— by Polydamas
Twenty years ago, on October 7, 1996, near the end of President Bill Clinton’s first term in office, the Fox News Channel was born. It was the brainchild of Roger Ailes, an experienced and savvy media executive, who saw that the American people in flyover country wanted a center-right alternative to the leftist mainstream media. The Fox News Channel was the next logical step in the evolution of the alternative media, of conservative and libertarian print publications such as Human Events, Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind, William F. Buckley’s National Review, Reason Magazine, and of talk radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Alex Jones.
The Fox News Channel developed a formula for success over the past two decades. It combined the talents of experienced journalists including Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Neil Cavuto, Brit Hume, and the like with a stable of various brainy and beautiful female anchors with pedigrees in journalism and also in beauty contests. The steak of hard journalism was attractively presented with the sizzle of smart yet feminine sexuality, providing the Fox News Channel with the best of both worlds.
For many years, the Fox News Channel‘s formula for success propelled it to superior ratings and revenues than its direct news competitors CNN and MSNBC. According to Adweek‘s A.J. Katz’s December 28, 2016 examination of the Nielsen ratings, owing to its coverage of the election, it finished 2016 as the fifth most watched prime time network behind broadcasters NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX, even though the latter four are freely available over the airwaves while it requires a paid subscription. (http://bit.ly/2ijrVfu). Its prime time viewership increased over its 2015 numbers by 36 percent overall and by 42 percent in the preferred demographic for advertisers of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor finished the year as the No. 1 most watched cable news show for the 15th consecutive year, an increase of 18 percent overall and 19 percent in ages 25-54.
Subsequently, Adweek‘s Mr. Katz reported, on March 28, 2017, that the first quarter of 2017 was the Fox News Channel‘s best quarter in its history. (http://bit.ly/2rP37Rl). Its day viewership increased 27 percent and its prime time viewership increased 20 percent over the corresponding first quarter of 2016. In the 25 to 54 year old bracket, total day viewership increased 32 percent and its prime time viewership increased 19 percent. For the most watched cable news network for 15 years running, beating its own stellar performance was no pedestrian achievement.
Fast forward a few months and the tides of fortune completely turned. The May 11, 2017 article by Adweek‘s Mr. Katz, (http://bit.ly/2s7L9a3), quotes from Fox News Channel‘s parent company 21st Century Fox‘s most recent quarterly filings with the Security Exchange Commission:
“The Company and certain of its current and former employees have been subject to allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination related to alleged misconduct at the Company’s Fox News Channel business. The Company has settled some of these claims and is contesting other claims in litigation. To date, none of the amounts paid in settlements or reserved for pending or future claims, is individually or in the aggregate, material to the Company. We have also received regulatory and investigative inquiries and stockholder demands to inspect the books and records of the Company which could lead to future litigation. Since the allegations of misconduct in July 2016, the CEO of Fox News Channel has resigned and there have been significant changes in the management of the business unit. In addition, the network’s primetime lineup has significantly changed which could have a negative impact on our ratings.”
According to Mr. Katz, “The filing also noted that FNC paid out $10 million in claims related to harassment suits in the first three months of 2017, and a total of $45 million in the last 9 months.”
In the intervening two months, the acme of success turned into the nadir of failure. Back on June 23, 2016, 21st Century Fox decided not to renew the contract of 50-year-old Gretchen Carlson, host of the 11-year-old show The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson. Two weeks later, on July 6, 2016, Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against then Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. Lachlan and James Murdoch, the two sons of 21st Century Fox‘s owner Rupert Murdoch, capitalized on the lawsuit as their golden opportunity to kick Roger Ailes to the curb. On July 21, 2016, Ailes was forced to resigned from the Fox News Channel and received severance pay of $40 million. For her part, in early September of 2016, Carlson settled her sexual harassment lawsuit for $20 million, according to Sarah Ellison’s September 6, 2016 reporting in Vanity Fair (http://bit.ly/2ckwCkB).
The next 20-year veteran to be the recipient of Lachlan and James Murdoch’s axe was The O’Reilly Factor‘s Bill O’Reilly. It made no difference to them that O’Reilly was the Fox News Channel‘s cash cow and the No. 1 show on cable news for 15 years in a row. O’Reilly was kicked to the curb after the New York Times published, on April 1, 2017, an article by Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt titled “Bill O’Reilly Thrives at Fox News, Even as Harassment Settlements Add Up” (http://nyti.ms/2otdo13). The New York Times reported that five women were harassed by Bill O’Reilly and received a total of $13 million in confidential settlements. In the wake of the negative press, more than fifty corporate sponsors discontinued their advertisements on The O’Reilly Factor (http://nyti.ms/2o5rwfJ). For his part, according to the New York Times, Bill O’Reilly received a severance package of $25 million, equivalent to a year’s salary (http://nyti.ms/2o8KCq9).
Rejoicing and emboldened by the swift ouster of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, leftist operatives and activists have exerted pressure on corporate advertisers in an effort to oust Sean Hannity, another one of the long-term stars of the Fox News Channel. Hannity had been pursuing the story that murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was the whistle blower who shared with WikiLeaks e-mails and files that showed the internal corruption of the Democratic Party. According to the April 25, 2017 Hollywood Reporter, Crowne Plaza Hotels, Cars.com, Ring.com, Leesa Mattress, USAA Insurance, Peloton, and Casper have decided to pull their advertisements from Hannity’s television show (http://bit.ly/2qvPW40). Sean Hannity’s days at the Fox News Channel appear to be numbered.
Whether or not Sean Hannity remains on board, the Fox News Channel is moving leftward under the guidance of Lachlan and James Murdoch. The Murdoch sons are apparently uncomfortable with their father’s right-wing media empire and want to be more like the other established networks and to be liked by the smart and beautiful people of New York, Washington, D.C., and California. According to the April 19 article titled “Rupert Murdoch’s sons’ progressive wives helped oust Bill O’Reilly from Fox News Channel” by Don Kaplan of the New York Daily News (http://nydn.us/2oMly76), the leftward tilt of Lachlan and James Murdoch is explained thusly:
Two powerful women quietly helped behind the scenes to bring Bill O’Reilly down.
Sarah and Kathryn Murdoch — the wives of the ousted talk show host’s young bosses — are at least partially responsible for his humiliating exit from Fox News Wednesday.
Sarah, 44, is a progressive-minded, British-born Australian model, former host of “Australia’s Next Top Model” — and wife of Lachlan Murdoch, co-chairman of Fox News Channel parent, 21st Century Fox. She was also instrumental in convincing her husband to boot the controversial O’Reilly, company sources told MediaBlast. “These woman have unique access and complete trust (of Lachlan and James),” a Fox News executive said.
“They’re very progressive and the O’Reilly situation has infuriated them.”
Behind the scenes, Sarah and James Murdoch’s wife, Kathryn, also pushed to sever the network’s ties to the prickly host, several sources said.
While Fox News politically leans to the right, the wives of its top executives lean to the left.
Kathryn and James Murdoch are the co-founders of the charity Qudrivium, which funds progressive causes like environmental protection, science, childhood health and equal opportunity in the workplace — issues not exactly aligned with many of Fox News’ biggest contributors.
She serves as the fund’s president.
We here at The Cassandra Times believe that the Fox News Channel is very far from perfect, but it serves a useful function in providing a much needed counterbalance to the leftism and radicalism of the mainstream media. When one peruses the news reporting as well as the opinion punditry on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and the like, the choice is really between left and lefter. The respective followers of Bernie Sanders’ version of leftism and Hillary Clinton’s version of leftism are no more than a choice between the communism of Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky or the difference between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The difference between Sanders’ and Clinton’s socialism is one of degree and not of quality. Likewise, a debate between two leftist commentators in the mainstream media whether the federal government should nationalize 90 percent of America’s economy or “only” 80 percent is not a realistic choice.
In advocating more conservative and classical liberal (known as libertarian) viewpoints, we here at The Cassandra Times do not make light of the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. Our libertarian philosophy does not condone, but in fact, condemns the initiation of force or threats of force or threats against other people, whether for sexual favors or otherwise. Moreover, we agree that 21st Century Fox enjoys the economic liberty to hire and fire at will its on-air talent and to enforce any contractual standards of appropriate behavior. Also, if 21st Century Fox wishes to pay settlements of $20 million to Gretchen Carlson and $13 million to other women who complained of sexual harassment, whether out an economic calculus that these are the costs of doing business in liberal New York City or out of Sarah, Lachlan, Kathryn, and James Murdoch’s progressive beliefs that they must atone for the conservative sins of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel, this is their own business and their own money to spend. Nevertheless, as an aside it must be said that, without minimizing the emotional hurt suffered by Gretchen Carlson, it is difficult to see how the financial magnitude of her settlement should be in line with the physical hurt suffered by tort victims who were rendered quadriplegic, in a coma, suffered severe brain injuries, lost their limbs, were burned alive or sustained other catastrophic injuries that severely impact the quality of their lives.
If Sarah, Lachlan, Kathryn, and James Murdoch, however, believe that the Fox News Channel must cast aside the troglodyte ideology and business model of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes to embrace a more enlightened and progressive ideology just like CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc., they will end up driving their father’s business into the ground. 21st Century Fox will then suffer the fate of the 20th Century Motor Company, the fictional company in Ayn Rand’s 1954 masterpiece “Atlas Shrugged”.
In “Atlas Shrugged”, the Twentieth Century Motor Company was started by Jed Starnes, who once made the best motors in the country, and resulted in the booming factory town of Starnesville, Wisconsin. The company prospered while he lived and shattered after he died. According to one of the former workers at the factory,
Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn’t know. We thought it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.
Try pouring water into a tank where there’s a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six—for your neighbor’s supper—for his wife’s operation—for his child’s measles—for his mother’s wheel chair —for his uncle’s shirt—for his nephew’s schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere around you—it’s theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end. . . . From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. . . .
Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma’am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family,’ and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife’s head colds, hoping that ‘the family’ would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it’s miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest among six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother’s.
But that wasn’t all. There was something else that we discovered at the same meeting. The factory’s production had fallen by forty per cent, in that first half-year, so it was decided that somebody hadn’t delivered ‘according to his ability’ Who? How would you tell it? ‘The family’ voted on that, too. They voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you weren’t paid by tune and you weren’t paid by work, only by need.
The enlightened progressive beliefs of the Starnes children, Gerald, Eric, and Ivy Starnes caused the Twentieth Century Motor Company to lose its most brilliant minds, its most competent workers, its quality products, and its customers. In the end, the company was bankrupted, its workers became homeless, and the town of Starnesville was doomed.
The Twentieth Century Motor Company is a most appropriate cautionary tale whose eerie similarity to 21st Century Fox should not overlooked. The company’s most bankable talent, its brilliant minds, and most competent workers will rapidly abandon the Fox News Channel ship. Lesser talents will drive the company into the ground. The quality of their product will suffer greatly, which will cause viewers to tune out and corporate advertisers to seek other alternatives. In the end, the Fox News Channel and perhaps its corporate parent will suffer bankruptcy. While Rupert Murdoch is still alive, he should reflect long and hard before surrendering his life’s work to the progressive beliefs of Sarah, Lachlan, Kathryn, and James Murdoch.