I talk with Carl Cameron, who was one of the first people hired at Fox News in 1995 and worked at the right-wing cable news channel for 22 years, about what he's doing now working for Front Page Live, a liberal news site. We talk about what it was like to work at Fox News, and how covering campaigns from the road gave Carl the independence from Roger Ailes and others that he wanted. Carl is unsparing in his criticism of President Trump, and weighs in on whether Kamala Harris has a clear core rationale for her candidacy.
I mention during the intro that I don't quite buy the argument that the right wing is ahead of the left in its use of the Internet. But I wasn't thinking at the time that I talked to Carl about the ways that reporters like Charlie Warzel -- who was on this podcast last fall -- have detailed the rise of the online right, both on Twitter and through various websites, which still in many ways revolve around the Drudge Report.
Charlie described the online right this way in 2017: "There’s really no substantive debate. It’s about narratives and it’s about the media. It is about the different medium that all these messages go through and about setting agendas in terms of conversations that you have. It’s more about playing with the media to get influence."
Cameron's site, Front Page Live, is run by Joe Romm, who has a long resume in the world of progressive online publishing, including his role as founder of the "Climate Progress" page at Think Progress. Romm wrote a book last year called "How to Go Viral and Reach Millions," in which he writes on page 23: "An election is not some abstract logical exercise in determining the 'truth' of who is most qualified or who has the best policies. Most voters, especially those who aren't hard-core partisans, do not have the time or interest to assess which policies are superior for various complex social problems, such as health care or poverty or terrorism or the opioid epidemic."
Romm advocates, instead, for progressive politicians to have "a message that triggers the right emotions ... by telling a simple, compelling story."
So that gives us a bit more context as to what Front Page Live is aiming to do.
Outro Music: "To Be" by FoxWarren
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Fox News' Carl Cameron Is Now Working For a Liberal Website?