State of the Fourth Estate, Part I: Carl Cameron, 20 Year Fox News Veteran, Chief White House Correspondent

In this week’s edition of The Media Roundtable, Dan sits down with “Campaign Carl,” Chief White House Correspondent and 20 Year Fox News Veteran, Carl Cameron.

Cameron takes us behind the scenes from 1996 when he started at Fox News and the change from an honest pursuit of “fair and balanced” to the present self-proclaimed, approach to “Standing up for what’s right”. Carl has interviewed every US President since Ronald Reagan and pulls no punches in this candid and sometimes scathing retelling of his experience. 

While Fox may be the network that everyone loves to hate, we discuss the pervasive challenges in the Fourth Estate. As our journalistic institutions become increasingly partisan, chasing attention and competing with infinite online competitors, the loss of trust in media, and the inability to hold power to account is now causing cracks in the system and putting our republic in jeopardy. Carl describes the broader issue as “malicious partisanship of lies mixed with a business model that is solely focused on the numbers.”

As brands retreat from the news format and quality journalism retreats behind paywalls, we have to wonder what happens to a country where only the most wealthy citizens can afford quality journalism. As the attention economy drives ad-supported media in a race to the bottom, polarization, misinformation, and violence increase. 

It may be time for the business community to step in and raise the bar on ad-supported news and opinion journalism.  

Listen to the Episode