What is the best way to think about Fox News?

What is the network?

What does it represent?

I thought I had figured it out. I wrote an entire book about it. But my guest this week has a better answer.

Maybe the best answer of all. So let's get to it, let's cue the music. This is our

reliable sources podcast and I'm Brian Stelter, the host of this weekly podcast, our

chance to go in depth with media leaders and newsmakers talking about how

the media world works and sometimes doesn't work. Which brings us to Fox News.

I've been out on a book tour for my book,

Hokes, Fox News, Donald Trump, and the dangerous distortion of truth.

And early on in the book I try to, anyone who views Fox as just a cable channel is getting it wrong.

Fox is so much more.

It is an identity for its viewers. It's almost a way of life. It's like a town hall and a senior citizen center and all these other things rolled up into one. One of the fascinating things about releasing a book and going on tour is that you read reviews,

you read people's assessments, people's critiques, people's criticism, and it helps you

better understand the subject. It actually helps me better understand the story that I'm trying to cover.

And that's what brings me to Megan Garber,

staff writer for the Atlantic, who's out with a brand new piece this week that is one of the sharpest things I've ever read about Fox News and has helped me better understand the story that I've been trying to tell.

Megan also is a part of a brand new project from the Atlantic called the American

Crisis series of the magazine's essays from the age of Trump from the past few years

and we'll talk about that a little bit later.

Megan, thank you for coming on.

Oh, thanks so much for having me.

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