The Daily Beast
Fox News claims it is moving ‘center-right’. It’s sure it’s not.
Fox News / Screenshot As Fox News tries to find its place in a post-Trump media landscape, the network claims it is moving ‘center-right’. Critics say a ridiculous assertion – one that can be easily refuted by Fox’s far-right primetime cover floors, but also by the leading shift of a major afternoon talk show host. Numbered, which debuted in 2014 as a female panel show (with a gimmick “one lucky guy” considered the only male panelist), has always struck Fox’s increasingly vague line and its ‘hard news’ and opinion wings divide. But the show has long clipped to its “fair and balanced” credentials by seeing a lone liberal expert under its rotating panel. In recent months, however, Fox has struggled with an appreciation – at least in part because of MAGA people who did the exact election night for Joe Biden after the news service – it seems the afternoon show had two key Liberal regulars in Marie Harf and Jessica Tarlov has. Instead, Outnumbered took a striking legal shift and stacked its panels with conservative stacks. voices and more prominent placement to ardent provocateurs like Tomi Lahren. The results that emerge from this are one that, like much of Fox’s programming, now looks laser-focused on the conservative cultural war grievances of the day. “The ratings have gone into the tank and they want more right-wing voices,” a current Fox News staffer told The Daily Beast in assessing the new tone of the afternoon show, especially in light of the network that a large part of the group revamped to add more hours of commentary to the right. The prolonged absence of Harf and Tarlov, who both continue to appear, still appears. elsewhere on the network – came almost immediately after an intense, early December skirmish between Harf and the program’s permanent host Harris Faulkner over the program’s coverage of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. of COVID Death CoverageHarf, a former Obama State Department official, challenged Faulkner on the number of people who spent nearly an entire hour on the five-year-old int. of the Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell reacts with a suspected Chinese spy, or complains about coronavirus-related indoor dining room restrictions, while for the first time giving the U.S. only 20 seconds of air, surpassing more than 3,000 daily COVID-19 deaths. An outraged Faulkner shouted at Harf, complaining that it was “offensive” that the Liberal panel member “threw a chance”. The host went on to say to her colleague, “You can not see my heart and do not trust me when I tell you that it hurts us all to grieve over the Americans and people around the world.” Prior to Faulkner’s breakup with Harf, the liberal Fox News Contributor appeared in the minority in 11 of the previous 24 broadcasts and was on the air at least twice a week. Jessica Tarlov, another regular panelist in the minority, appeared four times in the same time and was around once a week with the program. However, after the December 10 broadcast, Harf and Tarlov were pronounced out of future discussions on Outnumbered, according to two sources who know the situation. And since then, neither of the two women has returned to the program. The only left-wing panelists now appearing on the afternoon program are radio host Leslie Marshall, a self-described ‘centrist’ Democrat, and Johanna Maska, a former Obama spokeswoman, on the panel last week. Fox News host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, a self-described libertarian, also remains an important part of the show. Otherwise, it seems that the program has increasingly failed on fiery conservative culture fighters like MAGA youth leader Charlie Kirk, the reactionary podcast, Dave Rubin. congressional candidate Kim Klacik, and – much to the chagrin of Fox staff members who spoke to The Daily Beast – Tomi Lahren. The career bomber – best known for her bite-sized and breathless outbursts on Fox’s digital streaming service Fox Nation, her often hateful tweets (some of which are publicly reprimanded by her own colleagues) and the fact that they were fired by Glenn Beck – suddenly had a become routine presence in Outnumbered. Lahren recently rebuilt her contract with Fox and since December has appeared at least 18 times on Outnumbered and co-hosted at least twice a week. As her style of commentary and debate is more at home in Fox’s ruling time, some Fox News staff consider her newfound highlight as eyebrow-raising. “This is an absolute joke and further proof that the program should not be taken seriously,” said one current Fox employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by management. ‘When I was appointed, I was told [Lahren] would never be on legitimate shows like Outnumbered or The Five, that she was just Fox Nation. I’m just as confused as everyone else. Tomi has no credibility, and no experience other than screaming derogatory things on the internet. Another Fox contributor suggests that Lahren is a logical choice to advance the network’s daytime programming in the midst of a downturn. “She’s good at stirring the pot … anything it needs these days,” the employee said. “Fox likes what rates.” Can Tomi Lahren continue to fail? Fox ‘Hard News’ Show buys GOP’s ‘Fascinating’ attempt to steal election While the network’s actions – including programming choices that include adding two more hours of right-wing commentary in the 7 12:00 and 23:00 hours – indicate on a definite shift from hard-right to sharpen the conservative MAGA base, Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch somehow insisted earlier this month. “We believe that where we are headed, towards the center-right, is where we need to be targeted. We do not need to go further to the right, ”he said while earning the company’s advertising revenue. “We do not believe that America is further to the right and of course we are not going to turn left. All of our key competitors are on the far left. ‘After the election in November last year, however, the whole calculator for Fox News’ programming changed. Disgruntled viewers ahead of the Trump trumpet defeated the network en masse after Fox’s early Arizona call for President Joe Biden on election night, a decision that shrinks then-President Donald Trump’s plan to falsely declare victory. Fox has since witnessed a rebound and recently returned to number one for the first time – the network has made a concerted effort to win back MAGA loyalists by focusing more on conservative opinions and cultural warfare. An important part of the move was the “hard news” broadcasts that spent a lot of time discussing and reinforcing the opinion monologues delivered last night by Fox’s popular pro-Trump firefighters Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. is. former 19:00 show, The Story, was beaten head-to-head on a January night in the ratings by Newsmax, the rising cable that directly appealed to disgruntled Fox viewers through Trump’s fake ‘stolen’ openly embrace election ploy. MacCallum’s loss of Newsmax’s Greg Kelly in the main demographic ads of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 “scared the bosses of the network to the core,” staff members told The Daily Beast at the time. And Outnumbered’s new direction finally seems to be another part of Fox’s completely right-wing move to combat rating issues. “It’s a complete joke,” Fox News said. “They are not even trying to have a fair discussion anymore.” “The liberal sign was just there,” the person concluded. ‘The liberal opinion was just as useful to them as a tea-in-ball for the rest of the gang to get guaranteed hits that their audience wants to hear. Now in their desperation to retain the fleeing audience, they are too scared to have even the slightest opposite view of the program, for fear that more people will click on Newsmax. ”Diana Falzone was a camera and digital reporter for FoxNews.com from 2012. to 2018. In May 2017, she filed a lawsuit against the Network Against Gender Discrimination and Disability, leaving the company in March 2018. Read more at The Daily Beast. Send it here to The Daily Beast Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.