DeSantis’ failure proves Fox News 'is less a kingmaker than a courtier': veteran journalist

14 January 2024

Ahead of the night Republicans will begin selecting their 2024 nominee, in a Sunday, January 14 op-ed for The Atlantic, former Washington Post journalist Paul Farhi argues Fox News "is less a kingmaker than a courtier, pledging support to those already on the throne. Rather than influencing its viewers, it is influenced by them."

He writes:

There is no clearer example of this dynamic than the financial and journalistic debacle that was the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit. Fox’s parent company paid $787.5 million to settle Dominion’s claims that Fox had smeared the company by alleging that its election hardware had flipped votes from Trump to Joe Biden in 2020. Depositions showed that Fox’s top personalities and executives, including Murdoch, were well aware that Dominion wasn't at the center of a conspiracy to cheat Trump out of reelection, even as Fox hosts and guests continued to say so on the air.

The now-obvious reason: Fox's leaders feared that their audience would light out for other, even more strident TV networks if Fox didn’t keep hammering Dominion. This was not irrational. Incensed that Fox had called the election for Biden, Trump encouraged his supporters to abandon the network.

Then, Farhi notes, "After Fox recommitted to Trump’s Big Lie, its ratings rebounded. The lesson was obvious: Fox holds less sway over its audience than its audience holds over Fox. The viewers demanded that their delusions be catered to. Fox, chasing ratings, complied."

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He also notes:

For at least two decades, Fox’s alleged Svengali-like control of Republican voters has been an article of faith among academics and in much of the mainstream media. One 2017 study in the American Economic Review, for example, suggested that Fox alone could explain the entire increase in American political polarization from 2000 to 2008, a stunning conclusion given the complicated dynamics at play among tens of millions of voters. Fox is, of course, indispensable as a platform for Republican candidates and conservative talking points.

It has predictably savaged the Democratic candidate in every election since Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes launched the network in 1996. It has also helped promote a smorgasbord of conservative culture-war memes, such as the 'War on Christmas,' dubious COVID cures, and attacks on critical race theory. And yet, for all its cultural clout and Nielsen dominance, Fox has never been able to direct the course of Republican electoral politics.

To further support his point, Fahri points to the fact Fox News magnate Rupert "Murdoch went all in on Rick Santorum in 2012 ('Only candidate with genuine big vision for country')," just for Republicans to select US Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) instead.

Then, the veteran journalist notes, "Even during the Trump boom in the 2016 cycle, Fox was arguably more favorable to Ted Cruz until Cruz finally capitulated, late in the primaries. Only at that point did Fox fully embrace Trump."

In Fox News' latest attempt to sway viewers, Farhi emphasizes, "From the week of the 2020 election through February 2021, the network invited DeSantis to appear 113 times, or almost once a day, according to the Tampa Bay Times," but, "After that early burst of attention, the DeSantis bandwagon never got out of the garage."

Farhi writes, "His presidential campaign will be lucky to survive beyond an expected pounding in tomorrow’s Iowa caucus and further humiliation in the New Hampshire primary. That has much to do with his charisma-free persona and his party’s devotion to Donald Trump, but it also reveals something about Fox’s vaunted power to shape Republican politics—namely, that it’s a myth."

Farhi's full op-ed is here (subscription required).

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