When Fox News came online in October 1997, it was an instant success. In short order it quickly overtook CNN, and later all the other cable news outlets that vied for a share of the cable news audience. Under the leadership of Roger Ailes, it crafted a slick team of reporters who reported the news that the others did not. It took several years of continued conservative news for its audience to be assured that they would not be betrayed by this news source. As they had been by all the others.
Then the betrayal came. On election night conservatives saw that they were being lied to by the formerly trusted news source.
The thing is, Fox’s betrayal of conservatives was not an overnight betrayal
It was happening before our very eyes and we refused to see it happening. I suspect that the hiring of Donna Brazile should have been the warning. She was so toxic that even CNN fired her for colluding with Hillary Clinton during her run for president. Yet Fox decided to hire her as a reporter on their staff.
Brazile was hired around the same time that Fox News changed its logo from “Fair and Balanced,” to who knows what it is now. It was another clue that they were no longer fair and balanced. Fox had shifted from a right-of-center newscast to a left-of-center.
Slowly their news coverage shifted ever more leftist until it was difficult to tell their newscast from that of the MSM.
Important news events were not being broadcast on their news shows. Some of those events were reported on their most popular opinion shows, like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Judge Jeanne, and of course, Tucker Carlson. In fact, these shows kept Fox News at the top of the ratings. There were days where Fox was on a par with the free broadcast networks due to the draw of this exciting opinion team.
As the countdown to this election closed, Fox received some of its highest-ever ratings. But the signs were all there for everyone to see that Fox had changed.
Fox News polls echoed those of the MSM.
Their polls were never close to accurate, always showing President Trump down by double digits, when more accurate polls showed he was either ahead or very close to Biden throughout the entire time. The wake-up came the day Newt Gingrich was on “Outnumbered” and he simply stated the fact that George Soros was financially backing radical left-wing prosecutors across the nation.
Gingrich was quickly shut down by almost everyone on the panel, and the host quickly went to commercial. That should have been the final straw for conservatives. Yet we held out hope. Then on November 3, they went full left-winged and announced Arizona was a Biden win, when in fact as of this writing that state is still being tabulated.
That announcement came while voters were still going to the polls.
Fox’s complicity in voter suppression That is a typical leftist tactic to suppress voters from casting their ballot for the Republican. It may have cost Trump the state and certainly didn’t ’t help Martha McSally in her bid for the Senate. Watching Bret Bair defend Fox News’ decision to prematurely call Arizona for Biden caused this viewer to switch station to OANN.
Bair became aggressive in his defense of the wrong call that night. Even if Biden does win the state, Fox had no reason to call it so early. Unbelievably, Fox was the leader in calling the state for Biden. Only to be followed by every other MSM outlet. It was that call that shifted the momentum on election night.
In comparison, NewsMax has yet to call the state of Arizona for Biden, and they do not see Biden as the president-elect as they still haven’t given Pennsylvania to him. While Biden may very well win both states, the early calls for them hurt Fox News’ standing with its loyal audience.
Anticipating the fall of Fox Last week, Lachlan Murdoch, CEO and executive chairman of the network, reminded investors that their ratings would fall off after the election, regardless of who won. However, the ratings drop that has occurred since election night cannot be attributed to an after-election slump.
Fox’s viewers are angry. They feel betrayed and the likelihood that Fox will ever again regain its status as a powerhouse in the cable news business is highly unlikely. In the future, Fox will lose a large majority of its most loyal viewers, and that loss will not be offset by new more liberal viewers.
Lawyer Sidney Powell: Democrats used Dominion machines to steal votes No one who watches CNN or MSMBC will now switch to Fox. In fact, what happened to the once darling of Fox News, Megyn Kelly, should be a harbinger of what the network can now expect. Some may remember that Kelly, at the height of her fame, decided that she wanted to go to the MSM, and began attacking candidate Donald Trump in 2016.
In fact, she proudly tried to bring the man down. This tactic allowed her to go to the MSM, getting a contract with the most radical left network, NBC. Once there her ratings were below anything she ever imagined. She envisioned that the left would herald her as a heroine because she betrayed her conservative base. Instead, they treated her like the pariah that she was.
Soon, after some far-left incident of political correctness, she lost her job. For three years she has been off the air and is an afterthought by almost everyone. This is the path that Fox News has chosen for itself. They have already lost huge numbers of their viewers, and many more will follow.
No one on the left will switch to Fox
Fox will go from cable news giant to a tiny shrimp in a large pool of sharks. Some of Fox’s star power will leave, causing even lower ratings. Watch for Tucker, Laura, Jeanne, and Sean to find new homes on those networks that will gain from Fox’s betrayal. They can be assured that their viewers will follow them wherever they go.
OANN and NewsMax seem likely places to find their conservative commentary in the not too distant future as Fox News revenues continue to decline. Each reader will make their own determination on what news they wish to watch; however, this writer has tuned into Fox for the last time.
