Cinar Kiper is a Turkish journalist based in Vancouver.
Some headlines are so obvious that every outlet runs more or less the same one. Especially when the story is ironic, like when a former Fox News correspondent is put in charge of the counterpropaganda centre in the United States.
On Feb. 7 Foreign Policy broke the story of how Lea Gabrielle – a former Fox and NBC journalist as well as Navy and intelligence veteran – was tapped to run the Global Engagement Center, the U.S. State Department’s bureau in charge of combatting misinformation from around the world.
Fox News’s contentious reputation needs little introduction: Politifact rates it the least reliable cable-news source, where “about 60 per cent of the claims checked have been rated Mostly False or worse.” Even Secretary of State Mike Pompeo avoided mentioning the channel in the e-mail he sent out announcing Ms. Gabrielle’s appointment.
Headlines were quick to note the irony of tasking “alternative facts” with policing “fake news”: CNN, ABC News, USA Today, Newsweek, The Hill, Business Insider and even the pro-Kremlin Sputnik, all ran some form of “Fox News reporter to counter propaganda.” Social media jumped on the “fox guarding the henhouse” pun, even elected members of Congress.
But past that initial chuckle, one veers off into questions about journalists’ reputations and just how easy it is to permanently stain our professional brands with that one controversial job or one questionable assignment. And how, as our industry becomes increasingly precarious and the people in it increasingly desperate, if we even have the luxury to cultivate our brands any more.
Much ink has already been spent on journalism’s free fall over the years, which has now become a “bloodbath” with more than 2,200 people employed by U.S. media companies losing their jobs in 2019 alone – mostly from digital outlets, the outlets everyone hoped would save the industry.
As the number of unemployed and underemployed journalists grow, and the number of available jobs decline – and parents start demanding their guest bedrooms back – there will be more and more people accepting positions at outlets they would never voluntarily read. Especially since the outlets propped up to serve an agenda – such as promoting a political ideology or an authoritarian regime – can survive where more sincere journalism struggles to stay afloat.
Having to take jobs you aren’t too thrilled about is quite familiar to those who work the journalistic frontier. In the 10 years I covered Turkey for domestic and international outlets, I have known leftists who work at Fox News, Kremlin critics reporting for Kremlin-funded RT and opponents of the Turkish President working for his sprawling postmodern media empire. I’ve been them on several occasions.
Turkey has a very complicated love-hate relationship with the press: It loves media which sell the government line but hates the outlets which check under the hood. And so scores of journalists have been arrested, outlets shuttered and critical media purchased and subverted by regime allies; there isn’t much job security in a country ranked 157th out of 180 in press freedom, and you take what you can get.
Everyone would prefer working at a New York Times, a Washington Post or a Reuters, outlets that don’t require qualifiers whenever you mention your employer. “Yes, I work for Fox News … but in the documentary division,” or “Buzzfeed isn’t just quizzes any more,” and of course the classic: “Sure, RT has issues … but who doesn’t manipulate the truth?” But the Times and Posts of the world aren’t looking to hire hundreds of thousands of young reporters any time soon.
Over the years I’ve worked at well-regarded outlets and problematic outlets and even ones which started off fine but over time were moulded into your typical authoritarian propaganda mills. And there really is something relaxing about not having to justify why you work where you do.
North American journalists are unlikely to suffer the professional bottleneck of bad politics, but the professional bottleneck of bad economics can look eerily similar: very fine journalists left desperate enough to accept work at some very unfine media outlets. Or simply abandoning the industry altogether and trying their hand at the boutique public-relations firm almost everyone attempts at one point.
America’s new propaganda czar Lea Gabrielle might very well be an ideologue, or she might very well be just trying to make rent. It is hard to tell from her résumé alone – though it should be noted her program Shepard Smith Reporting is widely considered an outlier at Fox News for its professionalism.
But speaking of whether it is a fox guarding the henhouse or a hen in disguise, it is important to remember another Fox News personality whose public “rehabilitation” did not work out as well as everyone hoped. Megyn Kelly’s controversial, though lucrative, departure from NBC following her defence of blackface suggests that sometimes, a fox will always be a fox, no matter how much you want it to be a hen.