When News Evolves to 'Angry Realism' and 'Frustration Fiction' Trust Becomes Irrelevant

Roger Ailes respected that a news audience could lose trust. But when news becomes entertainment, trust becomes irrelevant. 

The late Roger Ailes, founder and former CEO of Fox News, was known for his support of conservative causes and his belief in the power of the media to influence public opinion. He was also known for his willingness to use any means necessary to achieve his goals, including the use of disinformation and propaganda. In his book, "The Loudest Voice in the Room," Gabriel Sherman describes how Ailes would instruct his anchors to present a biased and often false view of the news in order to support Ailes’ own political beliefs and those of his boss, Rupert Murdoch.

Ailes was also a shrewd businessman who understood the importance of maintaining the trust of his audience. He knew that if viewers believed that Fox News was providing false or misleading information, they would stop watching. He would often discipline or fire hosts who went too far in their opinions or who were caught presenting false information. It’s that lesson that makes his firing of Glenn Beck different from the recent firing of Tucker Carlson. You might conclude Fox News and Fox Corp. management either forgot or ignored Ailes’ lesson. However, lies and disinformation did not lead to a loss of trust, nor did it cause a decline in audience as Carlson, Maria Bartiromo and other Fox News hosts delivered a barrage of opinions riddled with lies and deceit.

As redacted sections of emails and texts become public, they’ll likely disclose Carlson’s inappropriate comments expressing his distaste for the Murdochs and other Fox executives. Without that impetus, Carlson may still be spewing his lies. The danger being ignored today is not the audiences’ unwillingness to separate truth from fiction but that it’s entertainment they want to fulfill their need for “angry realism” and “frustration fiction”.

When entertainment is presented as news it becomes addictive, driving an audience that’s hungry for more entertainment down rabbit holes. Gamers trained to immerse themselves in the action take their experiences off-screen and into the real world armed with AK-47 weapons, into the homes of Congressional leaders with hammers in hand or to Washington armed and ready to overthrow an election.

Neil Postman, a cultural critic and media theorist, argued in his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" that the news media had become more concerned with entertainment than with informing the public. He believed that the use of news commentators to present opinions, even when those opinions were based on lies and disinformation, was a dangerous trend that could lead to the erosion of democracy.

Postman’s closing words in “Amusing Ourselves to Death” captures todays reality with a caveat. Postman wrote: “What afflicted the people…was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking.” For today’s reality, I’m changing the quote to “What afflicts the people…is not that they are getting angry instead of thinking, but that they do not know what they are angry about and why they have stopped thinking.”

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