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Just tell it like it is.
It seems so simple, yet American media companies are failing miserably at their most basic duty: to truthfully report the news.
This year’s Gallup survey, released in October, put trust in media at its lowest-ever rating since the polling began. Asked if they trust media, a record-high 39% of U.S. adults said they have absolutely “none at all.”
It’s no wonder Tucker Carlson is thriving since Fox News canceled his top-rated prime time show in April. Americans want authenticity, and few are better at delivering the news unfiltered than Carlson.
The popular cable TV host first turned to Twitter, now X, before announcing Monday the launch of Tucker Carlson Network. The new venture will distribute Carlson’s interviews, commentaries, and other videos to paying subscribers at a cost of $72 per year. (Full disclosure: I signed up as a founding member over the weekend.)
>>> Tucker Carlson Blasts Corporate Media Lies, Launches New Video Subscription Service as Alternative
Even though Fox News hasn’t revealed the rationale for its decision—Carlson, 54, said Monday that he still doesn’t know—that hasn’t stopped him from shifting gears and finding his niche by connecting directly with his audience.
It’s not exactly a novel approach, even for Carlson. In 2010, with business partner Neil Patel, he created the Daily Caller, a news site that quickly rivaled and then surpassed many established media outlets. (Patel, along with Justin Wells, form the leadership team of the new Tucker Carlson Network.)
Two of Carlson’s former Fox News colleagues, Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly, found their footing after decamping from highly rated TV shows. Today, they’ve built their own media companies.
And it’s not just media stars who are finding success. The trend also extends to members of Congress. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and co-host Ben Ferguson have one of the most popular podcasts, “The Verdict With Ted Cruz,” which they’ve grown in partnership with iHeart over the past year.
The common denominator is authenticity.
In an age of artificial intelligence and deep fakes, Americans are craving the truth and an unfiltered host to deliver the news. Carlson understands this and vows to make it the mission of his work.
“I’m going to tell the unadorned truth,” Carlson said Monday on Sirius XM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
“I hope gently and in as least offensive way as I possibly can, but I’m going to tell that truth until the day I die,” he said. “And I really mean that. I’m going to try to do it in my personal life, too. It’s one of my things that I’ve resolved to do until I die because I think that’s the answer.”
Now imagine if every journalist operated by that same principle. Those record-low polling numbers might start to reverse.
Don’t count on it.
After beginning Monday’s interview with Carlson on the topic of Fox News, Kelly shifted gears to explore corporate media’s failures. Carlson’s explanation is spot on:
There’s a need for people who are honest [and] not always right. I’ll speak for myself: I’ve been wrong a lot. I have some views that in retrospect turned out to be stupid. I know I’ll have more of those.
But the audience can tell if you’re trying to tell the truth and that’s the main thing they want—your commitment to honesty, imperfect as it may be. If they see other news organizations that aren’t even trying, whose whole existing is about manipulating you, the public, into joining some program that’s bad for you and your family, then of course there’s going to be a massive hunger for something better than that. It doesn’t take much to be better than that, by the way.
The second you start to see your mission as shaping the public’s views on something, or getting everyone on board for whatever project they’ve dreamed up this week, you lose all curiosity because you’re so mission-driven. … And that really is the way they see the world, all these companies.
Then you miss all the amazing stuff that’s going on around the world. You stop being curious. And that is the thing that strikes me about corporate media is their incuriosity, their total disinterest and lack of interest in anything that’s happening. And so much is happening. The whole world is resetting and exploding in some place. It’s a fascinating time and they miss all of it. It’s the same story on a loop.
That lack of curiosity leads to groupthink and laziness. It’s why so many media outlets are indistinguishable from one another today—and why there’s such an appetite for voices like Carlson to provide an alternative.
Carlson’s prediction that within five years outlets such as Axios and NBC News won’t exist might be too optimistic, but he’s right that “the whole edifice is crumbling.” The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos (net worth: $170 billion), is asking up to 240 employees to quit voluntarily. If well-heeled media companies are struggling, it’s a sign of what’s to come.
>>> Related: More Americans Need to Stand Up to the Left’s Insanity, Tucker Carlson Says at Heritage Foundation Gala
The growth of independent media ventures such as Carlson’s provides hope that we’ll have “more voices, not less,” as the great Andrew Breitbart often said.
I won’t always agree with Carlson—I’ve publicly disagreed in the past, and wasn’t always right—but the curiosity he demands will lead naturally to different conclusions. There’s an audience of heterodox thinkers and everyday Americans who crave something more than what the corporate media offers. We’re blessed to live at a time when so many choices exist.
Congratulations to Tucker Carlson. For the sake of our country’s future, let’s hope his new venture is a success.
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