Over the course of the Trump presidency, Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik had become steadily more and more unglued. Now, during an appearance on CNN’s so-called Reliable Sources on Sunday, Zurawik was teed up by fill-in host John Avlon to attack Fox News. And Zurawik didn’t disappoint, suggesting CNN’s heavyweight competitor was a “danger to democracy” and needed to be targeted by either federal government abuse of power, or by repeated smears from the rest of the liberal media.
“[W]hen we saw also in recent days Fox News host trying to double down on the big lie, but also change its definition. Laura Ingraham in particular, saying that the big lie is that the existence of systemic racism itself,” Avlon questioned the rabid Fox hater.
Zurawik proceeded to boast about his own career and how he’s leveraged that to bash and smear Fox News from the pages of the Baltimore Sun:
You know, I don't think it is ever been more important – and I’ve been doing this for a long time – for media critics like me to call out Fox repeatedly for this. I've been writing columns saying, “Look, this was founded as a political tool by Roger Ailes, Fox was founded but it behaved in a quasi-fashion, did some news. Since Donald Trump, it has completely become a tool of propaganda.”
From there, Zurawik demanded that the industry “shouldn't even treat it like the press anymore” and insisted “they have news in their title which is to mock the name of news.” That’s when things got ratcheted up. “We have to call them out when they do this because we see how incredibly destructive this is to democracy,” he sneered.
Adding: “There is no doubt, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News are now a danger to democracy and they should be treated that way.”
Zurawik’s prescription for dealing with Fox News was to have the Biden administration and the federal government abuse its power and do away with the network. And if that didn’t work, it was the media’s responsibility:
If they won’t do it in the federal government challenging licenses or any way that they can do it there regulation, we have to keep doing it in the press. We have to keep pounding away it. And call them out the way they're being called out right now by this production.
Zurawik’s position on targeting media outlets this way had done a complete 180 since Biden took office.
In 2017, he claimed that a tweet from then-President Trump featuring a WWE scene was a threat to the lives of people on CNN. “You can kill somebody in seven seconds. That's part of the problem with social media, is people don't think about what they say. And they put out hateful, nasty stuff like this,” he shrieked at the time.
He even equated it to the acts of Nazi Germany. “Look, you take somebody and slam them physically to the ground, you put a logo on identifying them. That’s what fascists did in the ’30s to people,” he argued, effectively minimizing Nazi atrocities.
You became what you hated. Good going, David.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Reliable Sources
April 25, 2021
11:11:29 a.m. Eastern(…)
JOHN AVLON: And David, just final to you, when we saw also in recent days Fox News host trying to double down on the big lie, but also change its definition. Laura Ingraham in particular, saying that the big lie is that the existence of systemic racism itself. David, I want to get your take on it and then Errol I'll give you the final word.
DAVID ZURAWIK: You know, I don't think it is ever been more important – and I’ve been doing this for a long time – for media critics like me to call out Fox repeatedly for this. I've been writing columns saying, “Look, this was founded as a political tool by Roger Ailes, Fox was founded but it behaved in a quasi-fashion, did some news. Since Donald Trump, it has completely become a tool of propaganda.”
We shouldn't even treat it like the press anymore. They have news in their title which is to mock the name of news. We have to call them out when they do this because we see how incredibly destructive this is to democracy.
There is no doubt, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News are now a danger to democracy and they should be treated that way. If they won’t do it in the federal government challenging licenses or any way that they can do it there regulation, we have to keep doing it in the press. We have to keep pounding away it. And call them out the way they're being called out right now by this production.
AVLON: Well, pursue to the truth is a core responsibility.
(…)
