Friday Fox Follies - Is Fox "News" Imploding?

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:05 pm

Gretchen Carlson (I now regret calling her Wretched Gretched) started the snowball rolling with her sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes, which is How Gretchen Carlson Became a Feminist Heroine. That started the avalanche as more women came out publicly (and anonymously) with similar stories. However, Andrea Tantaros’ lawsuit created a combined earthquake, brush fire, and tsunami.

This reporter was especially interested in NewsHounds’ 10 Takeaways From Andrea Tantaros’ Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Against Fox News, since I have personal connections to two of them:

#6. Tantaros describes being harassed by Fox correspondent John Roberts.

I know the journalist formerly known as JD Roberts and have written about him.

#9. Our nemeses, Johnny Dollar and The Cable Game, among others, are identified as Fox News sock puppets who retaliate on behalf of Briganti.

I survived The Johnny Dollar Wars and lived to write about it.

Gretchen Carlson appears ready to settle her sexual harassment case, which would bring a Cone of Silence over her part in the scandal but the Andrea Tantaros’ lawsuit is filled with juicy new details:

Ailes Is Gone, But Fox News Has
Kept Everyone Else Accused of
Perpetuating a Culture of Harassment

Fox News Is Falling Apart
Before Our Eyes As Bill O’Reilly
Accused Of Sexual Harassment

Former Fox News CEO Roger
Ailes Reportedly Called
Stacey Dash ‘the Black Girl’

Several stories are predicting its inevitable demise because Fox News has a problem bigger than Roger Ailes: its aging audience, and questioning Has Fox News Hit Its Ceiling? To quote:

But for all the success Fox News Channel has reaped, it may have hit its ceiling. As Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff pointed out two years ago, Ailes didn’t build his broadcast giant by dividing the country and feeding the conservative audience the meat it craved. He “chipped off his own profitable piece” of the TV news market by turning politics into “a special interest category.” Fox News’ biggest innovation perhaps was to abandon the traditional lip service that U.S. news organizations pay to being impartial and embracing an overtly partisan stance in many if not most of its broadcasts the way British publications have for decades. As it turns out, though, the number of conservative meat eaters is quite small—an average of 1.35 million viewers tune in to Fox News Channel, and its best-rated show, The O’Reilly Factor, attracts only 3.4 million, and most come from the oldest demographic. (These are election-year inflated numbers, by the way.) In the old days, writes Wolff, the traditional network news programs reached 40 million viewers. In a multi-channel world, those numbers are no longer reachable, but they do illustrate how niche and confining the audience that Fox News Channel has nurtured for two decades is.

Vanity Fair mines a similar vein when it asks After Ailes, Fox News Has a New Crisis: Can It Keep Megyn Kelly?

Besides a ratings hit, losing Kelly would be devastating for the optics of Fox News. “On top of all their troubles they have, if they lose their ‘It girl,’ they’ll be in even worse shape,” one rival television executive told me. The Ailes scandal has given her additional leverage. “If I’m her agent, I’m thinking ka-ching,” the executive added. Kelly, who according to the L.A. Times makes around $10 million a year at Fox News, could possibly command double that when her current contract expires in July 2017, a figure more in line with what her in-house rival and nemesis Bill O’Reilly reportedly earns.

However, this could end Fox’s domination in the ratings marketplace:

Introducing the Trump News Channel—Coming in 2017?

The audience isn’t big enough to split.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: “Some people say” Megyn Kelly is a journalist. Friday Fox Follies says Kelly is approaching Peak Hackery, threatening Sean Hannity’s crown. Two separate interviews — on separate topics — both from last night prove this thesis.

First Watch Megyn Kelly Get Shut Down For Comparing Bigoted Breitbart News To Media Matters:

Let me draw your attention to the 0:33 second mark where she shouts, “My point is it’s in the eye of the beholder, Bill. It’s in the eye of the beholder.” This is a False Equivalency. There is no comparison between Media Matters and Breitbart, other than they are both sites on the internet.

Her hackery — along with her hypocrisy — is truly exposed when she argued with Jorge Ramos. She pretends she has no bias and doesn’t work for a biased network. However, this next point is far more egregious. Watch:

In case you missed it, Kelly again plays the False Equivalency Card in a brazen attempt to cover for the racism in the Donald Trump presidential campaign. At the 02:03 point she says, “You know Trump and his supporters would say, ‘It’s in the eye of the beholder.'”

This beholder eyes Megyn Kelly as a journalistic fraud.

KOMEDY KORNER:

Seth Meyers crushes #SaysWho conservatives: Fox
News spent years teaching GOP to question reality

RACISM IS AS RACISM DOES: As we have been learning What Is The “Alt-Right”? A Guide To The White Nationalist Movement Now Leading Conservative Media, a Fox Correspondent Defends The Alt-Right: It’s “Much More” Than A “Nationalist, Populist” White Supremacist Movement.

Meanwhile, Fox Host Suggests Trump Can’t Go Into Black Communities Because Of Violence as Fox’s Ralph Peters Compares Black Lives Matter To “Mass Movements” Inspired By “The Power Of Jihad”.

Just more White Privilege on display.

HACK HANNITY: Fox’s leading Trumpeter, Sean Hannity, Has Given Donald Trump $31 Million In Free Publicity and, if that’s not bad enough, Sean Hannity And Donald Trump’s Immigration Townhall Focuses On Fearmongering, while Donald Trump Polls Sean Hannity’s Audience For His Immigration Policy. Repeating a Alt-Right meme, Hannity [says]: Birthright Citizenship Has “Been A Huge Problem” For The US.

Oh, Sean, why do you hate the Constitution so?

PASSAGES: Roger Ailes is not the only high profile personnel change at Fox recently. Fox Host Anna Kooiman Leaving Fox & Friends to follow her husband to Australia, like a good little Stepford Wife, while Kirsten Powers Leaving Fox News to Join CNN, making her the 4th hire CNN has poached from Fox. Also out the door is meteorologist Maria Molina Saying Goodbye to Fox News to Pursue PhD. Watch the tearful goodbye:

But the revolving door has been good for Ed Henry: Returning to Fox News After Cheating Scandal.

Headly Westerfield used to write for NewsHounds under the nom de troll Aunty Em Ericann.