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The Catastrophic Success Of Fox News Channel

By Oliver Willis

Fox News Channel launched in October of 1996. As a business and ratings enterprise, Fox News has been an unqualified success. Its ratings far surpass MSNBC and CNN, and while the bulk of its advertisers are targeting octogenarians (catheters, reverse mortgages and gold are its staples), it has been a financial success for Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.

But for conservative politics, Fox News has not done well at all.

Since the right wing “news” channel hit the airwaves, four of the five presidential elections have had a majority of votes go to the Democratic nominee, and three out of the five elections elected a Democratic president. Under Fox’s watch, the Senate also swung from Republican control to Democratic control, while the House has gone from Republican to Democrat and back to Republican for the time being.

Fox News hit its peak of political influence in 2004, the high water mark for the George W. Bush Republican Party. Fox was a reliable propaganda organ promoting the war in Iraq and the domestic policies of the Bush regime. It was well deployed against a woefully unprepared and uninspiring presidential campaign from John Kerry, who simply had not adapted to the modern media world.

In two years, it was all gone. Nancy Pelosi, who was a regular punching bag for Fox’s prime time lineup, was elected Speaker of the House and Democrats won back the Senate as well.

Two years after that, Fox was all-in for McCain, and promoted every lie and crackpot conspiracy theory about Barack Obama. It didn’t work. Four years later they tried again and it didn’t work. Already they are laying the groundwork to smear Hillary Clinton, and while I’m not a betting man I’d also bet it won’t work either.

Why? Fox is a victim of its own success. Fox is the tip of the spear in the conservative media ecosphere. It creates the right wing storylines, gives them publicity, beats up on the mainstream media for not indulging in the same hyperbole, and rewards the Republican politicians who help them to whip up those storylines.

The problem for the conservative media is that the cycle is feasting on itself now. In the Clinton years, leading into the Bush era, Fox needed the mainstream press as it punched the left. When Fox was the underdog to CNN it could whine that CNN was setting the “liberal” agenda. But with Fox on top, the right has lulled itself into believing the “scandal” leading the O’Reilly Factor is on the lips of every American. But it isn’t. Fox is a conservative channel serving the needs of the conservative community, but its impact on mainstream American life is now severely limited.

In 2012 on Fox, the socialist Barack Obama was obviously losing to Mitt Romney. In Foxworld, Romney was headed for a Reaganesque landslide, and never mind the skewed polling conducted by the liberal mainstream media. Of course, then the actual election day happened.

But Fox has kept up the deflector shields against reality, and conservatism is trapped on the inside. Conservatives don’t even need to whine about minority votes propping up Democrats anymore. The Tea Party-based Chris McDaniel loyalists will point out to you that Thad Cochran’s primary win is also invalid, thanks to minority voters. And the conservative media bubble tells them that their claims are legitimate and they can win (just send in a donation to a shady Super PAC!). Of course, the Mississippi electoral board will likely deflate that bubble, but by then conservative media – led by Fox – will be knee-deep in another Obama “scandal.”

In the recent past, I would have wanted Democrats and the left to have a cable news answer to Fox News. After watching the 2004 election, I honestly thought that was one of the only ways they would have an electoral shot. Luckily, I was wrong. Because while commentary on MSNBC does definitely lean left nowadays, it is not nearly as all-encompassing or devoted to party as Fox is to the GOP. This isn’t even putting into consideration MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which is hosted by a Gingrich Republican and is obsessed with the conventional wisdom and center-right nonsense from people like Mark Halperin and Harold Ford, who have little influence and gravitas outside of the media itself.

Fox News is great for its own ratings, for the pockets of Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity, but it isn’t good for Republicans and conservatives, who are now slaves to this beast they must feed lest their constituents become restless.

Fox News will continue to dominate cable news ratings, and that’s great for Fox News. And little else.