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Emmy Griffin: What Is Good Journalism?

Political commentator Tucker Carlson has made several questionable choices since being let go from Fox News two and a half years ago, but one stark reality is that his current brand of journalism is perverted and cowardly.

For example, he asked no hard questions of tyrants like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. While this can be written off as Carlson wanting access to these figures in the future, other interviews — such as this one with Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper, or this one with chauvinist Andrew Tate — gave conservatives pause. Under the guise of “just asking questions,” Carlson began to make clear his new position on the ideological spectrum, and it’s turning rather ugly.

Along with whitewashing and making palatable the views of rulers and pundits who would be happy to see America either burn or undergo a cankerous metamorphosis, Carlson has also declared that he is against Christian Zionism and that Christians who support Israel are doing so under a false sense of duty.

Where is the line drawn between “just asking questions” and promoting deleterious motives, worldviews, and ideologies? Earlier this summer, Carlson asked one of his interview subjects, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, some pointed questions because Carlson was worried that America was getting into a war with Iran.

So, he played hardball with Senator Cruz — an America First constitutionalist and originalist — but massaged Putin and Pezeshkian, who are tyrants, and Tate, who is a misogynist pimp and alleged rapist? Seems like a great strategy for clicks and a poor strategy for the betterment of the U.S. as a whole.

Well, that journalistic façade was officially dropped after Carlson’s recent interview with Nick Fuentes, a podcaster who promotes white supremacist tropes like, “Blacks need to be imprisoned, for the most part.” This was nothing short of a failure in journalism.

Carlson didn’t push back. In fact, he seemingly whitewashed who Fuentes is and what he stands for.

Fuentes is pro-raping women. He thinks that women in politics are whores. He’s a white ethnocentrist who believes that segregation was better for Americans. He is firmly on the blame-the-Jews-for-everything bandwagon. Yet what does a non-informed listener glean when listening to this interview? That Fuentes — a bombastic, single, childless man — makes some good points and has the country’s best interests at heart.

Carlson can interview whomever he wants. We live in America, where we value freedom of speech. What many of us object to is Carlson’s lack of journalistic integrity. It is a manipulation to paint Fuentes as anything but a despicable person who is severely off the rails when it comes to Christianity, politics, and culture.

The American people want trustworthy news sources that provide accurate information. The Leftmedia has long had a dearth of journalistic integrity because it’s married to certain ideologies and talking points. It lies and distorts facts in order to do so. Carlson isn’t necessarily lying in his interviews, but he isn’t exposing the truth either.

One begins to wonder: Why?

Carlson is not the only pundit who has gone flying wildly off the rails, but he is one of the most egregious examples of right-leaning journalism gone awry. As a former Fox News host who built credibility based on his career there, Carlson has considerable name recognition. He was considered mainstream. However, can he still be considered a trusted voice if he promotes men like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, both of whom represent an element of the unhinged Right that is just as bad as the progressive woke figures of the Left?

There needs to be standards for integrity and courage in journalism. We need to hold everyone to those standards. Carlson seems to have misplaced both.



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