Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is the focus of an in-depth three-part report by The New York Times that was published online on Saturday and will appear in the Sunday newspaper.
Part one is titled "How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable."
"In the years since, Mr. Carlson has constructed what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news — and also, by some measures, the most successful. Though he frequently declares himself an enemy of prejudice — “We don’t judge them by group, and we don’t judge them on their race,” Mr. Carlson explained to an interviewer a few weeks before accusing impoverished immigrants of making America dirty — his show teaches loathing and fear. Night after night, hour by hour, Mr. Carlson warns his viewers that they inhabit a civilization under siege — by violent Black Lives Matter protesters in American cities, by diseased migrants from south of the border, by refugees importing alien cultures, and by tech companies and cultural elites who will silence them, or label them racist, if they complain," the newspaper reported.
Carlson's support for Trump's self-coup attempt was also a focus of the exposé.
"Since the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Carlson has become the most visible and voluble defender of those who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol to keep Donald J. Trump in office, playing down the presence of white nationalists in the crowd and claiming the attack 'barely rates as a footnote,'" the newspaper reported. "Last April, Mr. Carlson set off yet another uproar, borrowing from a racist conspiracy theory known as 'the great replacement' to argue that Democrats were deliberately importing 'more obedient voters from the third world' to 'replace' the current electorate and keep themselves in power. But a Times analysis of 1,150 episodes of his show found that it was far from the first time Mr. Carlson had done so."
Part two is titled, "How Tucker Carlson Reshaped Fox News — and Became Trump’s Heir."
Part 3 is an interactive media story. Reporter Nick Confessore posted a thread on the project, titled "American Nationalist."
Today, @nytimes is publishing \u201cAmerican Nationalist,\u201d our 3-part investigation into the fall and rise of Tucker Carlson and the transformation of American conservatism. Part 1 will appear in Sunday\u2019s paper. A on our story and findings:https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-republican-party.html\u00a0\u2026— Nick Confessore (@Nick Confessore) 1651342140
The story of Tucker Carlson is also the story of how American conservatism evolved from Reagan to Trump \u2014 the triumph of the nativist current on the right, and the shrinking boundary between mainline politics and the cranks and conspiracy theorists of QAnon.— Nick Confessore (@Nick Confessore) 1651342305
This isn\u2019t an opinion or a take. It\u2019s a fact \u2014 supported by our content analysis of 1,150 episodes of \u201cTucker Carlson Tonight\u201d by @karenyourish @dawncai624 @larrybuch and their colleagues @nytgraphics. That's Part 3 of our series.https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-tonight.html\u00a0\u2026— Nick Confessore (@Nick Confessore) 1651342462
