This is terrifying: Donald Trump, arguably the most powerful man in the world and with access to the best information in the world, reportedly gets most of his information from Fox News, the network that has been proven to make viewers less informed than watching no news at all.
In a New York Times article that focused on tensions between Trump and John Kelly, White House chief of staff for all of five weeks, there was this startling paragraph (emphases added):
Mr. Kelly cannot stop Mr. Trump from binge-watching Fox News, which aides describe as the president’s primary source of information gathering. But Mr. Trump does not have a web browser on his phone, and does not use a laptop, so he was dependent on aides like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, to hand-deliver printouts of articles from conservative media outlets.
Now Mr. Kelly has thinned out his package of printouts so much that Mr. Trump plaintively asked a friend recently where The Daily Caller and Breitbart were.
In 2012, a Fairleigh Dickinson University survey found that Fox News has a “negative impact” on “current events knowledge.” It’s so negative that those only watching The Daily Show were more informed than those only watching Fox News. Even more disturbing, those who watched only Fox News were less informed than those who watched no news at all.
Now that Kelly has imposed some order on “the chaos that has engulfed the management of the West Wing,” as the Times reported, do you think Trump will spend more time reading briefings or studying up on policy? If so, guess again. According to the Times, Trump has been using that extra time to "think."
“I now have time to think,” a surprised Mr. Trump has told one of his senior aides repeatedly over the last few weeks.
We previously noted how Fox News helped create the Trump-enstein monster. Now we know it’s his primary food group, too.
The excellent video below, from Media Matters, shows how Fox worked to create Trump's candidacy. It was made in February, 2016, before Trump had even clinched the presidential nomination. But it’s just as relevant and disturbing as ever.
Donald Trump caricature by DonkeyHotey via Creative Commons license.
Maybe time to look over those plans for a bomb shelter under the house.