

democracy requires? How can there be

1:38

any common ground? Now, our two

1:40

media ecosystems are not the same

1:43

equal from opposite political sides. And

1:45

we can see this because... Well,

1:47

we're all subject to psychological forces

1:50

that polarize us, and we're going

1:52

to explore those. Only in one

1:54

of these media bubbles do a

1:56

huge portion of voters consistent... believe

1:59

a presidential election was stolen. That

2:01

is where the fraud took place,

2:03

where they were flipping votes. Only

2:06

one of them has led Americans

2:08

to reject basic health interventions. COVID

2:10

vaccines need to be withdrawn from

2:12

the market now. Only one has

2:15

left its audience with the impression

2:17

that climate change is not real.

2:19

Violent crime is spiking and a

2:22

host of outlandish conspiracy theories. Migrants

2:24

are grilling pets in America. That

2:26

is true. It seems to me that

2:28

this is a root problem in

2:30

American politics, yet often overlooked because

2:33

it feels so intractable. We

2:35

have information bubbles, and one

2:37

of them leaves Americans inside

2:40

it consistently misled about important,

2:42

fundamental, provable facts. I

2:44

started this podcast, Landslide, to trace

2:47

our political divide, where it comes

2:49

from, how it developed. And I

2:51

keep coming back to the same point.

2:54

Nothing is more urgent than our information

2:56

divide. from Nuance Tales

2:58

in partnership with WFAE distributed

3:01

by the NPR Network. This

3:03

is a new mini-series from Landslide.

3:05

Engines of Outreach. Over the course

3:07

of the next four episodes, I'll

3:10

have conversations with experts to

3:12

explore where today's news environment

3:14

came from. We'll trace how

3:16

the right-wing bubble grew from

3:18

small insurgency during the events

3:20

of landslide's first season to

3:23

a full competitor against mainstream

3:25

news. We'll look at how

3:27

technology and psychology amplified it

3:29

and our division affecting all

3:31

of our information diets. This

3:33

will not be a comprehensive

3:35

history. More of an autopsy.

3:38

The goal is to understand

3:40

what happened, to figure out what,

3:42

if anything, can bring us back

3:44

to a more collective, fact-based understanding

3:47

of reality. We start

3:49

by going back to a time when it

3:51

seemed like the nation did have that.

3:57

In the 1960s and 70s, when it came

3:59

to most... There was really only one

4:01

game in town. Direct from our newsroom

4:03

in New York. This is the CBS

4:05

evening news with Walter Cronk. This is

4:07

NBC Nightly News Thursday, October 30th with

4:10

John Chancellor. A huge portion of the

4:12

country of all political stripes sat down

4:14

each night in front of their TVs

4:16

and watched the same thing. It was

4:18

something like three quarters of everybody

4:20

who had a television on at

4:23

630 was watching one of the

4:25

three networks and there were only

4:27

three. So they were watching ABC,

4:30

CBS, CBS or NBC. Andy Tucker

4:32

is a media historian at the

4:34

Columbia Journalism School. They were very

4:36

establishment. They were white guys in

4:39

jackets with silver hair. Good evening.

4:41

Prince Juan Carlos de Bourbon, E.

4:43

Barbon is the new chief of

4:46

state in Spain. But it was,

4:48

it was, you know, people, people

4:50

watched it, people tended to trust

4:53

it, people tended to find them

4:55

familiar because they came into your

4:57

house while you were eating your

4:59

meatloaf. That's the way it is.

5:02

Wednesday, July 31st, 1968. There is

5:04

no... No publication, no organization, no

5:06

news source now that would have

5:09

the same kind of reach as

5:11

those three put together. In one

5:13

1969 survey, nine out of ten

5:16

Americans said they regularly watched the

5:18

television news. It was not the

5:20

vast variety of sources that we

5:22

now have. It was, there was

5:25

a sense, probably exaggerated, but a

5:27

sense that people were kind of

5:29

reading and knowing the same things.

5:32

What changed that? Or who? Maryland

5:34

Governor Spiro Agnew had transformed almost

5:36

overnight in 1968 from near unknown

5:39

to Richard Nixon's vice presidential pick

5:41

and his attack dog. As VP,

5:43

Agnew was the man Nixon sent

5:45

to play administration critics in colorful,

5:48

alliterative style. If you've ever heard,

5:50

the nattering nabbs of negativism, that

5:52

was him. And about a year

5:55

after he and Nixon were elected,

5:57

Agnew appeared for a speech in

5:59

Des Moines. that his office billed

6:02

as a major address. I have

6:04

a subject I think is a

6:06

great interest to the American people.

6:08

Tonight I want to discuss the

6:11

importance of the television medium to

6:13

the American people. Agnew focused this

6:15

night's ire on a surprise subject.

6:18

The producers of television news. This

6:20

little group of men who not

6:22

only enjoy a right of instant

6:25

rebuttal to every presidential address, but

6:27

more importantly. wheeled a free hand

6:29

in selecting, presenting, and interpreting the

6:32

great issues in our nation."

6:34

He essentially said they were

6:36

enacting their own liberal partisan

6:38

agenda. A narrow and distorted

6:40

picture of America often emerges

6:42

from the televised news. The speech

6:44

was cynical. The famously touchy

6:46

Nixon and his advisors were

6:49

furious at recent critical coverage

6:51

of the Vietnam War. Agnew and

6:53

Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan had worked

6:55

up this address to fire back.

6:58

It touched a nerve. While polls showed most

7:00

Americans trusted the news, the

7:02

accusation of bias had circulated

7:04

on the right and left.

7:06

Black newspapers sprang up in the

7:08

40s and 50s in response to

7:10

a media establishment that was overwhelmingly

7:13

white. In the battle for civil rights,

7:15

segregationists such as George

7:17

Wallace routinely complained they were being treated

7:19

unfairly by the media. They try to

7:22

make it appear that we are bigots,

7:24

that we are prejudice, that we are

7:26

boss, that we are immoral. Agnew knew

7:28

this, and in his speech, he was

7:31

echoing complaints of Wallace and others. But

7:33

now it was coming from the

7:35

vice president of the United States. Are

7:37

you saying that the Nixon administration

7:39

is sort of the first time,

7:41

at least in modern history, that we

7:44

see the president, the White House, accusing

7:46

the media of having a liberal bias?

7:48

In the modern era, yeah, I think so, I

7:51

think so. Media historians, including Andy

7:53

Tucker, point two Agnew's speech as

7:55

a turning point. It gained wider play.

7:57

Reporters picked up the story. It was...

7:59

their job. And Agnew and other

8:02

Nixon allies continued over the

8:04

next days and months to

8:06

hammer this accusation of slant.

8:08

The Nixon administration was well

8:10

setting up the press as

8:12

an enemy. It was a

8:14

very vigorous spin operation that

8:16

had the line of the

8:18

day that worked very closely

8:20

with journalists, but also used

8:22

the power of the White

8:24

House to smear the press.

8:26

And it coincided with polls

8:28

showing trust in mainstream news

8:30

in our shared reality, beginning

8:32

to fall. Before we go

8:34

further, it's worth discussing Agnew's

8:36

charge. Was the news biased?

8:38

The answer is, of course,

8:40

right? Humans are subjective creatures,

8:42

and choosing what stories to

8:44

cover, who to talk to,

8:46

requires subjective judgment. Even describing

8:48

what things look like, was

8:50

a crowd large or small,

8:52

rowdy or muted, is subjective.

8:54

Agnew was clearly right that

8:56

a tiny fraction of men

8:58

living in the same large

9:00

cities decided what of all

9:02

the world's events most people

9:04

would see. Andy Tucker says

9:06

it led to blind spots.

9:08

It did seem to confirm

9:10

and valorize the idea of

9:12

a dominant culture. The visible

9:14

faces of that culture were

9:16

middle-aged white men. There were

9:18

certain advantages to the sense

9:20

that we all know the

9:22

same stuff, but... It also

9:24

confirmed the establishment as the

9:26

important institution, cultural institution. It

9:29

is funny, you know, I

9:31

spent a lot of time,

9:33

just hundreds, I don't know,

9:35

thousands of hours digging through

9:37

archives of old evening news

9:39

broadcasts, and you look at

9:41

the rundowns of their programs

9:43

on any given day. They

9:45

are 90% identical. Yeah, the

9:47

herd instinct is very, very

9:49

strong in that kind of

9:51

coverage. So there were biases.

9:53

But Tucker says that's different

9:55

from saying these journalists were

9:57

enacting an agenda. Yeah, I

9:59

want to first acknowledge, of

10:01

course, that serious responsible newsrooms

10:03

do make mistakes. They get

10:05

things wrong. They don't see

10:07

what they're supposed to see.

10:09

But there is a process

10:11

that is rooted in fact

10:13

finding, doing your best to

10:15

challenge your own assumption so

10:17

that you report against yourself.

10:19

In the wake of Agnew's

10:21

speech and increasing distrust in

10:23

media, other sources with a

10:25

very different intent would gain

10:27

influence. Outside

10:36

Washington DC, in a nondescript

10:38

office building behind a locked

10:40

door guarded by multiple security

10:42

measures, printers buzzed. You heard

10:44

about this in detail in

10:46

Landslides' first season. They spat

10:48

out millions and millions of

10:50

letters to households around the

10:52

nation. the direct mail operation

10:54

of the political activist Richard

10:57

Vigory. Richard Vigory, conservative ideologue,

10:59

direct mail genius. You heard

11:01

how Vigory, as allies in

11:03

The New Right, identified voters

11:05

upset about a variety of

11:07

separate cultural issues, textbooks, gun

11:09

rights, abortion, and linked those

11:11

causes together in fiery letters

11:13

to an ever-expanding list. And

11:15

you heard, from a Reagan

11:17

strategist, just briefly, how this

11:19

was a new form of

11:21

media. You know, now Conservatives

11:23

have talked radio, they have

11:25

cable news things and all

11:27

that. There wasn't anything like

11:29

that back then. The only

11:31

communications channel that you had

11:33

directly to Conservatives was mail.

11:35

Vigory's direct mail operation bloomed

11:37

in the years immediately following

11:39

Vice President Spiro Ag News

11:41

accusation of network news bias.

11:43

The idea that the mainstream

11:45

media is biased against you

11:47

and that you need to

11:49

trust alternative media sources, that

11:51

was something that Vigery didn't

11:53

create, but he certainly really

11:55

enhances in the 1970s. A.J.

11:57

Bauer is a professor. the

11:59

University of Alabama who studies

12:01

the rise of right-wing media. By

12:03

creating a kind of alternative ecosystem of

12:06

conservative newsletters, there was not just claims

12:08

that the media was biased, but also

12:10

an alternative source that you could get

12:12

to see exactly where the news media

12:15

was biased, but also an alternative source

12:17

that you could get to see exactly

12:19

where the news media wasn't covering specific

12:21

issues or was covering them in a

12:23

flawed way of some sort. Here's what

12:26

they're not telling you. It's one thing

12:28

to say they're bias, And the truth was

12:30

here. But that truth was apocalyptic,

12:32

laden with conspiracy theories.

12:34

The newsletters of the

12:36

new right from Vigory's

12:38

printers warned that textbooks

12:40

were teaching cannibalism. Gay

12:42

people were recruiting children.

12:44

The Secretary of State

12:46

was perhaps sacrificing anti-communists

12:49

in Vietnam. You know, Vigory

12:51

wrote of later on of his

12:53

strategy that political inertia is the

12:55

normal state for most people. and

12:58

it takes a sledgehammer of an

13:00

issue to distract them from their

13:02

ball games, shopping sprees, and daily

13:05

work preoccupations. The tactics of reporting,

13:07

how that information hits the page,

13:09

and the intent of it,

13:11

is sort of fundamentally different.

13:13

Yeah. From the beginning it's

13:15

always been an ideological project.

13:17

It hasn't been kind of

13:19

like a let's create a

13:22

conservative counter news product. It

13:24

was how do we create

13:26

media that disrupts the kind

13:28

of mainstream hegemony of the

13:30

traditional press? The newsletters

13:32

provided information. That information

13:34

could be true, but it wasn't the point

13:37

of it. Vigory wasn't doing

13:39

journalism. The intent was not

13:41

to inform. It was to...

13:43

inspire political action to outreach.

13:45

That's really important because

13:48

that intent and that

13:50

style set the template

13:52

for voices that would soon

13:54

grow much louder. At the same

13:56

time as Vigory's letters were

13:58

proliferating. A right-wing movement made

14:01

other gains in American political

14:03

life. In 1976, it won

14:05

control of the Republican Party

14:07

platform. The issue of court-ordered

14:09

fussing. The subject was the

14:11

Panama Canal, which was in

14:13

favor of school prayer. Amnesty,

14:15

gun control, national health. And

14:17

conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, nearly

14:19

knocked off the sitting president

14:21

Gerald Ford for the nomination.

14:23

Four years later, he won

14:25

it all. It all ended

14:28

legitimacy and visibility to a

14:30

movement that a few years

14:32

earlier had been easy to

14:34

dismiss as fringe. And movement

14:36

premised on the idea that

14:38

the mainstream media was corrupt.

14:40

Did news organizations internalize some

14:42

of this criticism? Yeah, absolutely.

14:44

A.J. Bauer, the historian of

14:46

right-wing media, says reporters began

14:48

giving more weight to views

14:50

that had long been dismissible.

14:52

conservative movement figures increasingly get interviewed,

14:54

right, by the New York Times

14:56

and by other traditional mainstream news

14:59

outlets as though they're representing a

15:01

kind of responsible opposition. Now, this

15:03

is what news is supposed to

15:05

do, right? Seek and report major

15:07

sides of a debate. You could

15:09

also argue that reporters became more

15:11

credulous, less willing to challenge provably

15:13

false information, which had bubbled up

15:16

from, say, fever swamps of new

15:18

right newsletters. because it came from

15:20

politically legitimized voices. But Bauer says

15:22

pressure by conservatives led to even

15:24

more inroads in traditional media. Within

15:26

mainstream journalism, there's concern that they

15:28

were losing the trust of the

15:30

public and they needed to regain

15:33

it. You see conservatives wedging into

15:35

that vulnerability. The New York Times

15:37

in the early 1970s hired its

15:39

first voice from the conservative movement

15:41

to its opinion pages. But not

15:43

just any voice. A PR man.

15:45

a spin doctor, the writer of

15:48

some of Agnew's most blisteringly partisan

15:50

speeches, including his Nattering Nabob's line.

15:52

William Sapphire came straight from that

15:54

White House job to become a

15:56

consistent critic of the times from

15:58

within its own pages. After Watergate,

16:00

it was Sapphire who stuck the

16:02

Suffolk's gate to other more routine

16:05

controversies, an effort to suggest that

16:07

presidents, such as Jimmy Carter, engaged

16:09

in a corruption akin to Nixon's.

16:11

Mainstream outlets made these adjustments, concessions,

16:13

to quell criticism, to prove they

16:15

were fair, and to restore public

16:17

trust. Bauer says it had the

16:19

opposite effect. There's an increasing perception

16:22

that television news is biased and

16:24

that local news is biased as

16:26

well. Instead of relieving criticisms of

16:28

bias, it landed more credibility to

16:30

the people making them. This is

16:32

exactly the moment where conservative news

16:34

those Richard Vigory newsletters are starting

16:36

to florist. Trust in traditional news

16:39

was falling. News letters offering a

16:41

slanted perspective or proliferating. A perspective

16:43

reinforced by a new crop of

16:45

right-wing politicians and think tanks. And

16:47

in this climate, Bauer says, Americans

16:49

suddenly got a new option, they

16:51

could turn the TV dial somewhere

16:54

else. This is exactly the moment

16:56

where people are starting to tune

16:58

out of watching news because they're

17:00

having more choices. So let's say

17:02

you're eating dinner at like 5

17:04

o'clock, 6 o'clock, you want to

17:06

watch TV. Your choice is news,

17:08

news, or news, basically. Yeah. By

17:11

the early 80s, so but 1980s

17:13

where cable starts to proliferate, if

17:15

you've got cable, you don't have

17:17

to watch one of those big

17:19

three news channels anymore for dinner,

17:21

right? You could watch sports, or

17:23

you could watch a movie or

17:25

something like that. Suddenly, there was

17:28

ESPN, MTV. You could watch hockey,

17:30

although good luck seeing the puck,

17:32

or put Nickelodeon on for your

17:34

kids. So people start consuming less

17:36

news, actually. A lot of times

17:38

people think about it as like

17:40

people switched from mainstream news to

17:42

some ideological news, but really what

17:45

ends up happening is most people

17:47

kind of opt out, and they're

17:49

getting less news than they used

17:51

to. The network news that just

17:53

a few years earlier reached almost

17:55

every American showing them the same

17:57

reality. was now easy to tune

18:00

out. You could unplug from traditional

18:02

news entirely and just absorb the

18:04

angry, alternate, partisan worldview of those

18:06

pamphlets or their ilk. You're consuming

18:08

less news, but all of a

18:10

sudden you're getting all these newsletters

18:12

that are saying, oh, did you

18:14

hear about the equal rights amendment

18:17

and how bad it is? The

18:19

drop in audience for mainstream news

18:21

left an information void. A void

18:23

that alternative media could fill. But it

18:25

didn't, not immediately. For most

18:27

of the 1980s, right-wing

18:29

media remained relatively niche,

18:32

mostly those same products,

18:34

newsletters, magazines, local radio.

18:36

You had to already

18:38

be somewhat politically engaged

18:40

to want to tune in. That was

18:42

about to change, with a new,

18:45

polarizing voice that would become the

18:47

right's first media superstar. And

18:49

the bubble would expand

18:51

exponentially. EIB microphones,

18:54

it's the Rush Limbaugh program

18:56

coming to you live and

18:59

direct from the Limbaugh Institute

19:01

for Advanced Conservative Studies. The

19:03

brash, boisterous radio host Rush

19:06

Limbaugh, had not set out

19:08

to become a right-wing media

19:10

force, but in the late

19:13

1980s, the one-time failed DJ struck

19:15

on a formula for success.

19:17

And it sounded, eerily,

19:19

like a live-action, vigory

19:21

newsletter. in the Democratic Party. Demonizing political

19:24

opponents, sewing distrust in mainstream media.

19:26

Whenever they spot what they think

19:28

is Republican scandal, that's where they

19:30

go. There were conspiracy theories. We

19:33

have been told a polar ice

19:35

capsule melt, and that when this happens,

19:37

sea levels will rise. There are

19:39

so many of these environmental myths,

19:41

and the reason they exist is

19:44

because the environmental movement is the

19:46

new home of the socialist-communist movement

19:48

of the world. And there was culture war

19:50

and racial resentment. I thought white men

19:52

were the new pigs of society.

19:54

Unless of course you want a

19:57

successful and happy marriage, and by

19:59

all means... a white boy. That's right.

20:01

If you want a successful and

20:03

happy marriage, then by all means

20:05

get a white boy. For three

20:08

hours a day, Limbaugh blasted and

20:10

lampooned, Democrats, feminists, gay people, liberals,

20:12

journalists, and Republicans, he didn't feel

20:14

were sufficiently conservative. The fact that

20:16

he could do this so freely,

20:18

was new. A result of the

20:21

Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald

20:23

Reagan scrapping its long-held fairness doctrine.

20:25

The Fairness Doctrine had required news

20:27

programs to seek quote-unquote balance. A

20:29

year after the end of the

20:31

doctrine, Limbaugh's program debuted nationally. And

20:33

unlike the new rights newsletters and

20:36

magazines, with rush, you didn't have

20:38

to take the time to pick

20:40

up and pour through materials sent

20:42

to your home. You could switch

20:44

him on in your car or

20:46

your office and just averse yourself.

20:49

All right, listen up folks, a

20:51

political twisters kicking up across the

20:53

fruited plane, and you need a

20:55

conservative compass to point you to

20:57

the truth. Limbaugh added one more

20:59

ingredient to the formula that would

21:02

define the most powerful right-wing media.

21:04

He again was not a journalist.

21:06

He wasn't fact-checking or looking to

21:08

provide multiple viewpoints, but he also

21:10

wasn't an activist, at least at

21:12

first. From a young age, he

21:15

just wanted to be on the

21:17

radio, but he washed out as

21:19

a DJ at four different stations.

21:21

So... When he finally got this

21:23

last shot, he wasn't seeking to

21:25

drive voters. He wanted advertisers. He's

21:28

got more of an entertainer's demeanor,

21:30

right? He had worked in radio

21:32

as kind of a morning zoo

21:34

crew kind of guy. He understood

21:36

that in order to captivate broadcast

21:38

audiences, you couldn't just disseminate information.

21:41

You had to make them feel

21:43

as though they were getting something

21:45

out of it. And that something

21:47

was entertainment. AJ Bauer at the

21:49

University of Alabama, who studies the

21:51

history of right-wing media, says... Limbaugh

21:54

to his target audience was fun.

21:56

They could listen for hours. Primarily

21:58

kind of a comedy program, not

22:00

necessarily that I would laugh at

22:02

all those jokes today, right? When

22:04

you're listening to it as somebody

22:07

who is sympathetic, you're laughing. Rush

22:09

Limbaugh for most admired man in

22:11

America. Do you have the more

22:13

I railed against the long-haired maggot

22:15

infested dope-smoking protesters? Rush Limbaugh, inventor

22:17

of the term feminazi. Rush Limbaugh,

22:20

your only choice for most admired

22:22

man in America. There's levity. You

22:24

feel a sense of superiority. You

22:26

offered a sense of belonging. One

22:28

person who found this connection from

22:30

Limbaugh at a young age was

22:33

Bauer. Yeah, yeah, I, so my

22:35

mom got divorced in the early

22:37

1990s and would feel really sentimental

22:39

listening to music. And so she

22:41

started listening to Rush Limbaugh and

22:43

Howard Stern while driving the, meeting

22:46

the kids around. And I, as

22:48

a young kid, started listening to

22:50

Rush Limbaugh, was kind of a

22:52

Limbaugh fanatic in the 90s. Really,

22:54

what do you remember from it?

22:56

Well, one thing I remember very

22:58

distinctly is Limbaugh was very much

23:01

against Bill Clinton in 1992 election,

23:03

and I was so connected to

23:05

the idea that Clinton was this

23:07

kind of bad man and that

23:09

conservatism was true and all these

23:11

sorts of things because of my

23:14

daily listening of Rush Limbaugh to

23:16

the point that I was like

23:18

deeply emotionally invested and cried when

23:20

Clinton won. Limbaugh promised, however tongue-in-cheek,

23:22

that he was offering you facts.

23:24

Reliable information. Point you to the

23:27

truth. You could live in sconced

23:29

in the reality he presented. A

23:31

lot of people did. The Rush

23:33

Limbaugh show's audience expanded rapidly from

23:35

just a few hundred thousand listeners

23:37

at a given time to millions.

23:40

Within five years, 17 million a

23:42

week. And as politics became more

23:44

and more central to the radio

23:46

host brand, as his influence grew,

23:48

he tied himself. closer and closer

23:50

to the Republican Party, and vice

23:53

versa. A top GOP congressman, Tom

23:55

DeLay, boasted about the relationship. We

23:57

facts rush. Limbaugh almost 24 hours

23:59

a day. Where do you think

24:01

he gets half of the stuff

24:03

that he puts on the radio

24:06

program? In 1992, Limbaugh openly called

24:08

for listeners to side with President

24:10

George Bush. What I really wanted

24:12

to call about was that I'm

24:14

really having a hard time with

24:16

the presidential election. Bush invited Limbaugh

24:19

to the White House, even carried

24:21

his bags in for him. And

24:23

while I still lost. Two years

24:25

later, congressional Republicans, led by their

24:27

new right leader, Newt Gingrich, won

24:29

control of the House for the

24:32

first time since the 1950s. The

24:34

new class of Republicans celebrated Limbaugh

24:36

as their guest of honor. We'd

24:38

like to nominate and make Rush

24:40

Limbaugh an honorary member of our

24:42

freshman class because surely he helped

24:45

us become the majority. It

24:49

was an intertwining of a

24:51

media figure with political figures

24:53

that would be unthinkable, disqualifying,

24:56

instantly fireable for a journalist

24:58

at any mainstream institution.

25:00

But Limbaugh wasn't a journalist. Even

25:02

as he was at the heart

25:04

of a rapidly expanding media ecosystem.

25:07

Radio broadcasters searching for profits

25:09

sought out their own Limbaugh's.

25:11

Other popular hosts included Sean

25:13

Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck.

25:15

Many stations switched to all conservative

25:18

talk all the time. And the

25:20

radio hosts, competing for audience,

25:22

found the most salacious stories

25:24

in extreme conspiracies brought the

25:27

highest ratings. They leaned in

25:29

further. It turned out that what the

25:31

new right had done for political gain

25:33

could be good entertainment. Focusing on

25:36

outrage, waiting into conspiracy

25:38

theory, villainizing opponents, eroding

25:40

trust in other media, all the building

25:43

a sense of us versus them. And...

25:45

It was a self-reinforcing cycle because politicians

25:47

and media figures echoed the same

25:49

messages. Limbaugh could insinuate that the

25:51

Clintons covered up a corrupt land

25:53

deal by murdering a White House

25:55

aide. And you can read William

25:57

Sapphire in New York Times, dub

25:59

it. Whitewatergate, and the Speaker

26:01

of the House, Newt Gingrich,

26:03

would stoke the theory. You

26:05

can understand why for a

26:07

lot of Americans, and evidenceless

26:09

live seemed true, and for

26:11

people spreading it, there was

26:14

profit and political gain. So,

26:16

the bubble expanded. New websites

26:18

on the early internet, like

26:20

the Judge Report, Newsmax, adopted

26:22

similar characteristics. It was an

26:24

alternate information ecosystem. With one

26:26

flaw. Almost all of it

26:28

was clearly offering opinion, not

26:30

news, no matter how much

26:32

you might absorb from it.

26:34

Limbaugh joked about it. Now

26:36

I don't take sides in

26:38

political races, as you well

26:40

know. That wouldn't be fair.

26:43

It would compromise my objectivity

26:45

as a journalist. And so

26:47

the final big innovation that

26:49

Fox News would bring along,

26:51

cementing the bubble, was really

26:53

that word news. Tell

26:56

us about Fox News and how

26:58

it differed from what had come

27:00

before, or what was the intent

27:02

of that network? What were the

27:04

characteristics of that network? The first

27:06

thing that was different was Roger

27:09

Ailes. This is media historian Andy

27:11

Tucker, who you heard at the

27:13

beginning. She's talking about Fox News

27:15

founder Roger Ailes. He was a

27:17

political animal who came from political

27:19

consulting and campaigning, had worked for

27:21

Ronald Reagan, had worked for Mitch

27:24

McConnell, and now he was the

27:26

head of a news network. There's

27:28

been a lot written and reported

27:30

about Fox, and we're not going

27:32

to dive into a full history,

27:34

but I think this is the

27:37

essential point. From the beginning, Ailes

27:39

had a very clear idea that

27:41

he wanted it to be the

27:43

voice of the right wing that

27:45

was not going to acknowledge it

27:47

was the voice of the right

27:50

wing so that it would sound

27:52

like it was the voice of

27:54

the mainstream. Fox dressed up as

27:56

a traditional media outlet engaged in

27:58

that process of a news gathering

28:00

and self-examination. using the language of

28:02

objective journalism to say that's what

28:05

we do. The mainstream media are

28:07

the ones who are biased. Fox

28:09

famously for years adopted slogans to

28:11

that effect. In fact, fair and

28:13

balanced. And here at Fox News,

28:15

we report, you decide. And here's

28:18

Ailes. The American people are very

28:20

smart. They know the difference between

28:22

news, analysis, commentary, opinion, spin, and

28:24

BS. The other news organizations won't

28:26

tell you the difference. We will.

28:28

This is from a Fox-produced special.

28:30

The channel ran about how unbiased

28:33

it was. From the beginning, Als

28:35

clearly stated the mission of Fox

28:37

News. To report all sides of

28:39

a story, unbiased and unfiltered. But

28:41

in reality, Fox's most watched programs

28:43

followed the same tactics you've heard,

28:46

momenting outrage, villainizing political opponents, creating

28:48

that sense of us versus them.

28:50

Many of its biggest names were

28:52

the same people. Straight from talk

28:54

radio, Ails plucked, Sean Hannity, Glenn

28:56

Beck, and Laura Ingram, among others.

28:59

Providing cover, Fox had a newsroom,

29:01

and it could do good work.

29:03

That led it legitimacy. and made

29:05

it easier for viewers to stay

29:07

locked into the bubble 24 hours

29:09

a day. By the early 2000s,

29:11

Fox was the most watched cable

29:14

news channel, and success added to

29:16

its legitimacy. In 2010, the Obama

29:18

administration granted Fox a coveted front

29:20

row seat at White House briefings

29:22

next to the news networks, as

29:24

though they were engaged in the

29:27

same business. But they never were.

29:29

At that point... Fox was just

29:31

the newest player in an alternate

29:33

media ecosystem that had developed over

29:35

decades. It rose to challenge the

29:37

traditional institutions that had brought news

29:40

to most Americans. Those institutions had

29:42

been set up to gather news,

29:44

and they did it roughly the

29:46

same way. Read a story in

29:48

the New York Times or the

29:50

Wall Street Journal, it'll usually contain

29:52

the same facts, and they're constantly

29:55

hiring each other's reporters. What emerged

29:57

on the right had a different

29:59

purpose. Outreach, entertainment, activism. It makes

30:01

sense why conspiracy theories would flourish

30:03

in that environment. are of course

30:05

partisan sources and manipulative content across

30:08

the spectrum. The news environment is

30:10

muddy, but this basic asymmetry

30:12

was at the heart of

30:14

a growing schism in how

30:17

Americans viewed the world.

30:19

And then suddenly, the

30:21

gap widened. A new

30:24

technology made outreach

30:26

exponentially easier and more

30:28

profitable. the internet, social media,

30:30

and our own psychology send

30:33

the bubble into overdrive. My

30:35

students that I begin to realize

30:37

we're not looking at accidental rumors,

30:40

we're looking at pervasive disinformation.

30:42

It's a constant bombardment

30:44

in which this audience is being

30:47

told that they are under attack. If

30:58

you're a fan of this series and

31:00

interested in more landslide, let me tell

31:03

you some good news. Our first season

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was among the top 25 most listened

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to new podcasts in 2024, according to

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one of the biggest industry sources, Podtrack.

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If these new episodes sustain that level

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of listenership or grow, it will help

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us continue to do more. So... You

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can help by doing what you did

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so well with our first season that

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I'm so grateful for. Share the series,

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rate it, tell your friends to listen,

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and sign up for updates at

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our mailing list at NuanceTales.com. Landslide

31:32

is a production of Nuance Tales.

31:34

It is created, hosted, written, and

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reported by Ben Bradford, edited by

31:39

Noya Carr. Jaycebold is the sound

31:41

designer and engineer. All of the

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music is by Matt Bradford. Landslide

31:46

is produced in partnership with WFAE

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and distributed by the NPR Network,

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at both who have made it possible.

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You can also see a list of

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key sources for this episode at Nuance

31:59

Tales. Thanks so much so much for listening.