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“In Minneapolis, blacks have been seven times more likely to be victims of police violence than white Americans in the past five years,” television journalist Chris Wallace told Donald Trump in July. “Can you understand why this infuriates many African Americans?”
Wallace sat on the porch behind the White House Oval Office in the scorching summer sun for this talk with the president, the thermometer reading over 30 degrees. “Is it hot enough for you?” The moderator asked the politician sometime in the middle of the interview. “We could have gone in too.” “I wanted you to sweat a little,” Trump replied.
Wherever Trump is, things are often hot, you might think. What’s extremely unusual, however, is that this happens on the channel Wallace spoke to Trump for: Fox News.
Interviews often sound different there. Sean Hannity, one of the station’s star anchors, asked Trump about the impeachment process in February: “You’ve been through a lot, what’s your reaction to all of that?”Fox is considered to be the announcer for the presidential house.
Trump’s conversation with Chris Wallace made headlines after it aired. Not just because Wallace was well prepared. Or because he corrected the president’s wrong answers over and over again, contradicted him, and verified the facts on the spot. Or because Trump seemed overwhelmed by the pandemic in his hasty responses. But because it was weird: a critical interview with the president on Fox News.
In fact, not all employees like the proximity to Trump. “Fox News is a huge organization, there are dozens and dozens of journalists who work hard and are concerned about the content,” says Brian Stelter. “They feel like they’re being pushed around by all the pro-Trump conversations on public opinion broadcasts.”
Brian Stelter was a former media editor for the New York Times, and since 2013 has been the senior media correspondent for CNN, Fox News’ liberal left-wing counterpart. His new book, “Hoax”, in German: False Report, was recently published in the United States and deals with Trump’s incestuous relationship with his favorite broadcaster.
Journalist and media author Stelter: “Criticism comes from within the station”
Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images
For his book, Stelter spoke to more than 300 current and former Fox employees. The picture he paints is of a station that has succumbed to its own business model: Fox News has had the highest viewership ratings of any major network. of US news for several years, ahead of CNN and MSNBC. Stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, two opinion leaders who have little to do with journalism and are strongly pro-Trump, reliably get top marks.
Their audience of millions made them rich (Hannity is said to make a salary of $ 30 million a year), which gives them unprecedented power on the station and the freedom that goes with it, not having to submit to journalistic restrictions.
Fox News is now disgusted with this rate. During his investigation, Brian Stelter encountered internal turmoil at the station. To a group that resists internally resisting the Trump appropriation. “The criticism comes from inside the station,” says Stelter. “That’s one of the reasons I wrote ‘Hoax’ – I have been told by several employees that they are concerned about conspiracy theories and talk show nonsense that night.”
In the United States there is a long tradition of so-called talk on the radio, often political ramblings about God and the world. When Rupert Murdoch founded Fox News in 1996, he was looking for a television counterpart. He hired former journalist Roger Ailes, who had worked as a political adviser with Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. to turn the cable station into a competitor to CNN at the Center: News for a Conservative Environment.
The concept worked. After September 11 and the Iraq war, a new patriotism was installed, the strident Tea Party movement and the Obama presidency, which was so unpopular on the conservative side, pushed the station even further to the right. With the election of Donald Trump in 2016 at the latest, the editorial statement changed dramatically. Equilibrium is now a more special case than the standard.
But Fox is not just a propaganda machine, it is also a profit machine. Odds are correct, earnings have been increasing for years. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, the forecast for advertising revenue in 2020 was $ 1.32 billion, almost double that of the CNN competition.
Fox employees are aware of this too, even the critics. So even the most neutral Fox shows move further to the right. Proximity to the president promises success. “It will be Trump-ier and Trump-ier,” says author Stelter.
Chris Wallace, Fox News journalist: Critical questions for Trump, also in the television duel?
Photo: Carlos Barria / REUTERS
“Every time Fox took a new turn to the right in the last 25 years, it reflects a change in the audience,” the 35-year-old said. “Republican viewers are suspicious. Fox tells them: You can only trust us, the rest are Fake news“So false reports.
At some point, Fox News executives found out for themselves that putting politics above principle is financially worthwhile. The result is a report adapted to the public, which plays with truths and resentments, awakens fear and sows discord.
Stelter’s channel, CNN, now doesn’t do it differently from Fox News in some ways. The station that once represented the hard news has become a show that gives Democrats exactly what they want to hear.
However, a broadcaster should not go too far, otherwise it would be of no interest to wealthy advertising partners. This is also why Fox’s PR department is apparently trying to play an interview like Chris Wallace’s with Donald Trump.
Both the president and the announcer still benefit from their close relationship. But what if Joe Biden moves into the White House?
“Trump is like Fox’s Frankenstein,” Brian Stelter quotes a Fox employee in his book, “They created him and now he’s out of control. Nobody knows what happens when he leaves.”
When the first of three television duels between Trump and Biden takes place in Cleveland on September 29, the host will be Chris Wallace. It keeps you covered in details about preparing your questions. It may be hotter than expected for the President of the United States, and not just because of Joe Biden.
