Over decades, with that false promise accepted as gospel by millions of devotees, Fox News radicalized a nation and spawned more extreme successors such as Newsmax and One America News.
Day after day, hour after hour, Fox gave its viewers something that looked like news or commentary but far too often lacked sufficient adherence to a necessary ingredient: truth.
Birtherism. The caravan invasion. Covid denialism. Rampant election fraud. All of these found a comfortable home at Fox.
In the Trump era, the network — now out of favor for not being quite as shameless as the president demands — was his best friend and promoter. So to put it bluntly: The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol on Wednesday could not have existed in a country that hadn’t been radicalized by the likes of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
"The pro-Trump media world peddled the lies that fueled the Capitol mob. Fox News led the way" The Washington Post (January 7, 2021)
• Published following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6.
“

"Fair and balanced" was the original Fox News lie, one of the rotten planks that built the foundation for Wednesday's democratic disaster.
Over decades, with that false promise accepted as gospel by millions of devotees, Fox News radicalized a nation and spawned more extreme successors such as Newsmax and One America News.
Day after day, hour after hour, Fox gave its viewers something that looked like news or commentary but far too often lacked sufficient adherence to a necessary ingredient: truth.
Birtherism. The caravan invasion. Covid denialism. Rampant election fraud. All of these found a comfortable home at Fox.
In the Trump era, the network — now out of favor for not being quite as shameless as the president demands — was his best friend and promoter. So to put it bluntly: The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol on Wednesday could not have existed in a country that hadn’t been radicalized by the likes of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage.

— Margaret Sullivan (journalist)

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets ""Fair and balanced" was the original Fox News lie, one of the rotten planks that built the foundation for Wednesday's democratic disaster.
Over decades, with that false promise accepted as gospel by millions of devotees, Fox News radicalized a nation and spawned more extreme successors such as Newsmax and One America News.
Day after day, hour after hour, Fox gave its viewers something that looked like news or commentary but far too often lacked sufficient adherence to a necessary ingredient: truth.
Birtherism. The caravan invasion. Covid denialism. Rampant election fraud. All of these found a comfortable home at Fox.
In the Trump era, the network — now out of favor for not being quite as shameless as the president demands — was his best friend and promoter. So to put it bluntly: The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol on Wednesday could not have existed in a country that hadn’t been radicalized by the likes of Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage." in the context of ""The pro-Trump media world peddled the lies that fueled the Capitol mob. Fox News led the way" The Washington Post (January 7, 2021)
• Published following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Margaret Sullivan (journalist)" (Quotes, 2020–2024) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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Margaret Sullivan (journalist)

About Margaret Sullivan (journalist)

Margaret M. Sullivan is an American journalist. She is a former Public Editor of The New York Times, serving as the "readers' representative" and reporting directly to Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. She was the newspaper's fifth Public Editor, or ombudsman, after Daniel Okrent, Byron Calame, Clark Hoyt, and Arthur S. Brisbane, and was the first woman to hold the post. She began her tenure on September 1, 2012. She then became the media columnist for The Washington Post for six years, with her column running from May 22, 2016 to August 21, 2022. Since January 2023, she has written a weekly media and politics column for The Guardians US website. Earlier in her career she worked for The Buffalo News, where she was editor and vice-president.