Is Fox So Crazy That It's Even Alienating Some Conservatives?

By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America. Posted June 17, 2009.

Since Smith has been at Fox News, its transformation has mirrored that of the Republican Party. Meaning, back in the late 1990s, the GOP still projected a semblance of a big tent party, and so did Fox News, which, in its early days, often did a reasonable job of reporting the news and keeping the wild partisan fever in check. Yes, it had an anti-establishment chip on its shoulder, and Smith over the years has been proud to display his, but it still performed a newsgathering service.

It wasn't until the Florida recount in 2000, I think, that Fox News went all in with the GOP and made a conscious decision to sever its ties with traditional journalism. Since then, of course, whatever journalism links remained were certainly cut during Fox News' unabashed cheerleading of the Iraq war and unquestionably in the wake of the Obama's inauguration, when Fox News rushed into the fever swamps.

In fact, Fox News now routinely apes the most radical and hateful rhetoric found anywhere on the far right. Fox News, like the Republican Party (or at least Rush Limbaugh's Republican Party) is now for true believers only. Dissenting voices, such as Smith's, are no longer welcome. Viewers prefer a drum-tight conformity and become incensed when somebody veers off script, even for just two or three minutes. Fox News is for those who think that Obama is a fascist, that he might not be a natural-born citizen, and that he wants to take away your guns.

Basically, Fox News is for those who are convinced that Obama is destroying America on purpose.

Whether consciously or not (its prime-time shows are run as hands-off fiefdoms, so I doubt there's been internal coordination), Fox News has positioned itself as the opposition party of the Obama White House. And it's hard for anyone to make the serious claim that Fox News still practices journalism as it's commonly defined or recognized. The question then becomes, does Smith want to make his living being part of the opposition party?

And a party led by Beck?

What started the latest fracas? In reporting on the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust museum shooting, when it became known that the alleged gunman was a lone-wolf white supremacist, Smith recalled that the Department of Homeland Security had issued a report in April warning about exactly that type of attack. It was a report that conservatives universally condemned, claiming it targeted Obama's political opponents.

Last Wednesday, though, Smith stated the obvious:

[T]his is a former military guy and he's gone extremist. They were warning us for a reason -- not about something political or social or anything else. ... It was a warning to us all. And it appears now that they were right.

In the eyes of Fox News' right-wing viewers, that was heresy. After all, Fox News' own Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly had led the charge in demonizing the DHS report, claiming it represented a clear case of the Obama administration targeting (harassing?) everyday Americans, even "moms that worry about massive debt," Beck warned ominously. (The report, which was begun under the Bush administration, was actually about skinheads and white supremacists, but that never slowed Beck's attacks.)

See more stories tagged with: limbaugh, fox news, glenn beck, right-wing, sean hannity, 9/11 truth, conspiracy theories, paul krugman, birthers, shepard smith, 9/11 truthers, von brunn, right-wing violence, shooting frank righ, fema concentration camps

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Media and Technology! Sign up now »