I don’t watch television much these days. Aside from the evening news and an occasional sports event or Turner classic movie, my attention is focused elsewhere. So when my Facebook friends — who are mostly a little more liberal than I — rail about someone or something on Fox News, I don’t really know if they are exaggerating or on the mark with their denunciations. The one Fox News personality they especially revile is Tucker Carlson. Evidently, he has made disparaging remarks about immigrants, even Afghan refugees who helped the U.S., and cast doubt on the value of vaccines against COVID. He recently made news himself when a man confronted him in a Montana fishing shop and called him “the worst human being known to man.” That’s certainly a damning description even if hyperbolic. But is it deserved or is it a cheap shot? Clearly, the only way I’ll ever know is to watch Carlson myself.

So over the next two weeks, I’m planning to watch at least four broadcasts of Tucker Carlson Tonight, which airs from 8 to 9 p.m. I’m not going to make any predictions about what observations I might make or what conclusions I might draw. I’m confident that my training as a communicator will make me alert to any fallacies or falsehoods he might articulate. At the same time, I’m open to the possibility that his critics have been misrepresenting at least some of his positions or taking his statements out of context.

I don’t expect to suffer any lasting harm if Carlson should prove to be as bad as his critics claim. As a college student I read excerpts of Mein Kampf; it didn’t make me a Nazi. I also read The Communist Manifesto; it didn’t make me a Communist. On the contrary, those documents clarified for me just how warped Nazism and Communism are. So I don’t think Carlson can put one over on me, but we’ll see. Just to be safe, I may have my wife, who’s a bit left of center, watch some of the shows with me.

In my September 5 blog, I’ll present my thoughts on whether Tucker Carlson is really that bad.