January 11, 2021

Fox News Decides to Turn Up the Outrage

John Nacion/NurPhoto/ZUMA

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After seeing first hand the consequences of its primetime hosts promoting conspiracy theories about the election being stolen, Fox News is taking a step back. In a memo to the Fox News staff, CEO Suzanne Scott announced a reorganization of its news shows designed to turn down the outrage dial a bit. “Recent events have stunned everyone,” the memo says, “and we need to understand the role we played in this.”

Ha ha ha. Did you believe this? Sucker. The only true part is that Fox News did announce a reorganization. But it was designed to turn up the outrage dial:

The major change for Fox News is the move of “The Story With Martha MacCallum” out of its 7 p.m. Eastern time slot to make way for a new opinion show, tentatively named “Fox News Primetime,” which will have a rotating group of hosts.

MacCallum’s program — which featured interviews with newsmakers and commentators — will air at 3 p.m. Eastern. “The Story” had seen its audience level fall in recent months as Newsmax, a competing right-wing channel, had gained viewers in the hour with its host Greg Kelly. While Kelly has never topped MacCallum in the ratings, his program has provided an alternative for the Fox News audience looking for solace after the election. Fox News viewers do tend to tune out after the election of a Democratic administration.

Overall, Newsmax has averaged around 326,000 viewers in prime time since the election, well below even the recent numbers of Fox News, which on Friday averaged close to 3 million viewers. Kelly, a former Fox News correspondent, has been a relentless defender of Trump’s attempts to overturn his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden, even in the days after Trump’s supporters staged a siege at the Capitol.

Believe it or not, this is actually true. Even after their coverage played an obvious role in triggering the insurrectionary mob that occupied the Capitol and killed five people—a number that we now know might have been higher if the mob’s leaders had been either luckier or more competent—Fox News has decided that three hours of incendiary rants isn’t enough. From now on, they’re going to air four hours of incendiary rants. And if that doesn’t provoke a full bore white people’s rebellion? Then I guess we’ll get five hours.

This is the kind of thing that leaves my jaw on the floor. Even for Fox News, it’s hard to believe. Seriously, who are the monsters running that place?

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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