DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in today for Terry Gross. If you follow cable TV at all, you probably know that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is one of the most influential commentators in conservative media and one of the most provocative. He's known for praising authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and warning his viewers about the dangers of foreign immigrants and elites who want to control their lives. Our guest, New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore, recently wrote a series of articles about Carlson drawing on an analysis of more than 1,100 episodes of his show, "Tucker Carlson Tonight," conducted by Confessore and a team of Times reporters as well as interviews with dozens of current and former Fox executives, producers and journalists.
Confessore concludes that Carlson has constructed what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news and, by some measures, the most successful. Confessore's articles include some surprising details, such as the fact that Carlson hosts many of his shows from a town in rural Maine where he has a home and a studio. Nicholas Confessore is a political and investigative reporter for The Times and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. He's won or shared in a host of journalistic honors, including a Pulitzer Prize and the George Polk Award. His series, called "American Nationalist," is available on the Times website. Nicholas Confessore, welcome back to FRESH AIR.
