Alright, with all the discussion about Fox News, OAN, Newsmax and the battle for conservative media consumers... I decided to tackle that in my latest piece for @mmfa. I'll tweet some of the points. https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/right-wing-medias-civil-war-setting-race-bottom

What's important to remember is that the "Fox News isn't conservative enough!" argument is not new/not an outgrowth of Trump's loss.

HOWEVER, Trump's loss is probably what set in motion a lot of the more public conservative anger on the topic.

You might remember back in August 2015 Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his history of sexist comments during a debate. Trump got really upset about that and decided to skip the next debate.

It was a whole ordeal.

And throughout his presidency, he'd tweet about how awful certain Fox hosts were.

He would regularly whine about Fox's weekend programming

And Fox's polling...

And Fox's decision to interview Democrats. Any Democrat. At all.

All of this is to say... no, Trump is not suddenly turning on Fox. He has basically the same love-hate relationship with the channel as ever.

But this is the sort of messaging that's happening in the alternative universe that is OAN: https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1332381940520001536

The election has been a chance for fringe-right media outlets to accuse Fox of being liberal. (lol, no) https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/right-wing-medias-civil-war-setting-race-bottom

But if you look at Fox's actual coverage leading up to the election, it's very clear that the channel was doing everything it could to try to help Trump win, across both "news" and "opinion" programming.

For instance, between October 14 and November 1, Fox ran 596 segments about Hunter Biden. They *really* tried to make that a thing. That was more than 36 hours of programming spread across just over 2 weeks. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-has-covered-unverified-hunter-biden-email-story-more-36-hours-lead-election-day

Between October 12 and October 21, Fox News aired 9.5 hours of live coverage of Trump rallies. It was basically a daily, unfiltered reelection infomercial. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-has-aired-over-9-hours-trump-rallies-last-9-days

Throughout the pandemic, Fox News has been a major driver of pro-Trump COVID disinformation. https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/right-wing-media-downplayed-lethality-covid-19-months

(Which stands in pretty stark contrast to how they covered Ebola in 2014) https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/after-riding-ebola-fears-victory-2014-right-wing-media-are-playing-politics

Fox News did everything in its power to help Trump win reelection... and he lost.

Since the election, Fox has been a source of election-related conspiracy theories https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/trump-fox-feedback-loop-powering-assault-democracy

The Fox "news side" programming is getting really involved in pushing those conspiracy theories, too https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/foxs-news-side-keeps-supporting-trumps-challenges-against-2020-election

So, you know how early in the pandemic when John Krasinski started that "Some Good News" show? People liked it because it was just... some good news. It was a break from how bleak reality can seem. And that's good.

But it probably shouldn't be your primary source of information.

That's what places like Newsmax and OAN are to people on the far-right.

It's a place where they'll lie to you about the election results, telling you what you want to hear. They'll confirm your wildest preconceived beliefs. They'll let you know the world isn't so bleak.

But like Some More News, Newsmax and OAN make for really, really bad primary sources of information.

Newsmax and OAN are a sort of bubble dimension, a safe space chosen by people on the right in response to a reality where Trump is less like a Ben Garrison cartoon and more, well, like Trump.

So what does Fox News do?

In her most recent column, the always-great @Sulliview suggested that Fox should "keep appealing to a right-leaning audience — but commit to doing it within the realm of the truth."

Basically, fewer conspiracy theories. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/fox-news-reinvent-post-trump/2020/11/30/1915059e-3313-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html

But I don't think that will happen, and here's why.

Since the election, Fox has started inserting clips from Tucker Carlson Tonight into its "news" shows. https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-becoming-foxs-news-side-assignment-editor

That came after Carlson announced that Fox was going to do exactly that.

https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/fox-executives-have-decided-give-you-more-tucker-carlson

This would seem to be an odd decision given that Fox had just successfully argued that "any reasonable viewer" will understand that you can't actually trust what he says. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye

Plus, look at how Fox is promoting itself post-election: https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1327406000513699840

I think Fox is looking at the state of news media and betting on the actual threat to its audience being from the fringe-right, not from CNN/NYT/MSNBC/NPR/etc.

People who list Fox as their primary source of news are the most untrusting of other national media.

Looking at the amount of trust Fox viewers have for ABC, CBS, CNN, NYT, and virtually any other mainstream outlet, and it's pretty much nothing.

When you look at what non-Fox outlets they *do* trust... things are grim.

It's a race to the bottom. People shouldn't be fooled into thinking that just because OAN or Newsmax might be more transparently detached from reality, that Fox is somehow good or even better. Fox in the post-Trump years, in my view, will become more like Newsmax/OAN, not less.

Anyway, thanks for sticking around to read that thread. Here's my latest piece again: https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/right-wing-medias-civil-war-setting-race-bottom