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Reliable Sources

Whatever happened to Tucker Carlson? This reporter asked him.

Reliable Sources

CNN

News

3.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2018

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lyz Lenz wrote "The Mystery of Tucker Carlson" for the Columbia Journalism Review. She says Carlson's journey from an acclaimed magazine writer to an angry cable news host reveals something about race, class, and economic status in America. Lenz and Brian Stelter discuss Carlson's anti-immigration segments, his "censorship" crusades and his embrace of "change the subject conservatism."To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is a cable news mystery.

0:05.0

Whatever happened to Tucker Carlson?

0:09.0

Why has he changed?

0:11.0

How has he changed? What does it mean for our politics? These are questions

0:17.8

they get asked a lot in media circles, but a writer for the Columbia Journalism Review has tried to answer them.

0:25.0

And that's our topic today.

0:28.0

Welcome to this week's Reliable Sources Podcast.

0:30.0

I'm your host Brian Stelter, and this weekly podcast in between our Sunday

0:34.2

television broadcasts is our chance to go more in-depth with media leaders and

0:38.7

newsmakers. And I've been fascinated by this this question about Carlson for some time now. It is something that gets discussed among TV writers and reporters, critics, and people that appear on Carlson's show.

0:53.0

They've seen this evolution in one of the best known men of cable news

0:59.0

over the past decade.

1:01.0

Think back to his time on CNN, on Crossfire. He was an acclaimed magazine writer

1:07.6

before then. He had a very different identity, a very different brand on CNN and then on MSNBC than he does now on Fox. And Liz

1:17.8

Lens wrote about all of that for the Columbia Journalism Review and she's

1:22.4

joining me now.

1:23.5

Liz, thanks for being here.

1:25.7

Thank you so much for having me.

1:27.9

This was truly one of the best profile us I've ever read.

1:31.6

It's something that I've been so curious about and I feel like you

1:35.0

nailed it. I just want to quote one paragraph from your piece to set up this

1:38.8

conversation. You said here, the question of what happened to Tucker Carlson is worth answering because if we can figure out how an intelligent writer and a conservative can go from writing National Magazine Award nominated articles and being hailed by some of the best

...

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