Brian Stelter calls Jesse Watters' primetime show Fox News' bottom-up strategy, says network is 'hurting' the GOP
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Responsible for writing the major expose book on Fox News, journalist Brian Stelter recently addressed the shocking appointment of Jesse Watters to replace former host Tucker Carlson.
Stelter, who authored the recently released 'Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy', has revealed that Watters' new primetime show was born out of the network's new strategy.
He also went on to blame the network for affecting the results of the Republican party, including the recent big loss in Virginia.
Fox News and its 'bottom-up' strategy
The author appeared on MSNBC's 'The ReidOut' hosted by Joy Read following the release of his book. Reid went on to question him on Fox's strategy after playing a montage of 'The Five' hosts Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters.
The montage included widely criticized views of Gutfeld claiming a Civil War to be a solution to America's problems and Watters' rant about Arab Americans and Muslims.
"Is it a bottom-up thing?" Reid asked, adding, "Is this the audience craves this and so Fox serves it, or are they engineering this kind of necrophilic attitude toward American culture and divisiveness? Are they engineering it or are they just taking in what their audience wants?”
"In the Roger Ailes era, it was top-down," Stelter responded, referring to the former CEO of Fox News. He added, "But now, as you said, it is bottom-up. It is now driven by the audience. The audience is in charge, which is a scary prospect sometimes, even though I love our viewers right now, Joy."
The journalist also brought up a chyron displayed by MSNBC about host Watters.
"I agree with your banner a moment ago," he said, before adding, "Jesse Watters has taken over as the Fox primetime extremist. They think they are, quote, “respecting the audience,” and that’s the quote that comes up time, and time again in the treasure trove of emails from 2020."
He also added, "They think they’re respecting the audience by giving the audience what they want, but that’s actually disrespectful And you know what? It’s hurt the GOP."
View this post on Instagram
Brian Stelter claims Fox News responsible for the GOP's loss
Last Tuesday, November 7, Virginia decided to go all blue by not just voting Democrats for the House of Delegates but also for the Senate. The state's governor Glenn Youngkin who was speculated to be a presidential nomination, suffered a great hurdle in his unstarted race to the White House.
Stelter seemed to believe that this hit taken by the GOP could have been caused by Fox News.
"Look at what happened to the off-year elections on Tuesday," he noted.
"I would argue that Fox is actually sometimes hurting the Republican Party that it thinks it’s helping, and that’s an interesting dynamic going into 2024," the author said.