“The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol … could not have existed in a country that hadn’t been radicalized by the likes of [Fox News hosts] Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage,” wrote Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan.
But are the airwaves of any democracy free of this kind of harmful propaganda and downright fiction? The United Kingdom, for one, comes pretty close.
Though the UK media scene is defined in part by a freewheeling and often partisan tabloid press with its own share of conspiracy theories, its TV news channels largely frame their coverage down the middle, with broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV maintaining high levels of public trust. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News is no longer on air in the country after failing to generate a significant viewer base.
A big factor in this is media regulator Ofcom, which enforces rules on impartiality and accuracy for all news broadcasters. Those who breach the rules…