Media attacks destroyed the right’s immunity to false information

Evidence

Charles Sykes, a conservative radio talk show host, took stock: his audience “has been conditioned to reject reporting from news sites outside of the conservative media ecosystem.” The price, he said, “turned out to be far higher than [he] imagined.” He continued, “The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize these outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled.” — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 262

These conspiracist charges have an impact. “Nearly all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (92%) think that traditional news outlets report false or misleading stories at least sometimes,” and “more than two-thirds (65%) say fake news is usually reported because ‘people have an agenda.’ ” The comprehensive way in which conspiracism denies standing to the press has now raised alarm even among conservatives who recognize that they went too far in the past in their attacks on the press. Charles Sykes, a conservative radio talk show host, took stock: his audience “has been conditioned to reject reporting from news sites outside of the conservative media ecosystem.” The price, he said, “turned out to be far higher than [he] imagined.” He continued, “The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize these outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled.” — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 262

Categorization

• SEED: A classic unintended-consequences irony: the strategy to make audiences skeptical instead made them gullible — strong essay material on feedback loops in media distrust.
• DEEPTHINKING: The quasi-confession that training audiences to be ‘savvy skeptics’ produced easy dupes is a profound paradox about how criticism of media inculcates epistemic vulnerability.
• QUESTION: A conservative media figure’s self-diagnosis: did creating ‘savvy skepticism’ genuinely backfire, or was the audience never actually being trained for discernment at all?
• XREF: This parallels the Jan 6 / alternate-reality literature and theories of blowback; also echoes the dynamic where manufactured cynicism about expertise becomes a vulnerability (echoes of Frankfurt-school worries). — connects to: Removing editorial gatekeepers opened the way for conspiracy entrepreneurs; The global religious right weaponizes distrust of journalism as a defense shield — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 966
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 262