I watched Tucker Carlson, a man whose show I once never missed, sit in Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s home and insist that Russia’s economy is bigger than Britain’s. When the former British Cabinet minister told him Russia’s GDP is smaller, Carlson replied that GDP is not the only measure of an economy, as one analysis of the exchange recounted. It was a small moment, but it told me how far the anchor I admired has traveled.
When I arrived from India in 1982, I trusted American broadcast news far more than the partisan press I had left behind. Peter Jennings reported without preaching, and Larry King let his guests talk. Decades later, most of cable news had become opinion programming, yet Carlson still earned my full hour each night. He booked guests who disagreed with him and let them finish, and the Fox format, with its producers, standards department, and lawyers, kept that method within limits.
