(Fox News’ Chris Wallace interviews President Trump.)
By Margaret Sullivan / The Washington Post
Sure, Chris Wallace did a tough Trump interview. But it’s a fig leaf for Fox’s usual sycophancy.
For good reasons, Chris Wallace’s extensive interview with President Trump was widely praised.
Wallace, while remaining respectful and calm, didn’t allow the prevaricator-in-chief to get away with too much. He pushed back firmly, fact-checking Trump in real-time within the interview itself as well as showing viewers the results of more fact-checking performed after the fact. Most notably, Wallace countered Trump’s confidently uttered claim that Joe Biden had called for abolishing the police. There’s no evidence of that, Wallace said so to Trump’s face and later noted that, despite promises to the contrary, the White House never followed up on promises to send him proof of it; because there isn’t any.)
“A tip of the Stetson to Chris Wallace,” tweeted former CBS News anchor and native Texan Dan Rather. “A consummate pro. Tough. Prepared. Fair.”
The interview was praiseworthy, though it really should not be quite so remarkable to see a journalist hold the president’s feet to the fire. (Wouldn’t this have been just another day at the office for the late Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press”?)
Laudable as it was, the Wallace interview also does some insidious harm to truth-telling writ large.
It serves as a journalistic fig leaf for Fox News; something the network’s brass and public relations staff can point to in order to counter the criticism that Fox is a nothing but cheerleader for the president. Call it the “but Chris Wallace!” syndrome.
Sunday may have been a spotlight for Wallace’s chops, but Monday morning things were back to their democracy-damaging normal at the nation’s most popular cable network.
We learned that Tucker Carlson — who took a sudden vacation after justifiably harsh criticism earlier this month — would be back on the air. His extremely mild rebuke of a key staff’s racist and misogynistic behavior, coupled with his own appalling commentary on Sen. Tammy Duckworth (he described the Purple Heart recipient as a coward who hates America) are bygones. Apparently, this kind of thing simply doesn’t matter if the ratings are high enough; and Carlson’s are.
On “Fox & Friends,” the president’s favorite morning show, the Sunday interview got a proud mention (“our very own Chris Wallace”), as it should, but otherwise the hosts, as usual, let the president have his way twisting the facts. They aired a clip in which Trump defends the shockingly high rates of Covid-19 by claiming that it’s because the U.S. is doing more testing (the greatest testing, don’t you know). That’s not the case, as Wallace duly pointed out on his show; but “Fox & Friends” didn’t show that part. Once again, Trump was allowed to get away with misleading the public.
Viewers also were treated to the sound of host Steve Doocy repeating Trump’s usual trashing of factual information he doesn’t like: “We’ve heard, according to the polls — although the president said yesterday, he does not believe the polls, they’re fake polls — the federal response has been poor. …”
Business as usual, in other words.
Sean Hannity, second only to Carlson in ratings popularity on Fox, is devoting much of his time and energy to Portland, Ore., using alarmist video of unrest in a city where federal officials — some in camouflage without badges to identify them as law enforcement — have seized racial-justice protestors on the street and detained them without charges or record of an arrest.
CNN’s Brian Stelter, who is writing a book about the culture of Fox News, suggested in his Monday newsletter that the Trump administration and Fox’s talk shows have picked Portland as a new stage for Trump’s ‘Law and Order’ show: “Programs like ‘Fox & Friends’ have been prioritizing urban violence over the Covid-19 crisis for several weeks; Portland was just the latest news peg.”
During the Wallace interview, Trump criticized Fox News, which he claims to have been disappointed in since co-founder Roger Ailes stepped down in disgrace a few years ago. He professes, at times, to prefer the upstart One America News.
But let’s face it, Trump has absolutely nothing to complain about with Fox, which — for the most part — is a water-carrier for a president who consistently lies and attacks democratic norms. It’s not going too far to call a lot of what Fox offers by its proper name: propaganda.
That Chris Wallace swoops in, on rare occasions, to show how Fox journalism might be done with integrity doesn’t change that one iota.
By providing cover to Fox’s dependable sycophants and cheerleaders, he may even make things worse.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
