Fox and me

 I've been interviewed on TV twice, both time by the local Fox affiliate. Both interviews had to do with human genetics, and there was nothing political. But at the time, I had a lot of ambivalence. I wanted to communicate science to the lay viewer in a way most of my colleagues couldn't be bothered to do. But at some level, I felt like I was lending legitimacy to a pernicious organization. Now, I really feel bad. Fox News has been a major force in the fake news that led to the Capitol invasion and attempted coup. The right-wing propaganda fueling the divisions in our country is primarily sourced from Fox News. Kevin Drum nails it:

"Fox News—not social media, not think tanks—is the primal source of racism, xenophobia, polarization, and reckless lying in American media. Until we somehow put a stop to this, it will be hard to ever recover the country we used to have. Not a perfect country by any stretch, but at least one where we all had a roughly similar idea of what was true and were willing to talk openly about it. Rupert Murdoch has earned billions of dollars for destroying American politics, and he’ll keep doing it until the money hose goes away. Let’s start turning it off." https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2021/01/fox-news-is-the-source-of-all-evil/

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