NOTHING BECOMES THE rIGHT...:

As they discussed coverage of Trump's falsehoods, Fox's top executives and primetime personalities were explicitly terrified of alienating pro-Trump viewers, panicked about losing the "trust" of the audience, and anxious about competition from the further right and more conspiratorial Newsmax.

Almost everyone at the network, it seems, understood Trump's allegations about a stolen election, and particularly his attorney Sidney Powell's wacky tales of malfeasance from Dominion, were nonsense.

But an intense culture of what one might call "political correctness" took hold -- in which challenging Trump and Powell's claims could only happen with the utmost care and sensitivity, for fear of offending the tender feelings of Fox viewers.

More broadly, in understanding how lies and conspiracies spread on the right, it's important to reckon not just with the suppliers of this coverage, but also the demand. There's an intense desire for it among viewers that organizations like Fox calculate they have to satisfy in some way. And if Fox doesn't provide it, those audiences will just seek it out elsewhere.

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