Fox ShockA truth-challenged channel when we need it least
To understand why independent, hard-hitting journalism that speaks truth to power is more important than ever, we bring you this revelation: Nielsen, the television ratings company, is reporting that Fox “News” is now the most watched television channel in the country. Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing propaganda machine, which is home to anything and everything pro-Trump, is being watched by more Americans than any of the major broadcast television networks for the first time ever. That is a red flag for all who long for truth, justice, and the preservation of American democracy. Alternatively, to survey the landscape of potent and well-funded legitimate news organizations that have the freedom to aggressively report on Donald Trump is a discouraging exercise. They are few and becoming fewer, and that’s because independent journalism takes courage, patience, and money. Investigative journalism even more. To make matters worse, Trump has declared war on the mainstream media, using systematic intimidation, meritless yet potentially ruinous lawsuits, plus a spineless Congress and sycophantic Supreme Court — all looking to give the president anything he wants. Add this all together and you are left with a short list of media companies that are willing to step up and challenge the growing problem. Among the few is The New York Times. Founded 129 years ago, it is the last fully independent national daily newspaper in the country. Also on the short list, The Atlantic, owned since 2017 by Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. A little further afield is the news agency Reuters, owned by Canadian billionaire David Thomson. Sadly, there are few if any others with enough determination and deep pockets to fight Trump’s efforts to silence free speech and a free press. “The playbook is to demean, demonize, marginalize, and economically debilitate” independent reporting, Marty Baron, former editor of The Washington Post, told The Atlantic. Trump is operating with this playbook. National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service have been on the list, but $1.1 billion of federal funding for them was just cut, thanks to Trump’s claim that they offered “biased and partisan news coverage.” Though both will likely survive by relying on donations, they will have to make reductions. Smaller public radio and television stations in areas with little local reporting are in the most danger of shuttering. Voice of America, the pro-America, pro-democracy news organization that broadcast to areas of the world with little access to news, was one of the first casualties of Trump’s war on the press. The list of news organizations cowed by the president’s war is much longer. First, the companies now helmed by fellow billionaires looking to curry favor: The once mighty Washington Post, which was owned by the Graham family, whose historic support of investigative journalism resulted in the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, was sold to Jeff Bezos in 2013. Things went on as usual until Trump 2.0. Bezos’s desire to mollify the bully-in-chief has resulted in the removal or resignation of many of the Post’s best columnists, reporters, and editors, and the loss of editorial independence. The Los Angeles Times is now owned by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. In October 2024, the LA Times’ editorial board was set to endorse Kamala Harris, but Soon-Shiong blocked it. This move led to the resignation of the entire board. Now to the organizations that were victims of a presidential shakedown, in the form of toothless lawsuits with comically large pricetags, none of which ever saw the inside of a courtroom. Trump triumphed not because the suits had merit but because he applied political pressure to force his opponents to settle. The most recent is CBS. The network’s parent company, Paramount Global, agreed to pay Trump $16 million after he sued for $10 billion. The suit was seen by most as meritless, but Paramount’s biggest stockholder, Shari Redstone, needed to keep Trump in her corner as she was in the middle of a multibillion-dollar deal to sell the company, which required government approval. “This kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: It’s a ‘big fat bribe,’” quipped comedian Stephen Colbert, one of Trump’s most vocal critics and whose Late Show was — likely not coincidentally — recently cancelled. ABC, Meta, and X have all settled suits with Trump to the tune of more than $50 million collectively. Now to Rupert Murdoch’s seemingly antithetical media empire. On the one hand you have The Wall Street Journal, which has been leading on the Epstein scandal. On Wednesday, the Journal broke the story that Donald Trump has known since May that he was named in the Epstein files. That followed last week’s scoop about a “bawdy” birthday note Trump allegedly penned to Epstein. That got them into Trump’s $10-billion-libel-suit club. On the other hand, you have Murdoch’s aforementioned Fox, the overtly pro-Trump cable network that is a mouthpiece for the White House. Fox’s record-breaking ratings are reliant on positive and therefore often misleading coverage of the Trump administration. To that end, Fox has decided to stand by their man and barely cover the growing Epstein scandal. This from a network that lost its collective mind when Barack Obama wore a tan suit. As per usual, Fox has found a Democratic dog whistle to blow to keep viewers watching. Perhaps trying to win back favor with the White House, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has been peddling an old and wholly debunked — by a Republican-led Senate committee — claim that Obama orchestrated an “illegal spying operation.” In a 12-hour period last Wednesday, Fox mentioned “Epstein” 18 times, while the word “Obama” was uttered 250 times, according to Mediaite. That we are left to rely on reporting from one of Murdoch’s media properties for reliable and credible information on Trump, when it was Murdoch who brought us Trump in the first place, is one of this century’s great ironies. But that is where we are in American journalism today. Donald Trump is making an all-out effort to silence dissent and truth-telling by quashing the American press. That directive now extends to late-night comedians who dare to make fun of him. We at Steady hope that you will continue to pay attention to these pages. Substack provides an important outlet for independent voices. But we respectfully also encourage everyone to support journalistic institutions such as The New York Times, ProPublica, The Atlantic, or any news organization that continues to fight the good fight Times founder Adolph Ochs famously said that his paper would “give the news impartially, without fear or favor.” Without fear or favor has always been my own fundamental value. And this is true of most journalists worthy of the title. If we are to keep this country a thriving democracy, those words need to be the guiding principle of a lot more billionaires who own news outlets. Our country needs corporations and others who won’t be daunted by a president whose priority goes no further than the man he sees in the mirror.
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