We always wondered about CNN’s Brian Stelter and if his job really was to watch Fox News 24 hours a day or if he had some other responsibilities sprinkled in there. But don’t forget about poor Kat Abughazaleh of Media Matters for America, who has opened up to the New Yorker about what it’s like to watch Tucker Carlson for work.
“Abughazaleh films her roundups on Fridays and posts them to TikTok, where she’s building a following. Her most popular video, which includes a clip of a Fox News host comparing Washington, D.C., to Somalia, has just under a million views.” Carlson, on the other hand, regularly brings in more than 3 million viewers every single night.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to watch Tucker Carlson for work, here you go:https://t.co/fuJtRO701u pic.twitter.com/0fcQLcTl3H
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) February 25, 2023
We have wondered that, so let’s take a look:
To Abughazaleh, the often-ludicrous quality of Carlson’s show is exactly what makes it so dangerous. “People need to know that the scary things are stupid as well,” she said. “They either go all in on ‘Oh, my God, this is so funny’ and ‘Fox News is technically entertainment,’ or they go all in on ‘This is so scary, blah blah blah.’ It’s both things. Two things can be true at once.” At the same time, perhaps because she follows him so closely, Abughazaleh is skeptical of the conventional wisdom that Carlson is one of the most powerful people in the United States. She and the other Media Matters researchers all seemed convinced that it was more the 8 p.m. Fox time slot that bestowed power. For millions of viewers, “it’s just a Pavlovian response to put on Fox News at eight o’clock,” Lawrence said. “Tucker needs the eight-o’clock hour on Fox News way more than Fox News needs Tucker.”
Um, no. Media Matters needs Tucker. Carlson earned that 8 p.m. slot. and continues to earn it with top ratings.
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Apparently, she’s 23 years old and conventionally good-looking.
“I decided that I’m just sick of ignoring some of the weird shit people say about me, and I’m going to call it out whenever horny old men try to embarrass me or make me feel creeped out,” she said. Abughazalah is blond and telegenic—exactly the sort of woman that her conservative Twitter haters might be used to seeing when they tune in to cable news. Her YouTube audience is seventy-five-per-cent male, Abughazaleh told me, and on TikTok it’s sixty-five per cent. It’s not so much that Abughazaleh is seeking male attention; it’s more that she’s using herself as live bait—a way to point out misogyny and sexism in real time, or to simply tweak the conservatives who hate-follow her. In November of last year, she briefly joined the conservative-dating Web site the Right Stuff and tweeted about her experience. She wrote at the time, “The dms were very boring which just confirms the belief that conservative guys have no game.”
Yeah.
So you've spent the last two years of your life getting paid to watch Tucker every night with the goal of getting him de-platformed and he became the most watched cable news host in history, had Fox News widely expand his show, and definitely has no idea who you are. Sick life! https://t.co/fDI7L5jpIa
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 25, 2023
Tucker Carlson is so powerful that people are literally making entire careers off of watching his show and tweeting about it. Imagine having that kind of clout.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 25, 2023
the incentives are all backwards. If he were cancelled, she would immediately be a nobody
the better he does, the more she can leech of his attention
the last thing she wants is for him de-platformed
— Karlstack (@realChrisBrunet) February 25, 2023
MMFA has never hid their goal of de-platform conservatives though. And they would just move on to the next top conservative media star
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 25, 2023
Getting paid to watch the most popular cable news show in history like he’s some kind of freak show says a lot about the bubble these people live in.
— John J (@JohnJtheSane) February 25, 2023
Is her profile pic a dorm room?
— Pauly in Indy (@paulytwall) February 25, 2023
The Atlantic doesn't even have 500K subscribers in total, whereas Tucker has over 3.5M viewers each night.
What a ridiculous career @abughazalehkat has.
— Slats Callahan (@SlatsCallahan) February 25, 2023
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) February 25, 2023
This is a job?
— Univers Officer (@bewicksong) February 25, 2023
We too thought that Media Matters’ goal was to get Carlson booted off the air and then take down the rest of Fox News. But instead she makes TikTok videos? Great job if you can get it. Though at 23, she’s older than we suspected a senior MMFA researcher to be.
Related:
Media Matters CEO freaks TF OUT in thread because Lefties no longer control Twitter and the narrativehttps://t.co/7YnOyw05tV
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 28, 2022
