Right-wing media used violent rhetoric to sow disinformation in 2020

As Americans joined nationwide protests against racial injustice following the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020, right-wing media’s response was vicious and divisive. Conservative media figures painted Black activists as violent terrorists endangering the lives of its viewers and civilization itself, while outlets like Fox News celebrated white, right-wing vigilantes as heroes, the true victims of law enforcement.

Fox fed its audience wildly inaccurate caricatures of protests in cities across the country, suggested that urban areas were being consumed by violence, and encouraged Trump to...