What will Fox News do without President Trump?
President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Fox News might have called the election for Joe Biden, but let’s be clear: Much of the network is still firmly in Donald Trump’s corner as the outgoing president holds his breath and stomps his feet about a rigged election. Millions of people in this country believe it was a fraudulent election and Fox News is among those to be blamed for that line of false thinking. It’s dangerous. It’s irresponsible. It’s reckless.
Did you see Maria Bartiromo’s ridiculous “interview” with Trump on Sunday? Or have you caught any of the network’s primetime shows or “Fox & Friends” or “The Five?”
On Monday, ESPN personality-turned-full-blown-Fox-News-conspiracy- theorist Will Cain, filling in on “Fox & Friends,” continued to cast doubts on the election (in addition to saying he wouldn’t wear a mask around family members). “The Five’s” Jesse Watters went on a rant, questioning the election results.
So, again, to be clear, much of Fox News remains a pro-Trump outlet.
In wake of the Bartiromo interview, the big question is why? Why would a once-respected journalist such as Bartiromo ruin her reputation by buying into Trump’s irresponsible and dangerous claims? Why would Cain, who isn’t well known outside of sports circles, want to start off his Fox News career by drawing this line in the sand?
Well, perhaps for the same reason Rudy Giuliani has gone rogue. It’s a chance to be relevant, a chance to be in the news, a chance to trend on Twitter.
But what about Fox News? What is Fox News’ excuse for allowing such conversation on its airways? Maybe it’s because the network fears Trump and is worried that he could drive viewers away from Fox News and to places such as OAN and his latest favorite new toy, Newsmax. There are already indications that Newsmax is picking up some viewers and that, for the first time in a long time, CNN is gaining on Fox News in the ratings.
Which then leads us to ask what is going to become of Fox News once Trump leaves the White House? In her latest piece, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has advice for Fox News.
Sullivan wrote, “ … keep appealing to a right-leaning audience — but commit to doing it within the realm of the truth.”
That means, Sullivan writes, no more interviews like the one Bartiromo did with Trump on Sunday and no more playing down the coronavirus to make Trump look good. Instead, maybe Fox News can beef up the news division, although many — me among them — believe that a shift from strong opinions to more hard news would alienate diehard Fox News viewers.
Sullivan also brings up another point that I hear all the time when I criticize Fox News for its bias: How is it any different from the left-leaning coverage that is seen on MSNBC and, occasionally, CNN, which rarely gets criticized?
Sullivan wrote, “Those networks — and many others in the nonconservative media sphere, like NPR or the New York Times, for instance — certainly have their worldviews. But they also adhere to basic journalistic practices. They have formal standards departments that cover both news and opinion offerings, where editors (and sometimes lawyers) review material for factuality. They publicly correct their errors. Far too often, Fox News strays far afield from such basic practices. And that’s been a deeply corrupting influence on our culture and our politics. Now, things are changing and there’s a chance for improvement.”
Fox News can still be right-leaning and successful if, Sullivan writes, it places an emphasis on reporting and truth.
Bartiromo’s flop
The media world is still buzzing about Bartiromo’s interview with Trump on Monday. The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple started his latest column like this:
“Dear Maria Bartiromo: The election’s over. And it has been over for weeks.”
In describing the interview in which Bartiromo let Trump run wild, while doing more agreeing than pushing back, Wemple wrote it “be remembered as one of the Trump era’s foremost abdications of professional duty.”
Be sure to check out PolitiFact’s Bill McCarthy and Amy Sherman with “Fact-Checking President Trump’s Whopper-Laden Interview with Maria Bartiromo.”
By the way, Bartiromo gave an interview to The Daily Caller in which she actually said this without the slightest bit of self-awareness or irony:
“When you look at what has taken place at The New York Times and so many others — CNN is a great example — it’s just not news. They’ve taken a side. They are mouthpieces for the Democrat Party, and they are trying hard to affect elections. I think it is election interference.”
Let me repeat, that quote came from a Fox News/Fox Business employee — one who conducted one of the most embarrassing interviews of the Trump administration. And, it should be noted, it wasn’t her first softball interview with the president this year.
Speaking of Newsmax
New York Times media columnist Ben Smith’s latest column is about Newsmax with this enticing headline, “The King of Trump TV Thinks You’re Dumb Enough to Buy It.”
Smith talks to Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, who told Smith, “In this day and age, people want something that tends to affirm their views and opinions.”
Ruddy clearly sees pro-Trump programming as his ticket.
Smith writes, “But nobody I’ve ever covered treats an audience with the blithe disdain of Mr. Ruddy. He has them watching a great story — a thriller, a whodunit — about a stolen election. He thinks they’re stupid enough to fall for it, dumb enough to keep watching even after the fantasy inevitably dissolves, buying the supplements and the books and, crucially, tuning in to channel 1115 in large enough numbers that, eventually, the cable companies will pay him. Perhaps he actually thinks his viewers are that dumb. Or maybe he just needs them to stick around long enough for him to find someone just as cynical, but with more cash on hand, to buy him out.”
Word of the year
Dictionary.com has named its word of the year. It’s the right choice. But it’s also a reminder of just how awful 2020 has been. The word of the year?
Pandemic.
Officially, Dictionary.com defines pandemic as “a disease prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world.” But it evoked more thoughts and emotions than ever.
In a blog post explaining the selection, Dictionary.com wrote, “With over 60 million confirmed cases, the pandemic has claimed over one million lives across the globe and is still rising to new peaks. The pandemic has wreaked social and economic disruption on a historic scale and scope, globally impacting every sector of society — not to mention its emotional and psychological toll. All other events for most of 2020, from the protests for racial justice to a heated presidential election, were shaped by the pandemic. Despite its hardships, the pandemic inspired the best of our humanity: resilience and resourcefulness in the face of struggle.”
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