I thought maybe a good place to start is with your cable news diet. “So that, I think, is part of the real risk behind all of us - that it will Fox’s need to become ever more conspiracy-minded in years to come.”Ī transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows. I think Fox has really kicked up the amount of coverage it’s done in support of President Trump’s effort to overturn the election because they’re feeling some heat from competitors,” he said. “We’re also seeing a sort of race to the bottom in certain ways. sc45i8bIrZ- Matthew Gertz December 4, 2020Īs Gertz explained to me, even in a post-Trump world, he still expects Fox News to play a leading role in setting the conservative agenda, since “they have the biggest audience and the biggest propensity to produce dangerous misinformation that shifts the public discussion, and the state of policy in this country.”īut Gertz sees signs that Fox News is bowing to the pressure Trump and his supporters are putting on it. During a Fox & Friends interview on election morning, Trump even bashed Fox News while on Fox News.Īn ongoing shift in the president's viewing habits from Fox to the even more conspiracy-minded OAN. While he lambasts the network’s “news side,” he still habitually live tweets broadcasts hosted by his favorites, such as Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. Trump can’t totally quit Fox News, however. For the first time in 20 years, Fox News can no longer boast that it’s clearly the top dog in cable news.
CNN’s post-election ratings are up and at times have been better than Fox. In a major milestone, Newsmax earlier this month even bested Fox News in a key demographic over an hour of programming.įox, meanwhile, is also feeling pressure from the saner end of the spectrum. While they still lag far behind Fox News overall, ratings for Newsmax and OAN have surged since the election while Fox’s have stagnated. Martial law has been instituted 64 times." /KNmiAGGiPF- Aaron Rupar December 18, 2020īelieve it or not, this coverage is resonating. "People out there talk about martial law like it's something that we've never done. Here's Michael Flynn on Newsmax saying that Trump could order "military capabilities" to swing states and "rerun an election in each of those states." He’s spent the past six weeks seemingly more focused on settling scores with Fox News than he has been on the coronavirus pandemic. Though the state didn’t end up being central to most networks’ decisions to call the race for Joe Biden, it was a symbolic turning point during a night that quickly went from hopeful to sour for the president. Its decision to do so sent President Donald Trump into a rage. Fox News’s “news side,” such as it is, was among the first on election night to call Arizona for Joe Biden.
Things came to a boiling point in the days following the election. “On a fundamental level Fox has been operating as a propaganda arm of President Trump, but the president has never really been satisfied with the level of obsequiousness he sometimes sees when he turns on his television,” Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, told me. Even while the vast majority of the network’s programming did his bidding in one way or another, Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Fox in recent years for coverage he deems insufficiently fawning - and the one-sided feud has escalated dramatically since his loss to Joe Biden.
Trump’s habitual watching of Fox and the willingness both he and other administration officials have had to be interviewed on Fox News and Fox Business brought the network to unprecedented heights of relevance, while Fox has helped Trump by defending him through thick and thin.īut Trump’s relationship with Fox hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. As its main meal ticket prepares to leave office, Fox News is struggling through an identity crisis.įor the better part of five years, Fox and Donald Trump have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship.
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