The Inevitable Collapse of Fox News

 
By Larry Schweikart

I can almost remember the moment I gave up on Fox News.

It was in 2015, and they had just had another “expert” panel on of ultra neverTrumpers—people like Jonah Goldberg or Guy Benson who sneered in the face of evidence. It was one thing, I thought, to have an opinion on why someone might be a “bad” candidate, but it was entirely something else to deny the reality that (as I recall) by that time he had led the entire GOP field for the entire summer. Sure, he might fade, but at that point, all the evidence suggested it would be minor at worst, and that whomever the top two or three were left standing, Donald J. Trump would be among them.

Not for Fox News.

Its polling unit consistently was the worst for Trump, especially in the general election when, by the way, not one of those smug prognosticators admitted their error. Fox’s polling routinely rated little better than the horrendous Quinnipiac. Fox’s on-air commentators, with the exceptions of Steve Doocy, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity, at that time, continually disparaged Trump and expected him to lose. It might be added that Fox’s once brightest-star, Glenn Beck, who had left to form his own internet network—which by then was struggling—also was on the anti-Trump train. As for the regular remaining “anchors?” At the time, Brett Baier and Megyn Kelly were despicable “moderators” at the presidential debate and set the tone for all the debates to be Trump hate-fests. Chris Wallace, Fox’s star “reporter,” proved horrid as any of the purely “editorial” personalities.

In short, if Fox was “conservative,” it had a funny way of showing it even back then. Aside from Lou Dobbs, the network was entirely open borders in its immigration outlook. O’Reilly occasionally had guests of varying positions, but Sean Hannity produced a stale stable of repetitious commentators that added little. Regulars included John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and leftists like Donna Brazile and Juan Williams. If indeed Fox had truly been “conservative,” then an occasional liberal wouldn’t matter—but it wasn’t. Slowly, more and more liberals began to appear on panels. And once Trump came into office, fewer and fewer real Trumpers appeared.

Then came the China Virus and hosts such as Neil Cavuto literally lost their minds, arguing with both doctors and Congressman Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who had educated himself and been on top of the damage done by the lock-downs from the get-go. Indeed, Tucker Carlson wanted to claim credit for getting President Trump to “take COVID seriously” (which, of course, he had already done.)

Fox Business, on the other hand, maintained some credibility with Maria Bartiromo, Dobbs, and Charles Payne. But when people say, “Fox News,” they mean the news division.

What happened?

First, James Murdoch, the youngest of Rupert Murdoch’s sons, resigned from the Fox Board in 2020. This did not trigger anything: rather, it was the fruition of the sons James and Lachlan’s leftward movement and their extremely liberal wives.

James stated he resigned due to “disagreements over certain editorial content” in the company’s news outlets. He had already spoken favorably of Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in an interview with the New Yorker. James had bought into the myth of Trump’s “good people” comment, saying, “I can’t even believe that I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists.”  James did not mention the fascist group, so-called Antifa, which had brutally beaten Trump supporters across the country and terrorized peaceful conservative gatherings.

Then again, James may have only been taking orders from his wife, Kathryn. She called Trump a dictator and tweeted “We Did It” after Fox declared Joe Biden the winner of the election without any evidence and with many races that could determine the presidency still in dispute. James and Kathryn made significant donations to Joe Biden.

 

It has been well known for some time that James and his wife had bought into the global warming hoax and had attacked Fox for not being all-in on climate change. They announced they were frustrated with News Corp, the publishing and Australian broadcast entity split off from 21^st Century Fox in 2013, and its coverage of Australia’s fires, which they deeded a result of global warming. James had even toyed with the idea of creating a $1 billion liberal competitor to Fox News—as if that niche wasn’t already populated by a half-dozen other “news” outlets. How much Lauchlin, supposedly the more conservative of the brothers, is responsible for Fox’s continued decline is not clear.

The trigger for Fox’s collapse came when the network made an early night “call” of Arizona for Joe Biden, despite the fact that as of this writing votes in Arizona are still being counted with no clear winner (although Biden leads, but still within a range where Trump can win the state).

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