As RedState reported, after a period in the wilderness following his exit from Fox News, Tucker Carlson has launched his own network. It will include a variety of shows that are both of the paid and free variety.
The first promo for the network included scenes of the George Floyd riots and the COVID-19 vaccines, with Carlson proclaiming, “The corporate media lied too much, and it killed them.” Now, he’s making his next marketing play, and it involves billboard trucks and the headquarters of mainstream press outlets.
Days after announcing his new streaming platform, Tucker Carlson got busy advertising to mainstream outlets.
Billboard trucks with his image on the side that read “Corporate Media is dead,” set up outside the headquarters of The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, and CNN in Washington, D.C. and Manhattan.
In an interview with The Daily Mail, Carlson said corporate media is “doomed.”
“And on some level, they know they’re doomed, which is why they’re hysterical. The era of dominance by a few big media companies, the era of total control over all information by you know, nine people, that’s done.”
Carlson might be underestimating the left’s propensity to prop up failing institutions indefinitely when he says the corporate media is “dead,” but certainly, the mainstream press has taken a serious hit over the last few decades. A recent Gallup poll showed that confidence in mass media news reporting (i.e., the legacy news outlets like The New York Times) stood at just 32 percent.
And why wouldn’t the numbers be that bad? On Wednesday, the Times was caught altering a quote by Hunter Biden to protect Joe Biden.
This is so bad. @nytimes doctored what Hunter said today, leaving out the key word. Wow.
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) December 13, 2023
NYT: “Let me state as clearly as I can: My father was not involved in my business.”
Hunter: “Let me state as clearly as I can: My father was not *financially* involved in my business.” pic.twitter.com/cDQEnShr6n
It took nearly two days before the Times finally issued an actual correction, though it offered no explanation for its egregious breach of journalistic ethics. Where were the editors? Who knows, but the episode offered more evidence of just why opinions of the mainstream press are in the toilet.
Of course, I doubt Carlson expects to pick up too many affluent readers of the Times, given the political leanings of those who dutifully consume mainstream press offerings. Rather, he knows that parking billboard trucks in front of their headquarters will garner attention, publicizing his network’s launch to those who might actually be interested. That’s just smart marketing on his part.
