Thomas Nast and Fox News

I remember first learning about Thomas Nast in my eighth grade U.S. History class. We were shown how his cartoons helped expose government corruption during the ‘Tweed Era’ in New York during the 19th century. My first thoughts upon seeing this man’s cartoons were “man, was boss Tweed really that fat?” Of course, the information didn’t stick so well during a time when puberty starts to take course so I kind of forgot about Nast for a while. Now that I am a bit older and more concerned with our history, I enjoyed reading about Thomas Nast again in Satire’s Brew. Who knew one man and his drawings would defeat an evil political machine like Tammany Hall?
In the chapter titled, Origins: Shadows of Forthcoming Events, we see that the main character compares Nast to Fox News. On page 108, the character states, “Nast’s meteoric rise can mirror that of Fox News” (Dunphy 108). As I’m first reading this, I can’t help but to start disagreeing and express my distrust in a news corporation such as News Corp. However, a few lines later, he mentions that both Nast and Fox News “ dealt with national tragedies 9/11, the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination, and gained support for their causes” (Dunphy 108). Once the character puts it this way, I agree with the comparison he made. Both Nast and Fox News used the public emotional response to national tragedies in order to shift support for their causes. Nast and Fox News did a very good job at dividing the country and shifting public opinion in order for people to agree with them.
The character used the term “emotional collateral” when describing Nast’s strategy on getting people to be on his side. The character states, “Emotional collateral allows for a cartoonist to affect a nation’s feelings towards a political party or politician” (109). In the case of Fox News, we see this happening all the time. This reminds me of the last assignment where we had to watch three episodes of The Daily Show with John Stewart. In one of the episodes, Stewart plays numerous clips from Fox News criticizing and putting blame on President Obama over the country’s actions handling the ISIS situation. We can see from the news clips that Fox News likes to distort or exaggerate certain information in order to shift the country’s opinion on politics. You can also say that Nast has done the same by depicting William Tweed as this overwhelmingly huge fat guy who gets away with anything he wants. However, the character mentions the difference of how Nast and Fox News used their emotional collateral. On page 122, he states “Thomas Nast utilized his emotional collateral gained during the Civil War and President Lincoln’s assassination in a positive manner to destroy Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed; Fox News, and others, employed their brand of emotional collateral obtained over the span from the 2000 election to 9/11 to divide the country and lead us to war with Iraq”. I completely agree with this comparison because unlike what major media outlets do nowadays, Nast was successful at pointing out the problem in our system and made sure the public would no longer allow for any more corruption to continue.

Works Cited

Dunphy, Brian. “Origins: Shadows of Forthcoming Events.” Satire’s Brew: Mass Media & Coffee Beans. San Diego, CA: Cognella Academic Pub., 2014. N. pag. Print.