When News Broke

Summary

Podcast Summary: Up First from NPR Episode: When News Broke
Release Date: July 6, 2025
Series: Engines of Outrage (Landslide Podcast)

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Introduction: The Fragmented Information Ecosystem

In the episode titled "When News Broke," hosted by Aisha Rascoe, NPR delves into the fragmentation of the American media landscape and explores how misinformation has seeped into the highest levels of power, reshaping the nation and the world. Rascoe introduces the topic by reflecting on personal experiences with misinformation encountered in everyday conversations, setting the stage for a broader examination of media credibility and polarization.

Historical Turning Point: Agnew’s Accusation of Media Bias

The narrative begins by tracing the roots of media polarization back to 1968 when Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew, then Vice Presidential pick for Richard Nixon, delivered a speech accusing television news producers of having a liberal bias.

[06:44] Agnew: "This little group of men who not only enjoy a rite of instant rebuttal to every presidential address, but more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting and interpreting the great issues in our nation."
This speech marked a significant shift, as Agnew positioned mainstream media as biased, echoing sentiments previously voiced by segregationists and civil rights opponents.

Rise of Conservative Media: Richard Viguerie’s Direct Mail Campaigns

Ben Bradford, host of the "Engines of Outrage" miniseries, explains how Vice President Agnew’s attacks on the media paved the way for the emergence of alternative conservative media sources.

[13:04] Andy Tucker: "Richard Viguerie, conservative ideologue, direct mail genius."
Viguerie’s strategy involved sending millions of fiery letters to American households, linking diverse cultural issues—from gun rights to abortion—to foster a cohesive conservative agenda. Unlike traditional journalism, these newsletters were designed to inspire political action and outrage rather than inform, setting a precedent for future right-wing media tactics.

Declining Trust in Mainstream News

The episode highlights how Agnew's and Nixon's campaign against the media coincided with declining public trust in mainstream news sources.

[08:34] Ben Bradford: "Trust in traditional news was falling. Newsletters offering a slanted perspective were proliferating, a perspective reinforced by a new crop of right wing politicians and think tanks."
As trust eroded, alternative media began to fill the information void, although initially remaining niche and primarily appealing to politically engaged audiences.

The Advent of Conservative Talk Radio: Rush Limbaugh’s Influence

A pivotal moment in the expansion of conservative media was the rise of Rush Limbaugh in the late 1980s. Limbaugh’s show mirrored the direct mail newsletters but on radio waves, reaching millions.

[21:10] Ben Bradford: "The brash, boisterous radio host Rush Limbaugh had not set out to become a right wing media force. But in the late 1980s, the one time failed DJ struck on a formula for success."
Limbaugh’s style combined entertainment with a barrage of conservative commentary, fostering a loyal and expansive audience. His program’s growth was facilitated by the repeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s Fairness Doctrine, allowing for unchallenged partisan perspectives.
[22:14] Ben Bradford: "Limbaugh promised, however, tongue in cheek, that he was offering you facts, reliable information."
By intertwining media presence with political influence, Limbaugh and his contemporaries like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck solidified a conservative stronghold in the media landscape.

Cycle of Echo and Amplification: Politicians and Media Reinforcing Each Other

The symbiotic relationship between conservative media figures and political leaders exacerbated misinformation and partisan divides. Politicians leveraged media platforms to propagate their agendas, while media figures amplified political messages, creating a feedback loop of distrust and polarization.

[25:10] Ben Bradford: "A top GOP congressman, Tom DeLay, boasted about the relationship."
This interplay ensured that conservative narratives were continuously reinforced, making alternative media a primary source of information for millions and further diminishing the influence of mainstream news.

Conclusion: The Present-Day Media Landscape

The episode concludes by summarizing how the historical shifts initiated by Agnew’s accusations and the rise of conservative media have culminated in today’s polarized information ecosystem. The expansion of alternative media outlets, now including digital platforms like the Drudge Report and Newsmax, has entrenched ideological divides, making unified factual consensus increasingly elusive.

[24:33] Ben Bradford: "Limbaugh could insinuate that the Clintons covered up a corrupt land deal by murdering a White House aide. And you could read William Safire in the New York Times, dub it Whitewatergate. And the speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, would stoke the theory."

The episode underscores the ongoing challenge of restoring trust in media and bridging the information divide that continues to influence American society and politics.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Aisha Rascoe [00:03]: "How did we get here, like, to this moment where so much quote, unquote news isn't based in the truth?"
• Spiro Agnew [06:44]: "This little group of men...enacting their own liberal partisan agenda."
• Andy Tucker [10:29]: "The herd instinct is very, very strong in that kind of coverage."
• Ben Bradford [16:52]: "They were making adjustments, concessions to quell criticism, to prove they were fair and to restore public trust."
• Ben Bradford [22:14]: "Limbaugh promised, however, tongue in cheek, that he was offering you facts, reliable information."

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This comprehensive exploration by NPR's "Up First" provides listeners with an in-depth understanding of the historical and ongoing factors contributing to today’s polarized media environment. By tracing the evolution from Agnew’s initial accusations to the rise of influential figures like Rush Limbaugh, the episode illuminates the complex interplay between media, politics, and public trust.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker]

Foreign.

[Aisha Rascoe]

I'm Aisha Rascoe, and this is the Sunday Story where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. So I've been going on some dates now, not a lot, but a little bit. And dating is a fascinating activity. You know, you meet people you wouldn't have otherwise met and they say some something you might not expect. One guy believed vaccines cause autism. You know, that's been debunked multiple times. But, you know, I didn't press it. And then he also said that Kamala Harris isn't black. Well, she did go to Howard and, you know, her daddy black. But I let that go. Another one had some, some interesting theories about the shape of the earth. And this was after a nice time. I really enjoyed this person. And so when they mentioned this, I said, oh, oh, no, oh no. But I wasn't ultimately deterred. You know, look, people think different things. People think different things. And of course, this isn't just about, you know, conversations over a glass of wine or margarita with somebody who you just talking to or trying to have some fun with. Some of these ideas have also reached the highest levels of the White House and are reshaping our country and our world. So how did we get here, like, to this moment where so much quote, unquote news isn't based in the truth? That's what we're going to explore today in a segment from Engines of Outrage, a new miniseries from the Landslide Podcast distributed by the NPR network and hosted by reporter Ben Bradford. Here's Ben.

[Ben Bradford]

It used to be even just a few decades ago that Americans largely used and trusted the same news sources. Now the way we get basic facts about the world is polarized. We are increasingly split into separate bubbles absorbing different information that paints conflicting pictures of the same events.

[Aisha Rascoe]

In the introduction to the series, he goes on to explain that our information ecosystem divides into two distinct conservative and progressive. And these bubbles follow different rules.

[Ben Bradford]

Only in one of these media bubbles do a huge portion of voters consistently believe a presidential election was stolen. Only one of them has led Americans to reject basic health interventions.

[Unknown Speaker]

Covid vaccines need to be withdrawn from the market.

[Ben Bradford]

Now only one has left its audience with the impression that climate change is not real, violent crime is spiking and a host of outlandish conspiracy theories. Migrants are grilling pets in America. That is true.

[Aisha Rascoe]

After the break, Engines of Outrage takes us back to the moment where our shared media ecosystem split to to find out if we can sew it back together. Stay with us.

[Unknown Speaker]

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[Aisha Rascoe]

We'Re back with the Sunday Story. Here's an excerpt of the first episode of Engines of Outrage, hosted by Ben Bradford. He starts by taking us back to a moment when it seemed like the nation did have a shared fact based collective reality.

[Ben Bradford]

In the 1960s and 70s, when it came to most news, there was really only one game in town.

[Unknown Speaker]

Direct from our newsroom in New York, this is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronko. This is NBC nightly news, Thursday, October 30, with John Chancellor reporting.

[Ben Bradford]

A huge portion of the country of all political stripes sat down each night in front of their TVs and watched the same thing.

[Andy Tucker]

It was something like three quarters of everybody who had a television on at 6:30 was watching one of the three networks and there were only three. So they were watching ABC, CBS or NBC.

[Ben Bradford]

Andy Tucker is a media historian at the Columbia Journalism School.

[Andy Tucker]

They were very establishment. They were white guys in jackets with silver hair.

[Unknown Speaker]

Good evening. Prince Juan Carlos de Bourbon y Bourbon is the new chief of staff state in Spain.

[Andy Tucker]

But it was, it was, you know, people, people watched it. People tended to trust it. People tended to find them familiar because they came into your house while you were eating your meatloaf and that's the way it is.

[Unknown Speaker]

Wednesday, July 31, 1968.

[Andy Tucker]

There is no no publication, no organization, no news source now that would have the same kind of reach as those three put together.

[Ben Bradford]

In one 1969 survey, nine out of 10Americans said they regularly watched the television news.

[Andy Tucker]

It was not the vast variety of sources that we now have. There was a sense, probably exaggerated, but a sense that people were kind of reading and knowing the same things.

[Ben Bradford]

What changed that or who? Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew had transformed almost overnight in 1968 from near unknown To Richard Nixon's vice presidential pick and his attack dog, SVP Agnew was the man Nixon sent to flay administration critics in colorful, alliterative style. If you've ever heard the nattering nabobs of negativism, that was him. And about a year after he and Nixon were elected, Agnew appeared for a speech in Des Moines that his office billed as a major address.

[Unknown Speaker]

I have a subject I think is of great interest to the American people. Tonight I want to discuss the importance of the television medium to the American people.

[Ben Bradford]

Agnew focused this night's ire on a surprise subject. The producers of television news.

[Unknown Speaker]

This little group of men who not only enjoy a rite of instant rebuttal to every presidential address, but more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting and interpreting the great issues in our nation.

[Ben Bradford]

He essentially said they were enacting their own liberal partisan agenda.

[Unknown Speaker]

A narrow and distorted picture of America often emerges from the televised news.

[Ben Bradford]

The speech was cynical. The famously touchy Nixon and his advisors were furious at recent critical coverage of the Vietnam War. Agnew and Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan had worked up this address to fire back. It touched a nerve. While polls showed most Americans trusted the news, the accusation of bias had circulated on the right and left. Black newspapers sprang up in the 40s and 50s in response to a media establishment that was overwhelmingly white. In the battle for civil rights, segregationists such as George Wallace routinely complained they were being treated unfairly by the media.

[Unknown Speaker]

They try to make it appear that we are bigots, that we are prejudiced, that we are biased, that we are immoral.

[Ben Bradford]

Agnew knew this, and in his speech he was echoing complaints of Wallace and others. But now it was coming from the Vice President of the United States. Are you saying that the Nixon administration is sort of the first time, at least in modern history, that we see the President, the White House, accusing the media of having a liberal bias in the modern era?

[Andy Tucker]

Yeah, I think so. I think so.

[Ben Bradford]

Media historians, including Andy Tucker, point to Agnew's speech as a turning point. It gained wider play. Reporters picked up the story. It was their job. And Agnew and other Nixon allies continued over the next days and months to hammer this accusation of slant.

[Andy Tucker]

The Nixon administration was, well, setting up the press as an enemy. It was a very vigorous spin operation that had the line of the day that worked very closely with journalists, but also used the power of the White House to smear the press.

[Ben Bradford]

And it coincided with polls showing trust in mainstream news, in our shared reality, beginning to fall. Before we go further, it's worth discussing Agnew's charge. Was the news biased? The answer is, of course right. Humans are subjective creatures, and choosing what stories to cover, who to talk to requires subjective judgment. Even describing what things look like. Was a crowd large or small, rowdy or muted, is subjective. And Agnew was clearly right that a tiny fraction of men living in the same large cities decided what of all the world's events most people would see. Andy Tucker says it led to blind spots.

[Andy Tucker]

It did seem to confirm and valorize the idea of a dominant culture. The visible faces of that culture were middle aged white men. There were certain advantages to the sense that we all know the same stuff, but it also confirmed the establishment as the important institution, cultural institution.

[Ben Bradford]

It is funny, I spent a lot of time, just hundreds, if not, I don't know, thousands of hours digging through archives of old evening news broadcasts and you look at the rundowns of their programs. On any given day, they are 90% identical.

[Andy Tucker]

Yeah, the herd instinct is very, very strong in that kind of coverage.

[Ben Bradford]

So there were biases. But Tucker says that's different from saying these journalists were enacting an agenda.

[Andy Tucker]

Yeah, I want to first acknowledge, of course, that serious, responsible newsrooms do make mistakes. They get things wrong. They don't see what they're supposed to see. But there is a process that is rooted in fact finding, doing your best to challenge your own assumptions so that you report against yourself.

[Ben Bradford]

In the wake of Agnew's speech and increasing distrust in media, other sources with a very different intent would gain influence.

[Aisha Rascoe]

We'll be right back with Engines of Outrage.

[Unknown Speaker]

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[Ben Bradford]

Outside Washington, D.C. in a nondescript office building, behind a locked door guarded by multiple security measures, printers buzzed. You heard about this in detail. In Landslide's first season, they spat out millions and millions of letters to households around the nation. The direct mail operation of the political activist Richard Viggory.

[Andy Tucker]

Richard Viggory, conservative ideologue, direct mail genius.

[Ben Bradford]

You heard how Viggory and his allies in the New right identified voters upset about a variety of separate cultural issues, textbooks, gun rights, abortion, and linked those causes together in fiery letters to an ever expanding list. And you heard from a Reagan strategist, just briefly how this was a new form of media.

[Unknown Speaker]

You know, now conservatives have talk radio, they have cable news things and all that. There wasn't anything like that back then. The only communications channel that you had directly to conservatives was mail.

[Ben Bradford]

Vickery's direct mail operation bloomed in the years immediately following Vice President Spiro Agnew's accusation of network news bias.

[Unknown Speaker]

The idea that the mainstream media is biased against you and that you need to trust alternative media sources. That was something that Vigory didn't create, but he certainly like really enhances in the 1970s.

[Ben Bradford]

AJ Bauer is a professor at the University of Alabama who studies the rise of right wing media by creating a.

[Unknown Speaker]

Kind of alternative ecosystem of conservative newsletters. There was not just claims that the media was biased, but also an alternative source that you could get to see exactly where the news media wasn't covering specific issues or was covering them in a flawed way of some sort.

[Ben Bradford]

Here's what they're not telling you.

[Unknown Speaker]

Here's what they're not telling you. Exactly. It's one thing to say they're biased, it's another thing to say they're biased. And here's the thing that they're, that they're missing.

[Ben Bradford]

This medium told you the mainstream news was lying and the truth was here. But that truth was apocalyptic, laden with conspiracy theories. The newsletters of the New Right from Vickery's printers warned that textbooks were teaching cannibalism, gay people were recruiting children. The Secretary of State was perhaps sacrificing anti communists in Vietnam. You know, Vigory wrote of later on of his strategy that political inertia is the normal state for most people. And it Takes a sledgehammer of an issue to distract them from their ball games, shopping sprees, and daily work preoccupations. The tactics of reporting how that information hits the page and the intent of it is sort of fundamentally different.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, from the beginning, it's always been an ideological project. It hasn't been kind of like a let's create a conservative counter news product. It was, how do we create media that disrupts the kind of mainstream hegemony of the traditional press?

[Ben Bradford]

The newsletters provided information. That information could be true, but it wasn't. The point of it, Viggory wasn't doing journalism. The intent was not to inform. It was to inspire political action, to outrage. That's really important because that intent and that style set the template for voices that would soon grow much louder. At the same time as Viggory's letters were probably proliferating, a right wing movement made other gains in American political life. In 1976, it won control of the.

[Unknown Speaker]

Republican party platform, the issue of court ordered bussing. The subject was the Panama Canal, which favor of school prayer, amnesty, gun control.

[Ben Bradford]

National health, and conservative hero Ronald Reagan nearly knocked off the sitting president Gerald Ford for the nomination. Four years later, he won it all. It all lended legitimacy and visibility to a movement that a few years earlier had been easy to dismiss as fringe and movement premised on the idea that the mainstream media was corrupt. Did news organizations internalize some of this Criticism?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Ben Bradford]

A.J. bauer, the historian of right wing media, says reporters began giving more weight to views that had long been dismissible.

[Unknown Speaker]

Conservative movement figures increasingly get interviewed right by the New York Times and by other traditional mainstream news outlets as though they're representing a kind of responsible opposition.

[Ben Bradford]

Now this is what news is supposed to do, right? Seek and report major sides of a debate. You could also argue that reporters became more credulous, less willing to challenge provably false information, which had bubbled up from, say, fever swamps of new right newsletters because it came from politically legitimized voices. But Bauer says pressure by conservatives led to even more inroads in traditional media.

[Unknown Speaker]

Within mainstream journalism, there's concern that they were losing the trust of the public and they needed to regain it. You see conservatives, you know, wedging into that vulnerability.

[Ben Bradford]

The New York Times in the early 1970s hired its first voice from the conservative movement to its opinion pages. But not just any voice. A PR man, a spin doctor, the writer of some of Agnew's most blisteringly partisan speeches, including his nattering nabobs line William Safire came straight from that White House job to become a consistent critic of the times from within its own pages. After Watergate, it was Safire who stuck the suffix gate to other more routine controversies, an effort to suggest that presidents such as Jimmy Carter engaged in a corruption akin to Nixon's. Mainstream outlets made these adjustments, concessions to quell criticism, to prove they were fair and to restore public trust. Bower says it had the opposite effect.

[Unknown Speaker]

There's an increasing perception that television news is biased and that local news is biased as well.

[Ben Bradford]

Instead of relieving criticisms of bias, it lended more credibility to the people making them.

[Unknown Speaker]

This is exactly the moment where conservative news, those Richard Viggery newsletters, are starting to flourish.

[Ben Bradford]

Trust in traditional news was falling. Newsletters offering a slanted perspective were proliferating, a perspective reinforced by a new crop of right wing politicians and think tanks. And in this climate, Bower says, Americans suddenly got a new option. They could turn the TV dial somewhere else.

[Unknown Speaker]

This is at exactly the moment where people are starting to turn tune out of watching news because they're having more choices. So let's say you're eating dinner at like 5 o', clock, 6 o', clock, you want to watch TV, your choice is news, news or news? Basically, yeah, by the early 80s, so 1980 is where cable starts to proliferate. If you've got cable, you don't have to watch one of those big three news channels anymore for dinner, right? You could watch sports, or you could watch a movie or something like that.

[Ben Bradford]

Suddenly there was espn, mtv, you could watch hockey, although good luck seeing the Puck or put Nickelodeon on for your.

[Unknown Speaker]

Kids so people start consuming less news. Actually, a lot of times people think about it as like they people switched from mainstream news to some ideological news. But really what ends up happening is most people kind of opt out and they're getting less news than they used to.

[Ben Bradford]

The network news that just a few years earlier reached almost almost every American. Showing them the same reality was now easy to tune out. You could unplug from traditional news entirely and just absorb the angry, alternate partisan worldview of those pamphlets or their ilk.

[Unknown Speaker]

You're consuming less news, but all of a sudden you're getting all these newsletters that are saying, oh, did you hear about the Equal Rights Amendment and how bad it is.

[Ben Bradford]

The drop in audience for mainstream news left an information void, a void that alternative media could fill. But it didn't, not immediately. For Most of the 1980s, right wing media remained relatively niche. Mostly those same products, newsletters, magazines, local Radio, you had to already be somewhat politically engaged to want to tune in. That was about to change with a new polarizing voice that would become the right's first media superstar and the bubble would expand exponentially.

[Unknown Speaker]

Behind the golden EIB microphones, it's the Rush Limbaugh program coming to you live. And direct from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.

[Ben Bradford]

The brash, boisterous radio host Rush Limbaugh had not set out to become a right wing media force. But in the late 1980s, the one time failed DJ struck on a formula for success. And it sounded eerily like a live action vigory newsletter.

[Unknown Speaker]

Moral decay is rooted in the Democratic Party.

[Ben Bradford]

Demonizing political opponents, sowing distrust in mainstream media.

[Unknown Speaker]

Whenever they spot what they think is Republican scandal. That's where they go.

[Ben Bradford]

There were conspiracy theories.

[Unknown Speaker]

We have been told a polar ice capsule melt and that when this happens, sea levels will rise. There are so many of these environmental myths, and the reason they exist is because the environmental movement is the new home of the socialist communist movement of the world.

[Ben Bradford]

And there was culture war and racial resentment.

[Unknown Speaker]

I thought white men were the new pigs of society. Unless of course, you want a successful and happy marriage, then by all means get a white boy. That's right. If you want a successful and happy marriage, then by all means get a white boy.

[Ben Bradford]

For three hours a day, Limbaugh blasted and lampooned Democrats, feminists, gay people, liberals, journalists, and Republicans he didn't feel were sufficiently conservative. The fact that he could do this so freely was new, a result of the Federal Communications Commission under President Ronald Reagan scrapping its long held Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine had required news programs to seek quote unquote balance. A year after the end of the doctrine, Limbaugh's program debuted nationally. And unlike the new rights newsletters and magazines with Rush, you didn't have to take the time to pick up and pour through materials sent to your home. You could switch him on in your car or your office and just immerse yourself.

[Unknown Speaker]

All right, listen up, folks. A political twister's kicking up across the fruited plain, and you need a conservative compass to point you to the truth.

[Ben Bradford]

Limbaugh added one more ingredient to the formula that would define the most powerful right wing media. He again was not a journalist. He wasn't fact checking or looking to provide multiple viewpoints. But he also wasn't an activist, at least at first. From a young age, he just wanted to be on the radio. But he washed out as a DJ at four different stations. So when he finally got this last shot. He wasn't seeking to drive voters. He wanted advertisers.

[Unknown Speaker]

He's got more of an entertainer's demeanor, right. He had worked in radio as kind of a morning zoo crew kind of guy. He understood that in order to captivate broadcast audiences, you couldn't just disseminate information. You had to make them feel as though they were getting something out of it and that that something was entertain.

[Ben Bradford]

A.J. bauer at the University of Alabama, who studies the history of right wing media, says Limbaugh to his target audience was fun. They could listen for hours.

[Unknown Speaker]

Primarily kind of a comedy program. Not necessarily that I would laugh at all those jokes today, right. But when you're listening to it as somebody who is sympathetic, you're, you're laughing.

Rush Limbaugh for most admired man in America. During the Vietnam War, I railed against long haired, maggot infested dope smoking protesters. Rush Limbaugh, inventor of the term feminazi. Rush Limbaugh, your only choice for most admired man in America.

There's levity. You, you feel a sense of superiority.

[Ben Bradford]

Limbaugh promised, however, tongue in cheek, that he was offering you facts, reliable information.

[Unknown Speaker]

Point you to the truth.

[Ben Bradford]

You could live ensconced in the reality he presented. And a lot of people did. The Rush Limbaugh show's audience expanded rapidly, from just a few hundred thousand listeners at a given time to millions within five years, 17 million a week. And as politics became more and more central to the radio host's brand, as his influence grew, he tied himself closer and closer to the Republican Party and vice versa. A top GOP congressman, Tom Delay, boasted about the relationship.

[Unknown Speaker]

We fax Rush Limbaugh almost 24 hours a day. Where do you think he gets half of the stuff that he puts on the radio program?

[Ben Bradford]

In 1992, Limbaugh openly called for listeners to side with President George Bush.

[Unknown Speaker]

What I really wanted to call about was that I'm really having a hard time with the presidential election. It's simple. Vote Bush.

[Ben Bradford]

Bush invited Limbaugh to the White House, even carried his bags in for him. And while he still lost two years later, congressional Republicans, led by their new right leader, Newt Gingrich, won control of the House for the first time since the 1950s. The new class of Republicans celebrated Limbaugh as their guest of honor. Would like to nominate and make Rush.

[Unknown Speaker]

Limbaugh an honorary member of our freshman.

[Ben Bradford]

Class because surely he helped us become the majority. It was an intertwined intertwining of a media figure with political Figures that would be unthinkable, disqualifying, instantly fireable for a journalist at any mainstream institution. But Limbaugh wasn't a journalist, even as he was at the heart of a rapidly expanding media ecosystem. Radio broadcasters searching for profits sought out their own. Limbaughs other popular hosts included Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck. Many stations switched to all conservative talk, all the time. And the radio hosts competing for audience found the most salacious stories and extreme conspiracies brought the highest ratings. They leaned in further. It turned out that what the new right had done for political gain could be good entertainment. Focusing on outrage, wading into conspiracy theory, villainizing opponents, eroding trust in other media, all the building a sense of us versus them. And it was a self reinforcing cycle because politicians and media figures echoed the same messages. Limbaugh could insinuate that the Clintons covered up a corrupt land deal by murdering a White House aide. And you could read William Safire in the New York Times, dub it Whitewatergate. And the speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, would stoke the theory. You can understand why for a lot of American Americans and evidenceless lie seemed true. And for the people spreading it, there was profit and political gain. So the bubble expanded. New websites on the early Internet like the Drudge Report and Newsmax adopted similar characteristics. It was an alternate information ecosystem with one flaw. Almost all of it was clearly offering opinion, not news, no matter how much you might absorb from it. Limbaugh joked about it now I don't.

[Unknown Speaker]

Take sides in political races, as you well know. That wouldn't be fair. It would compromise my objectivity as a journalist.

[Ben Bradford]

And so the final big innovation that Fox News would bring along cementing the bubble was really that word, news.

[Aisha Rascoe]

You can hear the rest of this episode by searching Engines of Outrage wherever you get your podcast. All four episodes of the miniseries are in the feed for the Landslide podcast. This episode of the Sunday Story was produced by Kim Naderfehn Petersa and edited by Liana Simstrom. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley. The Sunday Story team also includes Justine Yan, Andrew Mambo and Jennifer Schmidt. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. I'm Aisha Rascoe. And up first is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.

[Unknown Speaker]

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