‘No One Is Running Fox, the Audience Is Running Fox’
Rupert Murdoch stepping down from heading right-wing network
Rupert Murdoch may be leaving Fox News, but the cable network he founded more than a quarter-century ago will go on being led by its real masters: its right-wing viewers.
That's according to more than one observer who noted the impending departure of Murdoch, 92.
Politicians and others also noted the damage that Fox’s usually far-right programming has done to the nation.
Murdoch announced Thursday that he would be stepping down as chairman of News Corp. and Fox Corp., leaving son Lachlan to succeed him.
Regardless of who's in the CEO’s office, Fox News is truly run by its viewers, according to media critics and others.
“The audience programs Fox. Not Rupert Murdoch, not Lachlan Murdoch. It’s the audience. And that feedback loop every day, the more extreme programming, the more rageful, hateful programming, it’s almost as if the audience is in charge now because of the leadership vacuum that you're describing where there’s nobody at the captain's ship actually running the ship,” said former CNN media critic Brian Stelter.
Washington Post reporter Sarah Ellison agreed, in a separate interview.
“Well, I think that one thing that is very clear is that Rupert Murdoch’s sons, now Lachlan is the only one that's left involved with the company, the one that is not as conservative already left the company. Lachlan has already said, ‘We are not going to change the market position of Fox News,’ because he does not want to drive his father’s company into the ground,” Ellison said. “I mean, I think there is a real risk in changing the political position of Fox. Lachlan doesn’t want to do that politically and he doesn't want to do that from a business perspective.
“I think that these other lawsuits that are still out there, Smartmatic still has a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox, I don't see them changing their — I mean, I think that the points we’ve been making, which is that no one is really running Fox, the audience is running Fox,” she added, referring to the big pending lawsuit by the voting technology company which was the subject of falsehoods from Fox News personalities who were supporting Donald Trump's “Big Lie” that he somehow was the true winner of the 2020 presidential election.
It's not only Fox News itself which must face the consequences of its hosts parroting Trump's election lies, but the nation as a whole, according to Ayman Mohyeldin, a host on rival network, MSNBC.
“I think it’s also safe to say, it’s not just Fox that's suffering the consequences, America as a country is suffering the consequences of what Fox is doing to our country with its coverage,” he said.
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