Fox News Has Always Lied to Old People. This Time It May Kill Them.

Fox News is not news. I have been saying and writing this since Rupert Murdoch launched the network in 1996, but today, it is more important than ever to understand. Fox is, and always has been, a right-wing propaganda outlet disguised as a cable news network.

Sure, CNN, MSNBC, and the network news programs are often filled with all manner of nonsense and misinformation. Indeed, Donald Trump likely would not be in the White House if Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN, hadn’t aired Trump’s falsehood-filled speeches and hired know-nothing flacks to flatter the candidate in a mindless dedication to “bothsideism.” While other networks may be craven and insufficiently concerned with accuracy, Fox is different. It is specifically designed to disinform its viewers and distort our national discourse.

With the largest and most devoted audience in cable news, Fox’s commitment to deluding its audience has long been a barrier to intelligent discussion. Fox has devoted itself to climate denialism, racist attacks on immigrants, and the celebration of economic inequality, to name just three. During its first two decades, Murdoch could depend on the late right-wing ideologue and television impresario Roger Ailes to navigate Fox’s ideological direction. But since Ailes’s 2016 departure following a bevy of sexual harassment and exploitation scandals, its unofficial program director has been Donald J. Trump.