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If you’ve been following the US election you will know that Fox News has committed business suicide. Lou Aguilar from The Spectator explains.
Trump broke every other news entity even before he took office in 2017. CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the rest have always been left-wing, only with an illusory veneer of neutrality. Trump smashed the veneer, accurately calling them “fake news” amid their swirl of lies about him: Russian campaign collusion, the neo-Nazis “fine people” hoax, the impeachment-unworthy phone call to Ukraine, the “botched handling of COVID” that killed 200,000 people, and more.
The visionary Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch built FNC as the singular center-right alternative to the mainstream vortex, an oasis for discouraged conservatives. The creation paid off when Fox won higher ratings and greater profit than its cable news rivals combined. All they had to do this year to stay on top was fairly cover the president, unlike the competition, and they couldn’t manage that. To cite the constantly correct O’Sullivan’s First Law (coined by eminent American Spectator contributor John O’Sullivan), “All entities that are not explicitly right-wing will become left-wing over time,” and Fox News proved the rule.
Like a million loyal former viewers, I disgustedly watched Fox install disgraced Democrat hack Donna Brazile as their new liberal commentator (to back up the insufferable Juan Williams). Watched them boost the China virus doomsday panic. Watched fake objective anchor Chris Wallace transform into a rabid Trump-sniping chipmunk. Watched normally staid anchor Melissa Francis block Newt Gingrich from linking George Soros to riot-supportive blue state AGs. Watched business anchor Neil Cavuto cut off a White House press conference because he disapproved of Kayleigh McEnany’s address. Watched them call Arizona for Biden on Election Night before anyone else did, with the final count still days away. Watched them call a Democratic House expansion before the party lost many seats instead. Watched them call the election for Biden and refer to him as president-elect minus any official recognition. Watched them ridicule the Trump campaign’s perfectly valid remedial fight, with reporter Kristin Fisher openly insulting the Trump legal team’s press conference.
Read the tweet by Kathryn Murdoch, wife of Fox News co-owner James Murdoch (son of Rupert), on Biden’s apparent victory, stating, “We did it.” Then, like a million former Fox News viewers, I turned off the channel, probably for good, adding to its current ratings meltdown. Trump broke FNC too.
[…] Ironically, they also made the same hubristic mistake the other media sources did before FNC went live in 1996 — the belief that people had nowhere else to go. From their height of success, they dismissed the once-weak competition of mini-network Newsmax. Now they’re finding out the hard way that the house that Roger built is full of drafts, and abandoners are taking shelter elsewhere.
Newsmax ratings have skyrocketed since August from a viewer base of 100,000 per day to 700,000 to 800,000 at last check. This Monday, Newsmax’s Greg Kelly Reports outdrew Fox News’ prime-time lead-in The Story with Martha MacCallum at 7 p.m. Eastern in the valued 25- to 54-year-old demographic, the rumbling of a potential earthquake. And conservatives are no longer dependent on television to get real news without the Trump derangement. Entities like the Daily Wire, Glenn Beck, and The American Spectator are reaping the benefit of Fox News’ progressive seppuku.
Fox News thought they could change and still keep their ratings.
FNC will have to do to three things get us back, but they would probably go bankrupt before doing one. First, apologize for betraying their viewer base and the vision that elevated them, the more grovelingly the better. Two, initiate a corporate Reign of Terror, firing Brazile, Wallace, Cavuto (whom I like), Fisher, Fox Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt, and other tainted anti-Trumpers. Third, place at the helm a young Roger Ailes-type who understands the original mission of FNC to be “fair and balanced” and not CNN lite. This would politically neutralize the Murdochs and their social justice warrior wives while still filling their coffers. Unfortunately for them, the usual outcome for progressive drift is to virtue signal all the way to bankruptcy.
spectator.org
Go woke, go broke, in other words.
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