In his desperation to distract from Donald Trump’s scandals, Sean Hannity has turned into “the leading conspiracy theorist on cable news,” as Vox’s Carlos Maza explains in another excellent video.

In his video, Maza runs through some conspiracy theories regular NewsHounds readers will recognize: the Uranium One “scandal” that has been debunked by Fox News and the Seth Rich murder, e.g.

But Maza also revealed that Alex Jones has long promoted one of Hannity‘s favorite conspiracy theories: that government agents who are part of the “deep state” are secretly conspiring to destroy Trump's presidency.

Vox senior reporter Alvin Chang conducted some research into conspiracy theories on cable news. “It turns out Hannity far and away mentioned conspiracy theories more than every other news program by a wide margin,” Chang said.

Chang also found that Hannity “seems to” turn to conspiracy theories the most whenever Trump comes under fire.

Maza exploded Fox’s defense of Hannity, that he’s not a real journalist but an opinion host. We saw Hannity introducing a segment about Uranium One as news, including a “Fox News Alert” banner. Maza also found that Hannity is calling himself a journalist these days.

According to Maza, Hannity is becoming a problem for Fox because some advertisers have fled his show. “Conspiracy theorists scare big companies. It’s why Alex Jones has to sell male vitality pills. It’s why Glenn Beck’s show ended despite him having pretty good ratings,” Maza said. “Now Hannity is testing the network’s limits. And once again, Fox has to figure out if the conspiracy monster they created is worth the damage they’re doing to their bottom line.”

This is my one quibble with Maza’s report. Fox is not acting as though Hannity is a problem. If anything, Fox is engaging in a hiring frenzy of Hannity soulmates: Tomi Lahren, Sebastian Gorka and Mark Levin, each of whom are Hannity pals, have all recently joined the network.

But don’t let that stop you from watching and appreciating Maza’s excellent analysis below. I recommend Maza’s video about Tucker Carlson, too.

Sean Hannity has transformed from typical right-wing pundit into Fox News' leading conspiracy theorist. pic.twitter.com/yXIrWWl5AH

— Vox (@voxdotcom) November 22, 2017

Crossposted at News Hounds.
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