How the Murdochs are shaping the GOP for the next 4 years of Joe Biden
Fox News follows the money and the Republican Party follows Fox News. Now, the network is setting the stage for what the next four years of the GOP might look like under the Biden administration.
“We very much focus on on the center right. We think that’s where America is,” Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son and the CEO of Fox News said during a recent call with investors. “75 million people voted for Trump for president,” he added.
“He’s just freely admitting what Fox is,” CNN’s Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter said on “Relibale Sources” Sunday. “It is for the Republican Party. It’s for Republican voters.”
Fox News has amped up its highly charged rhetoric in the post-Trump era, focusing on bashing Democrats, including President Joe Biden, both on-air and online. The network shook up its lineup in January to include more opinion and less news. And Fox News’ website recently went through “an ideological purge of fact-based journalism by staffers,” Diana Falzone, a contributing reporter at The Daily Beast, told Stelter.
Network hosts bash Biden daily, calling him frail and senile, and Sean Hannity has said the president is “weak” and “cognitively struggling.” And Fox News’ ratings are far below where they were during the network’s pre-election highs.
Fox News recently made another bold hire that serves as an indication of what’s to come from the network. Kayleigh McEnany, the last White House press secretary under the Trump administration, is joining Fox News as an on-air contributor. McEnany, a former CNN contributor, has come under fire for her steadfast defense of Trump’s misleading statements. She has long been a rising star in Republican politics. And in her first interview since leaving the White House, McEnany told Fox News host Harris Faulkner that she doesn’t believe Trump is responsible for the January 6 Capitol riots.
The GOP is taking notes. Fox News often serves as the central messaging for the Republican Party. Republican talking points on Capitol Hill often were first spoken by Fox News analysts, contributors, guests or hosts.
“TV is not reacting to DC. DC is reacting to TV,” Stelter said.
The effort has been part of Fox News’ response to losing some of its audience after Donald Trump exited the White House.
In February, CNN topped Fox and MSNBC for the fourth-straight month in both total daytime and prime time in the key demographic of adults ages 25 to 54, Stelter said. Fox News’ daytime ratings are particularly weak, but the network returned to No. 1 in on cable news in total prime time viewers.
