In an interview for the Guardian last week, MSNBC broadcaster Mehdi Hasan launched a broadside against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. Fox is less of a news channel, Hasan said, than “a propaganda arm of the Republican Party.” Hasan accused Murdoch of overseeing the “degradation of our democracy and media.” His criticisms mirror a general distrust of the mainstream media, according to recent polling, as repellent shock jocks and obvious groupthink dominate the airwaves and newspapers.

Right-wing zealotry promoted by the likes of Fox News host Tucker Carlson continues to dominate the Murdoch media sphere, particularly since Carlson was recently granted access to copious amounts of footage of the January 6 insurrection by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The McCarthy-Carlson bond is a prime example of the corruption of Western media systems, with politicians rewarding their favorite news anchors and vice versa. As faith in news institutions plummets, the need for a fair and free press has never been so vital.

Fox News is currently embroiled in an defamation lawsuit for knowingly spreading falsehoods regarding the 2020 election. The plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems is accusing the network of having defamed its integrity and harmed its reputation when it gave a platform to baseless claims of electoral fraud, many of them promoted by election-denier-in-chief Donald Trump. Fox News anchors Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham knew that the claims were false, but their persistent propaganda to the contrary nevertheless succeeded in convincing around 60 percent of Republicans that the 2020 election results were illegitimate.