Daily Caller gone wild: Tucker Carlson's site descends into far-right weirdness

[DonViejo]

A former burlesque dancer with racist connections is just one symptom of the Daily Caller’s descent into weirdness

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD
11.10.2017 • 4:58 AM

For many decades, conservative media outlets were known for offering a blend of Christian-style moralizing and anti-government rants. Donald Trump’s conquest of the Republican Party, based on a platform of lies, conspiracy theories, and coded appeals to racism has changed all that.

Much of the political press has focused on the emergence of Breitbart News, the online publication once again headed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, as the voice of a new pugnacious nationalism eager to defy social and political taboos. But it's not alone. The Daily Caller, Breitbart's leading rival in the right-wing online space, has undergone a similar transformation.

The Daily Caller’s genesis dates back to 2009, when its founder, the writer and television host Tucker Carlson, made the argument that conservative journalism was too sloppy with facts, and overly focused on opinion and commentary rather than reporting.

In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference that year, Carlson proclaimed the New York Times as a model for the right, even though he saw it as horribly biased. “It’s a paper that actually cares about accuracy,” he said. “Conservatives need to build institutions that mirror those institutions.” The audience literally began booing him.

“At the core of their news-gathering operation is gathering news," Carlson argued. "And conservatives need to do the same.”

Early in its existence, the Caller actually had some news scoops exposing the misdeeds of both Republican and Democratic elected officials. But according to people familiar with the site's operations, editors decided to push a more strident right-wing line in order to drive traffic numbers, even as the Caller continued doing original reporting.

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https://www.salon.com/2017/11/10/daily-caller-gone-wild-tucker-carlsons-site-descends-into-far-right-weirdness/

[underpants]

1. Fact based Tucker?

BTW we still have burlesque?

[frazzled]

2. It's all about the clicks

And clicks mean money. And outrageous things get the clicks (forget those boring, fact-filled, explanatory articles ... it's the outraged diatribes and shock headlines that people can't resist, whether people are for or against the content, whether we want them to be true or know them to be absolutely false).

It's why even on our side we get these scream headlines in our email every single day from Democratic politicians or groups: "Medicare GONE!" And you know if you open it it's just asking for money.

It's even here on DU: the strongly worded or profanity-laced headers get the clicks and the recs. There are endless threads begging for Democrats to get some balls and scream (rather than doing the hard work of legislating and investigating and trying to maneuver as minority members of Congress). We love the word RIGGED! -- until, of course, it's proven false.

Only we can prevent this descent into the weird, the vulgar, the speculative. Ignore the provocative or the outrageous, whether it's coming from the Daily Caller or your favorite politician. We can restore sanity if we want to.

[Blue_Tires]

3. But Tucker HAS to be a real journalist...

Why else would Pulitzer Prize Winner Glenn Motherfucking Greenwald regularly appear on his show as they handjob each other off to a mutual hategasm against Dems?