How Fox News Changed the World

half of Fox News viewers believe that climate change is not caused by humans the campaign against global warming seems to have gone bust it started as an effort to protect the environment it is not that anymore the 2014 study found that 72 percent of references to climate change on Fox News in 2013 were misleading viewers were 31 more likely to agree with the statement that it's not clear that Obama was born in the United States it's not a birth certificate candy and people are trying to figure out why isn't he giving his birth certificate it's not a birth certificate 60 believe that American Muslims are not an important part of the U.S religious community there's a lot of trash talking going on between President Obama and presumptive a Presidential nominee Donald Trump over Muslims and what they do or don't believe and 68 believe that the values of Islam are at odds with American values Fox News the most popular news channel in America with imitators popping up across the globe has indisputably changed the news media landscape some have even argued it's now part of the Republican Party Machinery others say it's the other way around former Bush speechwriter David Froome said that Republicans originally thought that fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for fox to understand the Fox News phenomenon how it influences the international let alone the national conversation where it came from what it gets wrong and what it gets right we need to situate the rise of Murdoch's news Empire in its wider context the rise of television as a media what that meant for how information is presented to us and how that changed how we approach politics because Fox News is not just about Fox News it's about how we've all changed how in Marshall mcluhan's tired but Timeless words the medium that we communicate in whether book newspaper radio television or the internet is the message television created new ways to shape how the world is presented so we'll see how many who are critical of fox need to acknowledge that they do get a lot right and that we can situate fox in a larger historical Arc one that reaches right back to the enlightenment to Romanticism through to today to this idea that for good or for bad Fox might be the best example we have for the post-modern news channel course the O'Reilly's and the hannities and the Carlsons of the world and this guy have always been around but it takes a particular historical philosophical political and Regulatory shape for them to fit through for the tropes the motifs and the elements that they employ in their delivery to be accepted and aired in the first place [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] senses it's no wonder that there would be something inherently attractive to us about television invented in 1927 by 1946 there were around 2 000 sets in the US by 1952 just six years later there were 15.3 million television like radio before it was heavily regulated from the beginning with limited space on the airwaves for stations the Federal Communications Commission the FCC granted licenses insisted a variety of political viewpoints were represented and mandated that stations had to provide at least some program that was in the quote public interest news education and documentary news up first was simple CBS and MBC both Radio Networks broadcast short newsreels with basic footage often staged and if of the war supplied by the U.S government CBS News presents Douglas Edwards with up to the minute developments from all parts of the world Mr Edward good evening everybody concise voiceovers supplied viewers with the basic facts in these early years news was the prerogative of the press of journalists and any news on radio and television would sound much like a short newspaper article where the facts were usually ripped from the first popular news program to film its own stories was NBC's 1949 camel sponsored news Caravan presented by John Cameron Swayze who would smoke camels on screen Camel cigarette bring the world's latest news event right into your own living room sit back light up a camel and be an eyewitness to the happenings that made history in the last 24 hours in the 50s broadcasters began to experiment with new Styles more appropriate to the small screen journalist Don Hewitt joined CBS in 1948 and led an experimentation with graphics with maps charts and introduced a revolutionary new device the teleprompter Hewitt was creative trying things like using Toy Soldiers to illustrate the Korean War he also innovated a style of mixing Talking Heads with narration over the top of footage and then back to Talking Heads again which quickly became standard across the networks in New York knowing the visual appeal of Television WPIX began racing around the city to film stories of fires or plane crashes and while most news coverage was still simple relying on the supposedly neutral and objective presentation of unbiased facts that readers of newspapers were largely used to these rare Innovations would become harbingers of things to come the first Innovative modern documentary style program was journalist Ed Murray's 1951 see it now it used unscripted interviews lots of specially filmed footage and began to expand on the topics it covered the Korean War the story on the Grand Coulee Dam coverage of events like Queen Elizabeth's coronation and an expose of senator Joseph McCarthy but while covering sensitive issues see it now quickly attracted controversy the fcc's 1949 fairness Doctrine permitted opinion and editorializing but also required quote a reasonably balanced presentation of the issues after Murrow had criticized McCarthy and continued focusing on sensitive topics CBS canceled see it now in 1948 with chairman William Paley telling Murray that he didn't want to stomach ache every time the show aired Murrow quickly becoming a national celebrity became an influential critic of what television was becoming bemoaning that it was quote decadence escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live television could be a force for good he insisted but instead networks produced shows that appealed to the lowest common denominator to appease advertisers and attract the largest possible audience Murrow was one of many critical of the so-called culture industry in the post-war period FCC chairman Newton minnow gave a famous speech to the National Association of broadcasters in 1962 saying that television had become a sensationalist vast Wasteland with screaming cajoling and defending commercials adding to this critique in 1958 it had been discovered that several quiz shows had been fixed to keep popular contestants on and the ratings High scandals like this and the criticism that television was becoming minnows vast Wasteland were becoming part of the national conversation and Kennedy promised to strengthen the fcc's powers during his 1960 campaign in response and in an effort of self-protection Television Executives took note and increased their news education and public affairs budgets meanwhile they searched for ways to make the public interest programs that they were forced to make and broadcast more popular more appealing to the average viewer in 1951 NBC's Pat Weaver imagined a morning show that would quote tell early risers all kinds of things they should know as they faced the day it should feel like a magazine should cover a variety of popular human topics feature different guests and importantly cover the women's domain fashion children domestic issues and be presented by women today launched in 1952 to bad reviews but quickly became the most profitable show on TV other networks soon followed suit Executives were discovering something about television human interest everyday issues that focused on people story and emotion was popular more than anything else Revan Frank at NBC distributed a memo that argued that journalism on television was about narrative and that quote every news story without sacrifice of probity or responsibility display attributes of fiction it should have structure and conflict problem and denouement rising action and fooling action a beginning middle and an end [Music] Fox News when it was launched on October the 7th 1996 was the brainchild of one man Roger Isles born in 1940 and graduated from Ohio University in 1962 with a major in radio and television the loud bombastic opinionated and controversial Roger Isles may have been responsible for more politicians and presidents being elected than any man in history in the early 60s his first job was on the local talk show the Mike Douglas show the show became phenomenon went National and Douglas became the highest paid star on television [Music] the Mike Douglas show was where ales began honing his craft learning that television was about drama spontaneity and appearances producer of the show Woody Fraser tool tiles that the most important ingredient for a daily show was to keep it fresh and one way was to keep people off balance not knowing what would happen sitting on the edge of their seats it's when people get bored that they switch channels another producer later said that Roger was just completely interested and intrigued by the mechanics of the ways these guys presented themselves and talked during his 1968 presidential campaign while appearing as a guest on the Mike Douglas show Nixon told ales it's a shame a man has to use gimmicks like this to get elected television is not a gimmick ales responded and if you think it is you'll lose again Nixon had come off poorly on the very first televised debate between him and Kennedy and ales's confidence and inside knowledge about a new medium impressed Nixon and his aides the Nixon team hired ales and the work they did would soon change political campaigning forever ales knew from his work on the Mike Douglas show that television was about something contradictory artificial authenticity you had to construct the appearance of spontaneity there's all of his contemporaries were to become aware as they read mcluhan's influential new book the medium was the message at the time ales made a prescient observation he said Nixon is not a child of TV and he may be the last candidate who couldn't make it on the Johnny Carson show and could make it in an election politics he was discovering was now about television the two were becoming intertwined this is it he said this is the way they'll be elected forevermore the next guy's up will have to be performers ales organized TV spots for the campaign that had supposedly ordinary voters asking Nixon questions in town hall style meetings to the viewer the encounters appeared natural but the questions were staged and the answers pre-prepared ales knew that because television was mostly local Nixon could reuse pre-prepared stock phrases over and over in different locations without the risk of being found out or it looking phony in the book he later wrote you are the message he wrote on an index card you can keep in your wallet list the key phrases of 10 stories that will entertain audiences for the next 10 years he knew that more than just the authentic individual to television medium was about presentation style emotion camera work the set style ales more or less invented the idea of the sound bite he wrote television is a hit and run medium the general public is just not sophisticated enough to Wade through answers therefore at least some of Mr Nixon's answers should end with a specific graphic a succinct memorable comment he said Nixon should use descriptive visual phrases emotion he knew television was about moments usually dramatic spontaneous and unpredictable moments even if you had to plan the spontaneous moments he collaborated on the Nixon campaign with speech writer and Nixon aide Raymond price who introduced him to the idea that politics is similar to TV he said politics is much more emotional than it is rational and this is particularly true of presidential politics camera work Ailes was impressed with Lenny rifenstyle's groundbreaking Nazi propaganda piece the Triumph of the will as many in film and television were at the time the film was full of shots and camera angles and set pieces and dialogue all focused on curating the image of the fuhrer Mike Douglas producer Kenny Johnson recalled that he and Isles would talk about the psychological power of camera placement he said there's so many subtle things you see in propaganda if you put the camera below the subject's eye height it's the hero shot it gives him dominance for example set when on set with Nixon in Chicago ayles complained that those stupid bastards on the set designing crew put turquoise curtains in the background he had them removed and replaced with wooden panels that had quite clean solid masculine lines he wanted the subliminal feeling of Nixon being the hero at battle in an arena he wrote even if a viewer is not in favor of Richard Nixon by 15 minutes into the program he almost subconsciously begins to root for him and Nixon tended to sweat a lot so they had the air conditioning turned right up to counter the studio lighting and made sure that they used the right makeup after the Nixon campaign ales was featured in Joe mcginnis's best-selling the selling of the president which told the story of the taping of the television ads that he had worked on one Memo from the book read reason requires a high degree of discipline of concentration impression is easier reason pushes the viewer back impression can envelope him invite him in it revealed that ales was obsessed with details like the color of makeup on Nixon's eyelids the demographic of the audience in shot the presence or the absence of something like a frown within the Republican Party ales quickly became a superstar with his reputation growing he began his own Consulting business Republicans clamored over him hoping that they too could be the next Nixon but Nixon had been teaching ale something too something that changed the dynamic of American politics ales later remembered that I never had a political thought until they asked me to join the Richard Nixon presidential campaign the Nixon campaign had run on now familiar populist logic it was that that there were a group of liberal establishment politicians media Moguls businessmen executive producers journalists and Anchorman a cabal of elitist snobs that was out of touch unaligned with the views of the silent majority of honest hard-working decent Americans the elites were politically correct eastern coast liberals who like to tell the dim-witted how to live what to do and what to think and television had already become a powerful part of that establishment Elite by the 70s the television networks have become a powerful force in American Life they saw themselves like journalists and philosophers and authors before them as being a rational avant-garde leading the nation into the future they were already being seen as elitist and arrogant they were already beginning to be met with suspicion in his history of television news historian Charles Ponce de Leon writes they were losing in part because they were seeking to inform through a medium that was poorly suited for rational discourse and the sober objective analysis of complex issues and events ales turned away from politics for a period he worked on different television shows and even on Broadway putting on two shows that were met with a lukewarm reception but he kept his Consulting work and his spelling theater his experience and experimentation with different styles on TV and his exposure to the most powerful politicians in the country would soon begin to synthesize into a potent latent bubbling Force [Music] in 1974 beer business mobile Joseph cause approached ales with a proposition a conservative news network TVN core's dream was the first attempt at what fox would later become like Nixon he believed that the left dominated the media and the wider political establishment he said all three networks slant the news with innuendos accents the snares they make he later said that we got into it because of our strong belief that the network Muse is slanted to the liberal left side of the spectrum and does not give an objective view to the American public former Nixon Aid Bruce herschensen wrote a memo to TV and staff explaining how television could be used to promote conservative viewpoints it became a model for later imitators the memo included the concept of pretense balancing quote showing all sides of a particular story when in fact the balance is tilted and the hold frame holding the camera in a flattering or unflattering position depending on what you wanted to convey he also encouraged using commentator speculation which would appear to be factual but are actually editorialized and catchphrases and sex appeal to sell the message and the simple repetition of stories and opinions he called repetition the oldest and the most effective propaganda technique tbn's tagline was the Independent News service not right wing they'd argue just a balance to the liberal Elite bias in the rest of the media journalist Stanhope gold wrote a story about TVN in 1975 entitled cause bruised the news which criticized the network and called ales quote the only man in history to run a national news organization while owning an entertainment industry consulting firm the article damaged tvn's reputation from the start and the network only ran for two years but while it struggled TVN did Lay the groundwork for what was soon to come after TBN collapsed ales continued expanding his consultancy business and by the 1980s he was one of the most successful political consultants in America and probably in history helping 13 Republican Senators and eight congressmen to win office and in that time he continued to hone his attack ad method in one advert for Republican Mitch McConnell ales attacked McConnell's Kentucky opponent Walter Huddleston for being absent from Key votes while away giving paid speeches ayles said to the team this is Kentucky I see Hound Dogs on the scent looking for the Lost member of Congress the ad featured a dog trainer and Bloodhounds and a voiceover that said my job was to find D Huddleston and get him back to work Huddleston was skipping vote but making an extra fifty thousand dollar giving speeches let's go boys the ad concluded with the tagline switch to Mitch for Senator the truth was that Huddleston had been present for 94 percent of votes but it didn't matter ales successfully painted him as lazy and greedy McConnell won and Daz McConnell's campaign manager record the ad quote taught every Republican campaign school about how to use humor as a deadly weapon in 84 ails was recruited by Reagan and in 88 he took on George Bush who like Nixon didn't put formwell on television ale suggested Bush play the Gary Cooper character stoic a slower speaking deep voice he advised him how to dress once telling him don't ever wear that shirt again you look like a [ __ ] Clerk one Bush campaign ad quickly became the most controversial yet as Governor Bush's opponent Michael Dukakis had signed a pass that allowed a convicted murderer out of prison for a weekend while on release Willie Horton raped a woman and stabbed her boyfriend the story became a focus of Bush's campaign Dukakis is soft on criminals soft on crime soft on the death penalty they said the art caused an outcry that Bush's team was stoking racial tensions and although he denied it critics said the ad was textbook ales ales had allegedly told reporter the only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it Bush was also aggravated he told Isles I want to get back to the issues and quit talking about him and Ailes responded that they planned to do so the day after the election Bush won by a large majority how much the ads contributed to the win who knows but as Gabriel Sherman writes it was validation that ales brand of divisive politics could win national majorities ales went on to work with politicians and media figures like Rudy Giuliani and Rush Limbaugh throughout his consultancy years he became more convinced that more than anything politics was war foreign [Music] [Music] television limited the number of channels that could be broadcast in any area this limitation of the technology that was inherent in the medium had made that fcc's regulation tolerable even to those usually opposed government interference especially on matters of free speech there were two pillars of the FCC regulation the 1934 mandate that some of the program's networks aired had to be in the quote public interest and the fairness doctrine that broadcasters had to give time to opposing political viewpoints however in the 70s cable and satellite began to make the limitations of analog obsolete the range of channels available began to increase in 1981 Ronald Reagan repealed the fcc's public interest requirement and abolished the fairness Doctrine a new breed of media quickly developed talk radio shows like Rush Limbaugh's broadcasting partisan politics opinionated Unapologetic and revolutionary as the cable years developed more and more varied channels started popping up Niche channels like Nickelodeon for kids and ESPN for sports launched in 1979 and the following year media Mogul Ted Turner started CNN the first channel to Broadcast News 24 7. we now take 24-hour news for granted but CNN has been credited with several Innovations a revolving wheel of news a loop of stories weather financial news and it was the first national news Operation which with a huge investment in reporters offices and Equipment could go live at the scene whenever possible something normal news programs limited to their pre-scheduled slots just couldn't do CNN was a success it made 12.5 million in 1985 13.5 million in 86 and 60 million in 87 there was clearly a taste for news on demand it's slowly built up offices around the world so it could report on global issues as quickly as possible and became the go-to for global news events like Tiananmen Square and China or the fall of the Berlin Wall which CNN broadcast from live it was the only station on air when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in the air in 1986. Rupert Murdock already overseeing a global news media Empire that included the New York Post the sun in the UK and 20th Century Fox was taking note in 86 20th Century Fox launched a current affair influenced by Entertainment Tonight and Murdoch's tabloid journalism it focused on crime gossip Scandal and celebrity anything that could grab a viewer's attention at the same time Roger Ailes had been invited to launch a short-lived show on NBC America's talking the goal of the show was to make factual programming more entertaining business and stock market news should be approached like sports channels presenting Sports America is talking about the first ever daily National conversation the excitement begins July 4th when we go online with the country's best talk ales wanted quote closer shots more emotion Bolder sound voiceovers announcing breaks instead of just music America's talking featured chat shows and phone-in programs like bugged in which viewers could talk about the things that were bothering them that day but like TVN before it America's talking struggled and Ales who many at NBC were already suspicious and critical of was pushed out in the mid 90s as MSNBC and ABC looked to follow in CNN's footsteps and launch 24-hour news channels Murdoch wanted in and he knew that ales was the man for the job both men had a visceral disdain for channels like MSNBC which when it launched in 96 wanted to portray itself in the image of a trendy Urban downtown coffee bar where like shows like friends and Seinfeld co-hosts could sit around drinking coffee casually and amiably discussing the news and events to Murdoch and Ales this elitist sneering Metropolitan image concealed the liberal slant that turned its nose up put the real retro rural American and worse told them what to believe and who to vote for with the repeal of the fairness Doctrine though they thought it was time this changed when he'd repealed the fairness Doctrine Reagan's FCC appointment Mark Fowler had famously argued that the public interest was what interested the public no longer would regulators and establishment Executives and politicians decide what counted as news the market would decide de Leon writes that in previous decades most well-educated Americans including many of the corporate Elite would have rejected markets populism as a cynical and potentially dangerous excuse to exploit The public's poor taste and most primitive yearnings in this view merely satisfying consumer demand without considering what you were selling was unseemly and amoral but by the 90s more and more Americans were criticizing The Establishment as being out of touch with ordinary American Life while at the same time instead of cultural uplift networks increasingly relied on chasing ratings and high viewing figures more drama cop shows celebrity and scandal news anchor Dan Rather said in a speech they've got us putting more and more fuzz and was on the air cop show stuff so as to compete not with other news programs but with entertainment programs including those posing as news programs CNN's commitment to Pure News began to suffer in this increasingly sensationalist environment but an event that would change the face of Television forever was just around the corner in 1994 CNN decided to run back-to-back coverage of a trial O.J Simpson's it became a national phenomenon and led to a 500 increase in CNN's viewership it was clear that what people wanted was emotion drama everyday lives under the microscope Dateline for example launched in 1992 focused on profiling celebrities or talking about worry inducing medical stories that might affect you and your life it seemed like traditional news textual prosaic the recounting of facts was being challenged by something else and it was that something else that Murdoch already knew a lot about [Music] Rupert Murdoch 65 years old was already overseeing a global media Empire with revenues of 9 billion he had owned over 24 newspapers 100 magazines a book publishing company 20th Century Fox film studios Sky TV in the UK Vox in Germany the New York Post and he aimed to launch Fox News in 1996. [Music] by this point ales had worked for and engineered the elections of several presidents and numerous politicians ran a succession of programs and stations news and entertainment and would put on shaves on Broadway he loved Show Business Murdoch knew that Ailes was the man for the job internal memos revealed that fox should counter CNN stale format that was quite breaking news driven processed event coverage big story dependent reactive and slow and predictable Fox instead should emphasize personality and programming produced information appointment TV news plus human interaction it should be convenient and interesting and have attitude Murdoch would spend 400 million dollars launching the channel and didn't expect it to be profitable until 2001. it aired on the 7th of October 1996 and featured Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor at 5 pm and Sean Hannity's Hannity and combs at 9pm [Music] from day one the focus was on how the network felt the makeup and sets hiring people from the entertainment World rather than news executive Chet Collier said quote viewers don't want to be informed they want to feel informed and at news conferences ales made an extraordinary claim that fox would be fair and balanced that was his words fair and balanced because the liberal networks used quote hot words or code words to present the news with a liberal slant instead Fox news's approach would be neutral its slogan was we report you decide the premiere of the channel had none of the explosive hysterics we've come to expect from Fox but O'Reilly would quickly begin to hone the ingredients that would bring viewers back again and again David Brock notes how from the start The O'Reilly Factor was revolutionary he writes opinion programming was still dominated by the crossfire format the left and the right debating each other Larry King who hosted a non ideological political and celebrity schmooze Fest owned Prime Time cable news it was against CNN and Clinton that fox would begin to find its footing ales called CNN the Clinton News Network and through Clinton's years in office Fox covered White Water a property development Scandal that the clintons were embroiled in and the moniker Lewinsky scandal through the framing that the establishment Elite including CNN ABC and MSNBC were complacent liberals covering for a corrupt and sleazy president what was new was that fox managed to weave this into a recurring narrative an ongoing storyline that viewers could return to night after night during the Lewinsky story CNN and MSNBC grew by 40 and 53 percent respectively Fox grew by 400 percent The O'Reilly Factor quickly became Fox news's first success in a media landscape in which news usually just came and went O'Reilly returned to single narratives that functioned much like a soap an ongoing drama a storyline that viewers had an emotional stake in rather than present the facts O'Reilly editorialized voiced his opinion rallied against the elite the first storyline was simple Bill Clinton was a liar from his tabloid Empire Murdoch knew more than anyone that sex and Scandals sells more than anything Fox made sure that the Lewinsky story was entertaining it featured polls like which of the following do you think better describes Monica Lewinsky an average girl who was taken advantage of or a young [ __ ] who went looking for adventure and thrills what is President Clinton more thankful for this Thanksgiving still having a wife or still having a job passionate argument was valued and presenters Above All Else the vote recount in the bush Gore election in 2000 also had the ingredients for a partisan nightly drama that viewers could return to Fox overtook MSNBC in 2000 and by the spring of 2001 O'Reilly was beating Larry King in the ratings for the first time foreign in his influential book Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman argues that we have two ways of thinking fast and slow system one and system two system one is emotional quick it relies on Instinct it grabs attention it fights or flights it acts on autopilot and it speeds us up it cements habits in place to work automatically the other system two is slower more thoughtful more deliberative it thinks through problems it's more cautious and rational and reflective both are necessary for human survival Fox News is system 1 news 20 minutes after the towers were hit on 9 11 Fox unveiled an innovation the cruel it updated minute by minute providing short catchy sound bites day of Terror in the United States two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York WTC Towers collapsed Manhattan is sealed off all train and bus services halted its graphics and text were bold and red terrorism hits America they announced the emotional coverage combined war and tragedy with patriotism presenter John Scott said folks it just Bears repeating this is a tremendous tragedy yes but we are still the most powerful Nation on Earth it Bears repeating America is still standing we are united we are strong and we will find out who did this next the Fox logo was changed to include an American flag and presenters began wearing American flag pins the flag in the logo was so new that many at the network wondered if it was too crass if they had already gone too far but MSNBC soon followed rebranding itself as America's News Channel and using catchy American flag colored Graphics one producer later said Roger likes things to be produced simply and overtly for example he likes words in graphics to be big he said of the logo in the corner that he made his bigger than CNN's at the launch then when CNN made it bigger Roger made his bigger still he kept doing that until CNN gave up in an age of screens terrorism and media were beginning to be about something similar grabbing visual attention in the aftermath of 9 11 Fox quickly led the Clarion call for war O'Reilly said that we're going to take out this Osama Bin Laden now whether we go in with air power or whether we go in with the Delta Force he's a dead man walking he should have been through long before this he's been wanted for eight years now they're going to go in and they're going to get him if the Taliban government of Afghanistan does not cooperate then we will damage that government with air power probably alright we will blast them three days after 9 11 O'Reilly interviewed Laurie Milroy the author of study of Revenge Saddam Hussein's unfinished war against America he said you sound like you're a person who says Hey Saddam Hussein should be on the destruction death card along with Osama Bin Laden he should be Target number two maybe I'd even say Target number one she replied fox went on to hire a composer to write Liberation Iraq music they wanted it to be emotional intense aggressive one producer said more TomTom drums because they had more urgency I wanted it to sound like I don't want to say War drums but adverts for coverage included Eagles and fighter jets and ostentatious war on terror logos one ad red Fox News Channel the country at War stay with us for breaking news and live updates fair and balanced exclusively from the team you trust Fox News channel on the ground in the air reports from the front inside the conflict War coverage Second To None Fox News Channel the political Fallout with eyes around the world a commitment here at home the first place to turn for the latest in news Fox News Channel real journalism fair and balanced when troops entered Baghdad and reached ferdos Square Fox knew it would be a ratings hit one producer recalled what better picture than having our fun flag in further Square it was the Capron 911 the towers went down but the flag went up on that statue it was like a few Saddam a reporter said on air there we go Saddam Hussein is now under the Star-Spangled Banner that's all you're gonna see from now on anyone that criticized the war was an American Alex Jones from Harvard University not that Alex Jones later reflected that in a conservative time a time of War Fox viewers like their news from a strong American perspective with flanks Rippling in graphics and a pugnacity towards the nation's critics the People John Gibson host of Fox's nightly big story referred to last week as the peanuts gallery 911 did for Fox News what the Lewinsky scandal began writing surged and in 2002 Fox passed CNN for the first time after the Iraq war ended and saddam's wmds failed to materialize public opinion began turning on the decision to go to war by the Bush Administration and fox news's ratings suffered as it struggled to find a new storyline Bush was being criticized over his mishandled response to Hurricane Katrina too and Fox's viewership dropped by 15 percent it was becoming clear that fox news's fortunes were like a ship buoyed to the tide knotted to the waxing and waning popularity of the Republican Party in 2002 Al Gore had already noticed that Fox News was becoming quote part and parcel of the Republican Party Anita Dunn later said that fox was the research arm of the Republican party and so searching for that next narrative thread the next Sensational plot line was becoming part of Party politics Obama who announced he would run for president in 2007 was everything Fox needed and the period began to show how Fox could take a single Fringe minority opinion or possibility and inflate it into a national topic that directed political debate one leaked email sent by producer Bill salmon encouraged anchors to emphasize points lifted from Obama's autobiography about socialist conferences he had attended Marxist professors he knew and references to difficulties he had with the white girlfriend salmon said that Obama was quote drawn to marxists and had racial obsessions and problems with white women I have to admit that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched back said that this President I think has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture I don't know what it is you can't say he doesn't like white people David axelrod's White Rahm emanuels as chief of Stafford there's more I think 70 of the people that we see every day away Robert Gibbs is white I'm not I'm not saying that he doesn't like white people I'm saying he has a problem he has a this guy is I believe a racist bat could jump from CNN to Fox and quickly find success with his distinctive style that featured a chalkboard on which he outlined his conspiratorial and Sensational interpretation of the political landscape Sherman writes that he seemed to many to be Fox news's ID made visible at different times Graphics along the ticker read the real Barack Obama aligned with marxists socialists Obama's radical past close friends with Marxist Obama's chosen friends Marx's professors and structural feminists and Obama's racial divide emotional black white races never be pure one story that fox pushed claimed that Obama had spent four years at a Saudi Arabia funded Muslim madrasa a school in Indonesia lifted from insidemag.com unnamed sources had claimed that the madrasa Mr Obama attended may have told quote a wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-muslims across the network Rush Limbaugh Michael Savage and Cal Thomas spread the story with Thomas saying on air that there were quite a lot of questions about whether Obama spent two years in a Muslim School in Indonesia the truth was that Obama had attended a secular school when he'd lived in Indonesia for four years when he was five next came the claim that Obama wasn't even American Jerome corsi claimed on Fox and Friends that Obama had a false fake birth certificate posted on their website he said quote the original birth certificate of Obama has never been released and the campaign refuses to release it continuing that there has been good analysis of it on the internet and it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop it's a fake document that's on the website right now Hannity didn't go quite as far but said do I think he was born in America yes do I think this is odd that they won't produce the birth certificate it's beginning to get odd to me the birther movement was win-win for Fox either Obama ignored it or refused to produce his birth certificate and they could keep making the claim or he did and in doing so he would acknowledge that it was a possibility or that it was a topic that mattered then as soon as Obama was elected in True Red Scare style Glenn Beck quickly compared his policies to policies of the Soviet Union and their five-year plans and with those of fascist dictators when the tea party headed by Sarah Palin gained some popularity in an inevitable backlash against Obama and his politics Fox News began acting as cheerleader Sherman writes that Palin had somehow managed to graph the old western myth of the self-reliant frontiersmen onto a beauty pageant face and a counter-punching don't treadle me verbal style a new kind of character and a remarkably compelling one Palin was inevitably going to be attractive to Fox producers Christopher Hitchens wrote that at least Richard Nixon had the ill Fortune to look like what he was a haunted scoundrel and repressed psychopath whereas the usefulness of Sarah Palin to the right-wing party managers is that she combines a certain knowingness with a feigned innocence and a still palpable blush of sex as a small number of tea party events and rallies in support of small government and low taxes and critical of Obama's policy sprang up around the country Fox covered them less like news and more like adverts in February of 2009 Greta Van Susteren announced that tea party protests are erupting across the country angry taxpayers or at least some of them are taking to the streets in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party Fox began to broadcast live from events but they also quickly began participating with Fox News stars like Beck and Hannity giving talks the Sacramento tea party's Facebook page announced we've just received notice that Fox News will be broadcasting the your world with Neil Cavuto show live from the Sacramento Tea Party when a round of parties were announced for April 15 Fox News aired at least 107 commercials for them one of them read quote April 15th all across the country Americans are making their voices heard in California Texas Georgia Washington D.C citizens are standing up saying no to more taxes and demanding real economic Solutions April 15th as tea party sweep the nation on tax day we're there with total fair and balanced network coverage live Megan Kelly announced that you can join the tea party action from your home if you go to the foxnation.com a virtual tax day Tea Party the language events will sweep the nation people everywhere is intended to give the impression that everyone is doing it it's national news and fox is simply covering it fair and balanced rather than being a voice piece for and embedded in the movement by 2012 Fox was indisputably intertwined with the wider Republican party they had five Republicans actually on the payroll Mike Huckabee Rick Santorum Newt Gingrich Sarah Palin and John Bolton 2012 Republican primary was christened the Fox News primary candidates would only appear on Fox rather than other networks for the first time with over 600 appearances the year before Fox of course capitalized on the drama announcing things like Governor Huckabee will announce tomorrow night on his program whether or not he intends to explore a presidential bid former Bush speechwriter David Froome said on ABC that Republicans originally thought that fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for fox and that the balance here has been completely reversed in 2010 at least 30 Fox News employees would support in varying ways over 300 Republicans appearing on Fox would not only boost media exposure but also raise cash Sarah Palin appeared on Fox for a total of 14 hours in 2010. Brock rights no wonder Republicans loved appearing on Fox News at 9pm less than 15 minutes of time could bring in forty thousand dollars far more efficient than almost any other form of Grassroots fundraising when Glenn Beck shield for the many tentacled pro-business anti-democrat Chamber of Commerce Lobby on air in 2010 he said I would like to make this the biggest fundraising day in the chambers history he pledged ten thousand dollars of his own money and then asked so put your money where your mouth is if you have a dollar please go to glamback.com or to the U.S Chamber of Commerce and donate today it turned out to be the biggest donation day the chamber had ever had say by the time Trump was gearing up for his presidential run in 2015 Fox was part of a pro-business anti-tax anti-immigration anti-obama sensationalist emotional rallying Network that acted as the voice piece for the Republican movement but how is it that fox captivated audiences so quickly it seems to be a ringing indictment of their method that foxes 1.5 million Prime Time viewers in 2022 leaves MSNBC and CNN trailing with 668 000 and 583 000 respectively so let's see what we can pull together right how Fox does it before thinking about how we and competing media might respond The post-modern Thinker Shaq darada was famous for criticizing the history of Western philosophers for being what he called logocentric logos is from the Greek word for reason and he means that philosophers have long presumed that they're building a kind of objective pile of knowledge that gets to some essential truth an indisputable ideal that one could understand neutrally Thomas Nagel had called it the presumption of the view from nowhere darada argues that this view is impossible we are embedded in the world with a subjective language each with our different human perspectives I think more than anything Fox is successful because it understands this but for good or bad news is about more than facts it's about selection interpretation presentation points of view and while it often steps into the unethical into exaggeration and hyperbole into mistruth and hysterics it's successful because it's not exactly wrong it just leans into its perspective in fact as de Leon points out local television stations in America were doing this long before Fox he writes while the networks cultivated a broadcast style that was purposefully Olympian news from nowhere in Edward J Epstein's phrase local stations did exactly the opposite producing a journalism that was rooted in particular communities featuring anchors and reporters who acted like human beings not emotionless professionals so yes the news isn't just this rationalistic presentation of facts and information we cannot Escape having a perspective on the world and people should of course be able to express this perspective so before we get to how Fox's anti-rationalistic post-modern style is used and misused let's take a quick look at how we can understand Fox's formula and toolkit [Music] I think we can Loosely categorize Fox's formula into three parts presentation narrative and emotion [Music] we've already seen how ales revolutionized the use of graphics and sound bites and sets the presentation of style resting Sensational shocking images and good-looking presenters are of course always going to play on our evolutionary wiring to attract our attention but the use of charts graphs and things like Maps visual cues are now an uncontroversial part of the media landscape of course ABC had led the way as far back as 1977 by making roon artledge the head of ABC Sports the head of ABC News he'd used graphics and charts to illustrate Sports Trends and had revolutionized televised sport by emphasizing the stats the drama and made the stories of the sports men and women the central focus of coverage one study on the use of Graphics in news concluded that data suggest Graphics help younger and older viewers store and retrieve information presented in television news stories so presentation to attract attention is of course inevitable but Fox uses this to maximum effect one graphic for example included Obama and Hillary Clinton with cash tray surrounded by a love heart and read Castro's Dream Team once Clinton and Obama in 08 they also present information in a misleading way cropping the bottom of charts like this one to make Obamacare enrollment look lower than it actually was sang by to the set cam replacement catchphrases charts image selection and graphs all supplements the traditional rationalistic presentation of the news in words and like anything they can all be used and misused Tobin Smith who worked at Fox and went on to write a book about his time there called foxocracy writes that Fox News has season-long narratives that require the good guy hero protagonists the baby faces to always win and the bad guy antagonists the skills to lose [Music] we've seen how instead of presenting news Fox constructs narratives that like television drama Seasons keep viewers coming back for more and more there always have been National and international stories of course but FOX also embeds itself into them into the story turning it into good versus evil drama that it's fighting for itself narratives that follow the Lewinsky scandal Obama's birth certificate supposed Marxism Trump swamp and so on all follow a similar formula that ales learned from Nixon first establishment liberals control the country the media even the world second they're all Hypocrites sanctimonious greedy wrong dangerous and so on three they're actually in the minority though for you are the silent majority the honest average good guy but you're also the little guy the powerless guy five we at Fox stand up for you the narratives usually revolve around the traditional American way of life being under attack that way of life the ideal Fox News identity is often Protestant to at least Christian Church going married with kids hard-working patriotic flag bearing rural anti-globalist working class avoid drugs straight whites Constitution Loving and doesn't like things like immigration socialism big government and so on Fox News defends this against the misguided Elites and Ales knew that more than anything people wanted to watch their Heroes win he sent a memo each day with the emotional Target for the day in it hosts were to spread and amplify that message won Fox News employee said that they were in search of these points of friction real or imagined and most of them were imagined or fabricated you always have to seem to be under siege you always have to seem like your values are under attack and importantly it's not the most pressing issue or the most notable Global event that's necessarily woven into the narrative it's the story that however small aligns with the ideology they often take a tiny story usually from a right-wing blog or an obscure source and twist it and turn it into a existential threat and a story of national or International importance if the story is then picked apart by other networks or a newspaper they simply quietly stop covering it and move on stories might have a grain of Truth or be possible but the narrative is presented with omissions and exaggerations designed to misconceive the audience into thinking that the threat is more of a threat than it is migrants Caravans heading towards the border wall trans activists grooming children covid regulations are a conspiracy to give the elites more power that's the answer is more lockdowns more lockdowns more fear and therefore he doesn't have to do his job of fixing the supply chain because we'll just keep this whole thing going it's always a new variant and you can always you'll count on a variant about every October every two years the idea that you can take a minor tiny story or a minor tiny possibility and turn it into a direct attack on the demographic you're talking to is not new moral panics in the Press have been around forever the phenomenon though began to be studied more seriously in the 60s when researchers here in the UK noted how a very small Fringe story about teenage gang crime had been spun into a national panic metabloids found that moral panics guess what sold more newspapers and who led the Tabloid press in the UK Rupert Murdoch emotion Ailes once said at a campaign manager's Forum back in 1988. let's face it there are three things that the media are interested in pictures mistakes and attacks that's the one sure way of getting coverage you try to avoid as many mistakes as you can you try to give them as many pictures as you can and if you need the coverage you attack and you will get coverage it's my Orchestra pit theory of politics if you have two guys on stage and one guy says I have the solution to the Middle East problem and the other guy fools in the orchestra pit who do you think is going to be on the evening news as humans we rely on emotion facial expressions gestures tonality the drama in spontaneity and surprise and argument these are at the center of human life when it supplemented newspapers as the primary way we get our news it was no surprise then that this new direct visual media would change how the news was delivered Smith says one executive told him here's what I give my producers when I hire them so they can write compelling teases and emotionally powerful openings I call this process emotional target practice to aim your tease and sermon to where the emotional and cultural orthodoxies were and compare and contrast to how different and scary liberals and liberal Orthodoxy are today Executives focused on orchestrated moments they told presenters to quote make it a moment keep drawing out and focusing on the drama outrage argue shock attack find the wedge issue the moment is made more powerful still with some like maximum sarcasm Dan Rather at CBS told Esquire that moments are when a viewer feels it smells it and knows it Smith recalls that at Fox moments were best when the viewers culture was under threat apparently disrespected you calling our viewers stupid the Bible disparaged to say he described it as existential white tribal fear and visceral resentment bringing presentation narrative and emotion together Smith said that the Fox Formula Works something like this first the Fox News Alert flashes up signaling a threat fight or flight excitement kicks in aided by visual resonant images graphics and sounds then the host scares the viewer into thinking they're under attack the viewer then becomes tribal defensive the tension is heightened then the enemy in an interview or just a clip fights so-called the host then the host steps in as the hero the enemy is stupid selfish out of touch everything is crafted in a way to ensure the safety and satisfaction of a victory at the end before seeing what we can learn from all of this it's worth pointing out that while Fox News makes the product people still have to choose to watch and if people are attracted to Fox the question becomes is Fox part of a wider phenomenon Trump may have been the Fox News president but he was a reality TV star and a billionaire first after oh it wasn't just Fox that put him in the Oval Office and to consistently claim that the elites have consciously rigged the system against you that the country is under threat consistently there has to be some kind of receptive audience Smith points to loneliness and elderly estrangement as a factor for example communities families and individuals left behind by a fast-moving modernity journalist Peggy Noonan similarly writes we have the fierce teamism of the Lonely who find Fellowship in their online fighting group and will say anything for its approval there are the angry who find relief in politics because they can funnel their rage there into that external thing instead of examining closer and more uncomfortable causes there are the people who cannot consider Godden religion and have to put that energy somewhere America isn't making fewer of the Lonely angry and unaffiliated it's making more every day but while there may be some truth to this one poll has shown that MSNBC viewers are also older and that Fox News demographics are spread across ages as well and while 74 of Fox News viewers are white 70 of msnbcs are too so the often cited interpretation that Fox News viewers are old white and isolated might not be true the real difference in viewer demographics is in education and type of employment Fox News viewers are more likely to have not graduated from University and work in white or blue-collar jobs than viewers of other networks The Wider phenomenon is more likely to be split down the lines of what John Sperling and Suzanne Wiggins call retro and Metro America retro America the one culturally traditionally and economically rooted in the past and Metro America the one culturally heterogeneous culturally modern and economically focused on the future of course when working class wages haven't improved much if the tool in 50 plus years when the rich Elite get richer while the poor stay poorer it's easy to sell viewers and narrative that blames the other The Immigrant or a shadowy conspiracy of establishment figures out to make your life worse and their lives better [Music] so I think there are two sides to Fox but a post-modern fox and a hysteric fox first I think is an inevitable development in response to the possibilities of a new technology television as a media the second is a reactionary conspiratorial truth-twisting ideology that progressives could better counter if they were more willing to use Fox's post-modern Arsenal against them when the selling of the president came out in the wake of ales is Nixon ads there was a debate about whether television was manipulation an act artificial but the style of Television that went on to include sound bites Graphics manufactured spontaneity and drama the appeal to our system one emotional quick mind story selection framing repetition editorializing and opinion is a part of the possibilities of this post-modern medium Fox simply favors these things over elitist rationalistic objective so-called unbiased and neutral journalism that can be dry it fits into reality TV in morning talk shows cop shows shocking videos viral content Live Events humor and personality and all of these things can be used or misused for good and for bad I don't think there's any going back to government interference like the fairness Doctrine in this internet era in which a million voices can flourish it makes no sense to rely on regulation of the past people should be allowed to present their point of view and with the internet that's inevitable as the Leon wrote back in 2015 the post-television age is imminent and its rival will mean the end of television news as we have known it for the past 50 years on the internet a new journalism has already begun to emerge and over the next decade it will likely become our principal source of news so much better to isolate Fox's hysterical excesses and counter them in some way and that will be a challenge for anyone whose commitment to truth and fairness and Justice and progress trumps their appetites for likes and ratings on the day the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 election was published Fox's Facebook page views were double cnns and the New York Times and Washington posts were a sixth of that number so what are those hysterical excesses I think you can see them perfectly represented in this graph this is the point where post-modern framing meets its limit there is something undeniably modern and rationalistic about a graph you are representing data numerically neutrally when it comes to data it's unethical misleading just wrong and manipulative to twist the frame and there's a similar critique in how Fox selects stories to cover any story has a range of evidence different possibilities and different interpretations different people appraise its importance in different ways and emphasize different parts the story can be described generously or skeptically described in a way that covers different points of views or can be straw man any event in short can be interpreted in Myriad ways but Fox will always select the interpretation that aligns with their ideology and is the most scary interpretation no matter how small the chances of that interpretation being correct are no matter how outlandish that interpretation is when ObamaCare was the story The emphasis was on the hysterical fear of death panels that could choose who would and wouldn't get care white Farm owners in South Africa being attacked or a threat of being evicted becomes about white genocide trans rights becomes about grooming covid becomes about a conspiracy to control the population of course I'm not saying that we don't all make our cases that we all have our biases that if you're going to make an argument you have to have an interpretation that will be molded by your point of view of the world and I think that all of this is a good thing but it's a moral Balancing Act it requires honesty and integrity that at least considers other points of view and doesn't emphasize interpretations of the world based on what viewers will fear the most personified and Amplified into Hollywood style epics of good versus evil it's divisive devious and dangerous it paints a picture of the world based on stereotype It's Hammer horror news biblical gossip sensationalist shock jocking it takes a caricature of a world view that fears the other the conspiracy the Puppet Master the villain and filters everything through it turning the viewer into a soldier that views their neighbors as the enemy Fox presents the story by weaponizing the most emotional language supported by melodramatic attention-grabbing Graphics relying on the most destructive Tendencies of our evolutionary inheritance our defense mechanisms anxieties survival wiring fight or flight our tendency to focus on threat danger the negative to weave a narrative that ultimately could be the most dangerous force that democracy faces [Music] thank you as always for watching and a huge thanks of course as always to my patreons without which this just wouldn't be possible so if you want to see scripts if you want to chat in the Discord server if you want your name in the credits but most of all if you just want to help support make this content then click the link in the description below if not you can like you can share you can leave a comment to all those things that help the algorithm thank you so much and I'll see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Then & Now

Views: 78,366

Keywords: bill o'reilly, fox, fox news, fox news channel, fox news channel 1996, fox news critique, fox news network, how fox news started, news, nixon, obama, postmodern, president trump, right-wing news, roger ailes, rupert murdoch, sarah palin, sean hannity, television news, trump

Id: pOiQsuQNXfA

Length: 84min 42sec (5082 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 25 2022