Larry Wilmore Breaks the Magician’s Code in Explaining Fox News’ Spin Doctor Sorcery

On the last episode of The Nightly Show, Larry Wilmore did the unthinkable as a magician and broke the magician’s code. But he did so for a very good reason: to reveal the magic behind Fox News’ otherworldly (read: utterly out of left field) views on the Black Lives Matter movement and the so-called “war on cops”.

Wilmore presented a clip from a CNN broadcast talking about how 2015 is on pace to be one of the years with the lowest number of officers gunned down in the line of duty. He presented this in contrast to all the other reports from various news media outlets who were decrying the Black Lives Matter movement. Fox News in particular is great at maintaining the illusion (aha, see, bringing it back to the metaphor) that the Black Lives Matter movement is only about killing or hurting police officers. They’re exceedingly effective at spreading the rhetoric that cops are “under siege,” insinuating that cops are the ones in danger–not, you know, all the unarmed innocent people who’re gunned down every day.

While the magic metaphor is admittedly thin, there’s poignancy in the fact that sometimes it feels like the only reason anyone would listen to Fox News is because there has to be some weird, freaky, hypnotic sorcery going on to get people to keep tuning in. That’s the only reason, right? It’s not like… it’s not like people earnestly believe the things they say, ye… yeah?

Oh.

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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