Is Fox News reversing their track and turning against Trump?
The network often derided by Democrats as “state media” is split over how to cover the president, and Sean Hannity is reportedly worried that the Murdochs will dump Trump, according to a new report in Vanity Fair.
Fox News turning against Trump?
The Vanity Fair report comes as the more liberal Lachlan Murdoch, son of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch, took the helm of Fox Corp. on Wednesday amid the network’s struggle to navigate advertiser boycotts against two of its most popular hosts, Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson. Fox’s decision to suspend Pirro over offensive comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) prompted a Twitter rebuke from President Trump, who urged the network to stand with her and Carlson.
Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro. The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country. They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well. Fox …..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2019
The network’s simultaneous decision to bring on Democrat Donna Brazile as a contributor and former House Speaker Paul Ryan to the board of Fox Corp. — which consists of Fox News, Fox Sports, and Fox Broadcasting — are being seen by some as evidence of a shift. (21st Century Fox became Fox Corp. after Murdoch sold off the company’s entertainment assets in a $71.3 billion deal with Disney.)
But according to Vanity Fair‘s Gabriel Sherman, this reversal didn’t arise spontaneously: There is a “cold civil war” raging at Fox between the network’s mostly pro-Trump opinion pundits and journalists who are wary of being defined by the MAGA brand — and the conflict is reportedly intensifying.
“Reporters are telling management that we’re being defined by the worst people on our air,” a source reportedly told Sherman. Fox journalists are “lobbying Fox News C.E.O. Suzanne Scott and President Jay Wallace to rein in Fox & Friends, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and Pirro,” Sherman reported.
Signs of this split were first evident in the fall, when Fox executives and hard news journalists rebuked Hannity and Pirro for appearing at a Trump rally before the midterms. And the divide only seems to be getting worse as the network faces the Democratic Party’s decision to block it from hosting their primary debates in response to a New Yorker report that the network’s relationship with Trump is too close for comfort.
Hannity: Murdochs out for Trump?
Is Fox’s leadership trying to change that perception? Staffers say that Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch — a “libertarian conservative, not a MAGA diehard,” according to Sherman — plans to push the network away from its MAGA programming.
But how dramatic will Fox’s reported reversal be? Fox’s number one pundit, the pro-Trump Hannity, is reportedly “angry” at the Murdochs’ firing of Roger Ailes and Bill Shine, and he thinks they’re “out to get Trump.”
“Hannity told Trump last year that the Murdochs hate Trump, and Hannity is the only one holding Fox together,” a source told Sherman.
Still, Murdoch’s changes will reportedly be “modest,” at least at first. He reportedly held off on implementing any changes until concluding the major trade with Disney on Wednesday “for fear of antagonizing Trump into opposing it.”
The money’s in the MAGA
However, abandoning Trump would surely come with a cost for Fox. Fox’s opinion hosts might be the biggest advertiser liability for the network, but the flip side of that is that they also bring in the money — and they know it.
Representatives of the MAGA wing at Fox told Sherman that their viewers identify with the pro-Trump wing of the network. “We make all the money,” a source close to Hannity told Vanity Fair.
Despite all the controversy facing Fox, they’re still the king of primetime, and their biggest ratings draws are all pro-Trump pundits. Going against Trump wouldn’t be a smart move.
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