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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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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