10 ways to make Democrats love FOX News
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that Rupert Murdoch is co-chair of FOX Corp with son Keith. Murdoch does not have a son Keith. His two sons are Lachlan and James. Murdoch’s full name is Keith Rupert Murdoch, and he is co-chair of FOX Corp with Lachlan. Back to Facts regrets the error.
PHOTO: L to R FOX News Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt, Dana Blanton, senior vice president of opinion research, and FOX News decision desk director Arnon Mishkin. Credit Jennifer S. Altman.
By Tatiana Prophet
In spite of dominating the national cable ratings for 18 years as the most-watched cable news station, all throughout that time FOX News channel has been knocked around by other media and pundits as a pariah, as the Guardian put it in January 2017, with “a cloud of dubious accuracy that hovers over the network at all times.”
In fact, bashing “Faux News” is almost an entry ticket into polite society — at least the one with college graduates in it. It was accepted as fact that FOX News viewers were “bitter,” as candidate Obama put it, because of the loss of factory jobs, and that this loss made them “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” He was speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser in April 2008.
But what “polite” society missed for those 18 years was that FOX News’ viewer base was made up of much more than bitter Christians and gun “nuts.” What the elite missed, and what they’re still missing, is the unifying factor for FOX News viewers: the belief in personal responsibility and hard work, the belief in actual common sense, self-reliance and the importance of instilling those values into their offspring. These were the FOX News viewers, and in their opinion, traditional networks, plus Ted Turner’s CNN, were no longer reporting the news. They were spinning it. College grads and corporate worker bees tittered each time they heard Bill O’Reilly tell his audience (sadly made up of their own often parental family members) that they were entering the “no-spin zone.”
In early 2017, owner Rupert Murdoch and his sons began what amounted to a four-year plan to completely transform the network and pave the way for its triumphant march into the circle of acceptable journalistic narrative. Here’s how it went:
1) Terminate Bill O’Reilly.
In April 2017, anonymous sources leaked to NY Magazine’s Intelligencer that Rupert Murdoch and sons were “turning on Bill O’Reilly.” Sexual harassment allegations had apparently hit critical mass amid protests outside FOX News HQ in New York. Also, Rupert Murdoch wanted to acquire controlling shares in SkyNews for $14 billion, and he needed to mollify UK regulators who were concerned that his 21st Century FOX conglomerate’s 39 percent ownership of Sky (including the Times of London) might not be appropriate because of “editorial lapses” including the infamous Judge Jeanine show stating that Birmingham, UK, had no-go zones where police would not go. O’Reilly was implicated in the broader fallout from that show. His $100 million contract, which was renewed that January, was terminated and he received the $25 million severance it required. Murdoch ended up agreeing to sell his SkyNews shares in the end.
O’Reilly went on to self-publish, and quite successfully. In September 2019, a judge threw out a defamation suit brought by one of the former FOX News producers who had alleged sexual misconduct. This is not meant to imply that he was falsely accused by all of his accusers; O’Reilly did pay some of them in settlements.
2) Sell 21st Century FOX to Disney, except for news and sports channels. The deal had to be approved by governmental authorities in China, Europe, Brazil and Mexico. When Disney bought 21st Century FOX, which included National Geographic. Murdoch spun off FOX News, FOX Business and FOX Sports as a separate company, FOX Corp, with him as co-chairman with son Lachlan, and Lachlan as CEO.
3) Add former political operatives to the FOX Corp board. with new board containing former House Speaker and former Mitt Romney running mate Paul Ryan, as well as former Joe Biden chief of staff Danny O’Brien the new company’s executive vice president and head of government relations. According to left-leaning The American Prospect: “From March 2003 to August 2006, O’Brien was then-Sen. Biden’s chief of staff. Two years later, he signed on as Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-N.J.) chief of staff and then as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In late 2014 he left Congress for an executive-level government affairs job at General Electric.” Revolving doors are fun!
4) Fire Trish Regan from FOX Business for blasting China in its handling of the coronavirus.
5) Cancel Jeanine Pirro the night she was planning to discuss allegations of voter fraud across multiple battleground states.
6) Put Chris Wallace forward as the living embodiment of milquetoast centrism to challenge every “lie” of President Trump with the conventional wisdom of the elite media.
7) Partner with the Associated Press, touted as the “gold standard” for election counting since 1848, to bring the results to the public. See how the AP does it here. Put longtime decision desk director Arnon Mishkin on camera to create the appearance of pushback from Bret Baier, when he calls Arizona for Biden, causing pollster Nate Silver to push back. Mishkin also said Biden was favored in the nearly 80 percent range of probability in North Carolina, even as The New York Times probability needle showed Trump leading. Mishkin is a well-connected Yale graduate whose wife used to be an editor at NBC News and who worked with New York political consultant David Garth for Democratic candidates nationwide.
8) Silence Newt Gingrich on air, when he says attorneys general around the country are winning elections with money from George Soros.
9) Call Arizona for Joe Biden with a 7-point spread. But not Pennsylvania for Donald Trump with a 7-point spread in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Read this article which explains how what they thought was going to happen, that the mail-in ballots would favor Biden 2 to 1, are what gave Biden a jolt in the middle of the night.
10) Declare the state of Pennsylvania a win for Joe Biden and declare the former vice president as President-elect — in spite of pending legal challenges in Pennsylvania and recounts already under way in Georgia.
All this may have come as a shock to both Democrats and FOX viewers; elite media who are media watchers have long played the network as at war with the real story, and more recently, at war with management. They did it during the impeachment last year, inviting CEO Lachlan Murdoch to speculate about what President Trump would be doing after being removed from office (Vanity Fair); they did it after Election Night, gloating that Bret Baier appeared to be pushing back against Mishkin in the style of Megyn Kelly 2012, except still in his chair (Arizona Republic); and they did it also right before the election when quoting Lachlan Murdoch as saying he would welcome the competition of a Trump TV network after the President loses, because the polls showed him way behind. (Deadline).
Further reading:
James Murdoch and his wife each contributed $60,000 to the Biden victory fund, while Rupert according to anonymous sources had reportedly “soured” on Trump’s chances of victory. Read in Salon.
