"Jesse Watters, the Fox News host who replaced Carlson, debuted his new primetime show Monday. Like his predecessor, he downplayed the climate crisis and stoked culture-war outrage."
"Tucker Carlson may be gone from Fox News, but his spirit of climate denialism lives on in his replacement, Jesse Watters.
On Monday, Fox debuted Watters’ show—Jesse Watters Primetime—at 8 p.m. That’s the old timeslot of Carlson, whom Fox fired back in April after a defamation lawsuit relating to Carlson’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election resulted in a staggering $787 million settlement for the conservative media giant. Watters will be just the third person in the network’s 26-year history to host the much-coveted 8 p.m. weeknight slot.
Once Fox’s most popular news host, Carlson has been one of the world’s most prolific peddlers of climate misinformation. But Watters has an equally problematic history of embracing conspiracy theories about the climate crisis and downplaying its threat to the public, according to a new report by Media Matters America, a progressive think tank and media watchdog.
“Watters’ unrelenting posture of condescension falsely brands climate change mitigation as a corruption-laced grift to leech money from unsuspecting Americans,” the report said. “While Watters uses similar climate denial talking points as numerous other Fox News hosts, he has been able to wield them in a particularly damaging way that resonates with Fox’s audience and builds out the channel’s dangerous brand of misinformation.”"
Kristoffer Tigue reports for Inside Climate News July 21, 2023.
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