This article is part of a series about a legal threat sent to Crikey by Lachlan Murdoch, over an article Crikey published about the January 6 riots in the US. For the series introduction go here, and for the full series go here.
Last year, Fox News host Tucker Carlson started running segments criticising Australia’s COVID-19 response. In August, he used an interview with The Australian’s Sharri Markson to call Australia a “COVID dictatorship.”
Australia’s so-called “freedom movement” was excited by Carlson’s words. Prominent figures and members of the movement’s online groups — brought together in opposition to lockdowns, vaccines and their mandates — shared and reacted to his comments approvingly.
“Tucker Carlson is taking the absolute piss out of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews,” posted a prominent Australian QAnon account (who Crikey has chosen not to name) to his Telegram followers.
Carlson’s commentary on Australia is one example of how Fox News content has served as gristle for fringe and conspiracy communities around the world — including in Australia. As the network embraced sensationalist narratives and elevated fringe voices, Fox News has validated Australian conspiracy theorists by repeating their own warped views back to them.
Fox News is perhaps the most popular mainstream media news source in Australian anti-vaccine and conspiracy Telegram channels monitored by Crikey, with clips and news stories having been shared hundreds of times in dozens of communities.
Fox News played a part in casting Australia as a dystopian police state because of our strict COVID-19 restrictions (while at the same time downplaying America’s own COVID-19 problem). A clip of Fox News host Dan Bongino responding to a press conference by NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant went viral last year.
“Watch the liberal totalitarians explain this away,” Bongino said of comments that locked-down residents should avoid talking to their neighbours. “Why? Because they’re totalitarians.”
This reception was noted. “Kerry Chant global laughing stock”, said a message shared by Australian fringe political commentator John Adams to his Telegram.
Australian conspiracy figures frequently promote Fox News content. People like George Christensen, conspiracy influencer Maria Zeee, and Australia’s oldest anti-vaccine group Australian Vaccination-Risks Network have all shared Fox News content in the past few months.
They’re also common in far-right communities too. Like in one group for Australian neo-Nazis, which Crikey has chosen not to name, a user who takes their name from the number of victims in the Christchurch massacre shared a message with a Fox News article about a US school teaching children to recognise racism from their family members: “I could swear this is right out of The Turner Diaries,” the message said, referring to a popular white nationalist book.
While typically factually correct, Fox News’ coverage is sometimes used to support misinformation and conspiracy theories. In a group for the Convoy to Canberra protests, one group member cited Fox News reporting about one former child star’s abuse claims as part of a broader conspiracy about “Hollywood paedophile rings” — which is part of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
There’s evidence that the reverse is happening too as Fox News’ Australian sites contribute to international fringe politics too. When the QAnon Shaman was arrested for his part in the January 6 riots, his Facebook accounts showed him sharing links from Sky News Australia.
