While Fox News tries to find its place on the post-Trump media scene, the network claims it is moving to the “center-right”. A ridiculous claim, critics say – which is easily refuted by Fox’s prime right-wing speeches, but also by the tonal shift of an important midday talk show.
Fewer, which debuted for the first time in 2014 as a panel led by women (with an enigmatic “lucky guy” classified as the only male panelist), has always set up Fox’s increasingly blurry line sharing its “tough news” and wings of opinion. But the program has long touted its “fair and balanced” credentials, featuring a single liberal expert on its rotating panel.
However, in the past few months, and while Fox has struggled with a drop in audience – at least in part due to MAGA diehards leaving the network after its newsroom made precise electoral night calls to Joe Biden – the middle talk show day seems to have lost two regular liberal keys on Marie Harf and Jessica Tarlov.
And instead, Fewer it took a noticeable turn to the right, stacking its panels with conservative voices and giving a more prominent stance to ferocious provocateurs like Tomi Lahren. The resulting program is one that, like much of Fox’s programming, now seems focused on publicizing the complaints of the conservative cultural war of the time.
“Tomi [Lahren] it has no credibility, no experience résumé besides shouting derogatory things on the internet.“
– A current Fox News employee
“The audience fell into the tank and they want more right-wing voices,” a current Fox News official told The Daily Beast when assessing the new tone of the midday program, especially in light of the network’s review of much of its schedule to add more hours of right-wing opinion comment.
The extended Fewer The absence of Harf and Tarlov – both continue to appear elsewhere on the network – notably came almost immediately after an intense air skirmish in early December between Harf and permanent presenter Harris Faulkner about covering the deadly coronavirus pandemic program.
Harf, a former Obama State Department official, challenged Faulkner about Fewer having spent nearly an entire hour talking about Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s five-year interactions with a suspected Chinese spy, or complaining about coronavirus-related indoor meal restrictions, while providing the United States with just 20 seconds of air, overtaking 3,000 daily COVID-19 deaths for the first time.
An angry Faulkner shouted down Harf, complaining that it was “offensive” that the liberal panelist “shot there.” The hostess also rebuked her colleague: “You cannot see my heart and trust me when I say that it is painful for all of us to cry for those Americans and people around the world”.
Before the Faulkner explosion with Harf, the Fox News liberal contributor appeared in 11 of the previous 24 Fewer broadcasts and was in rotation to appear at least twice a week. Jessica Tarlov, another regular Fewer speaker, appeared four times during the same period and rotated the show once a week.
After the December 10 broadcast, however, Harf and Tarlov were removed from any future bookings in Fewer, according to two sources familiar with the situation. And since then, none of the women have returned to the show.
The only members of the left panel to appear on the midday program now are radio announcer Leslie Marshall, a Democrat who calls himself “centrist” and Johanna Maska, a former Obama spokesman who participated in the panel this week. last. Fox News presenter Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, a self-styled libertarian, also remains a staple of the program.
On the other hand, the program appears to rely more and more on incendiary warriors from conservative culture like MAGA’s young leader Charlie Kirk, reactionary podcaster Dave Rubin, failed Congressional candidate Kim Klacik and – much to the chagrin of Fox officials who talked to the Daily Beast – Tomi Lahren.
The career bomb sniper – best known for his sharp and breathless speeches on Fox Fox Nation’s digital streaming service, his often hateful tweets (some of which were publicly scolded by his own colleagues) and for being fired by Glenn Beck – suddenly became a routine presence in the Fewer.
Lahren recently renewed his contract with Fox and since December he has appeared at least 18 times on Fewer, co-hosting at least twice a week. Considering that his style of comment and debate was more comfortable in the decidedly right-hand hours of Fox’s prime time, some Fox News employees consider his newfound elevation to be astonishing.
“It is an absolute joke and further proof that the program should not be taken seriously,” said a current Fox employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from management. “When I was hired, I was told that [Lahren] would never be on legitimate programs like Fewer or The five, that she was just Fox Nation. I’m just as confused as everyone else. Tomi has no credibility, no experience curriculum other than shouting derogatory things on the internet. “
Another Fox employee suggested that Lahren is a logical choice to spice up the network’s daytime schedule amid a drop in audience. “She is good at stirring the pot … everything you need today,” said the employee. “Fox likes what it evaluates.”
While the network’s actions – including scheduling options that include adding two more hours of right-wing commentary at 7 pm and 11 pm – indicate a definite shift from the far right to strengthen the conservative base of MAGA, Fox Corp. Lachlan Murdoch somehow insisted the opposite earlier this month.
“We believe that where we are targeted, to the center-right, is where we should be targeted. We don’t need to go any further ”, he said while disclosing the company’s advertising revenue earnings. “We do not believe that America is more certain and we are obviously not going to turn to the left. All of our important competitors are on the far left. “
After last November’s election, however, the entire calculation of Fox News’s schedule changed. Disgruntled pro-Trump viewers abandoned the network en masse after Fox Arizona’s call for President Joe Biden on election night, a decision that undermined then President Donald Trump’s plan to falsely declare victory.
With Fox experiencing a drop in post-election ratings – Fox has since witnessed a recovery and recently returned to first place in prime time – the network made a concerted effort to win back MAGA loyalists, focusing more directly on conservative opinion and in the battles of the cultural war. An important part of this shift included his “hard news” broadcasts taking a lot of time to discuss and amplify the opinion monologues delivered the night before by Fox’s popular pro-Trump arsonists, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
Audience panic became apparent after Martha MacCallum’s ex-7pm show. The story was defeated on a January night face to face in the ratings of Newsmax, the cable TV channel that directly attracted disgruntled viewers to Fox by openly embracing Trump’s “stolen” electoral maneuver. The loss of MacCallum to Newsmax’s Greg Kelly, in the main advertising segment of viewers aged 25 to 54, scared the network’s bosses “to the core,” officials told The Daily Beast at the time.
And the new direction of Fewer ultimately it appears to be yet another part of Fox’s openly shift to the right to tackle classification problems.
“It’s all a complete joke,” a Fox News source told The Daily Beast. “They’re not even trying to try a fair discussion anymore.”
“The symbolic liberal was just there to show off,” concluded this person. “Liberal opinion was just as useful to them as a tee on the tee ball for the rest of the gang to get the guaranteed hits that the public wants to hear. Now, in their desperation to retain the fleeing audience, they are too afraid to have the slightest contrary opinion about the program, for fear that more people will click on Newsmax. “
Diana Falzone was a FoxNews.com digital and on-camera reporter from 2012 to 2018. In May 2017, she filed a lawsuit for gender discrimination and disability against the network and made a deal, leaving the company in March 2018.