Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, will explore the “twisted” relationship between Fox News and President Trump in his next book, Simon and Schuster said Thursday.
The publishing house announced new details about the book, “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth,” and said it would become available on Aug. 25.
On its website, the publisher said the book tells the “urgent and untold story of the collusion between Fox News and Donald Trump” and relates that connection to the president’s handling of COVID-19, the contagious disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has ravaged the world since earlier this year.
“While other leaders were marshaling resources to combat the greatest pandemic in modern history, President Donald Trump was watching TV,” including over six hours of Fox News a day, reads an excerpt from the book’s description. “In January 2020, when Fox News began to downplay COVID-19, the President was quick to agree.”
Mr. Stelter, the host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program, spoke to more than 250 people previously or currently close to Fox News for the book, according to its publisher.
In its description, the publisher said the book “exposes the media personalities who, though morally bankrupt, profit outrageously by promoting the President’s propaganda and radicalizing the American right.”
Messages seeking reaction from the White House and Fox News were not immediately returned.
Simon and Schuster announced in June that Mr. Stelter, whose last book became a New York Times bestseller, would follow up by writing about the relationship between Fox News and Mr. Trump.
The World Health Organization first learned about the coronavirus six months later, and Mr. Stelter said on Twitter he is working on “several new chapters” relating to COVID-19.
Mr. Stelter has previously made clear his opinions on how Fox News hosts supportive of Mr. Trump have reported the outbreak, however. Responding in late February after Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham claimed that Democrats have politicized the coronavirus to attack Mr. Trump, the CNN host described their comments at the time as “reprehensible.”
Politico first reported the latest details about Mr. Stelter’s book Thursday.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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