Book Review: Brian Stelter’s “Hoax” offers a fresh look at how Fox corrodes democracy

With Fox Noise and oth­er print and broad­cast cre­ations, the media empire of mag­nate Rupert Mur­doch and his fam­i­ly has debased the cul­ture and polit­i­cal cul­ture of the Unit­ed States, Great Britain and Murdoch’s native Australia.

The fal­si­fi­ca­tions, excess­es and cov­er-ups have turned lethal with Fox’s cov­er­age of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the Trump administration’s response to it.

That is the mes­sage of “Hoax: Don­ald Trump, Fox News and the Dan­ger­ous Dis­tor­tion of Truth,” by CNN media crit­ic Bri­an Stelter.

We go back to March 6th.

Stel­ter writes:

“Fox’s longest tenured med­ical ana­lyst Dr. Mark Siegel told Han­ni­ty: ‘At worst, at worst, worst case sce­nario, it could be the flu.’ This was shock­ing­ly irre­spon­si­ble stuff – and Fox exec­u­tives knew it, because by the begin­ning of March, they were tak­ing pre­cau­tions that belied Siegel’s just-the-flu statement.”

“The net­work can­celed a big event for hun­dreds of adver­tis­ers, insti­tut­ed deep clean­ings of the office, and began to put a work-at-home plan in place.”

Fox also can­celed Rupert Murdoch’s 89th birth­day party.

Yet, under host Lau­ra Ingra­ham on the bot­tom of the screen, the chy­ron screamed Left weaponiz­ing coro­n­avirus fears.

And the next night: Left try­ing to pan­ic Amer­i­cans.

Don­ald Trump knew the truth, as he told Bob Wood­ward on the tapes.

Yet, he was delib­er­ate­ly down­play­ing the threat.

So, obe­di­ent­ly, did Fox.

“This is their new hoax,” Trump told a Feb­ru­ary 28th ral­ly in South Car­oli­na. The coro­n­avirus would “go away” with the warmth of spring, fol­low­ers were told.

Efforts to warn the pub­lic about the nov­el coro­n­avirus con­sti­tute “yet anoth­er attempt to impeach the pres­i­dent,” Fox’s Trish Regan declared on March 9th.

On the morn­ing of the 13th, Fox’s Ains­ley Earhardt said “it’s the safest time to fly” after her com­pa­ny had pro­hib­it­ed all non-essen­tial busi­ness travel.

Fox has devel­oped an intense fol­low­ing. It is “an addic­tive sub­stance” to its audi­ence, Stel­ter writes, cogent­ly observ­ing: “For its biggest fans, Fox is an iden­ti­ty. Almost a way of life.”

The net­work dares not devi­ate from script.

When they do, Fox reporters and pun­dits get show­ered with nasty and obscene emails. So drilled in are the prej­u­dices – with a most­ly white, male and elder­ly view­er­ship – that the net­work is scared of its own viewers.

How has it become “the Trump network?”

For­mer Fox pun­dit Lieu­tenant Colonel Ralph Peters, a stead­fast con­ser­v­a­tive, quit in 2018 with a memo describ­ing the net­work as “a pro­pa­gan­da machine for a destruc­tive and eth­i­cal­ly ruinous administration.”

“Fox isn’t immoral, it’s amoral,” he tells Stelter.

The vir­tu­al merg­er with Trump “was oppor­tunis­tic. Trump was just a gift to Fox. And Fox in turn is a gift to Trump.”

FNC is a $2 bil­lion mon­ey machine. Its holy grail, set down by founder Roger Ailes, are rat­ings. Tuck­er Carl­son can claim immi­grants make Amer­i­ca “dirt­i­er” and indulge in overt racism, but what counts is 4–5 mil­lion peo­ple watch­ing him.

Sean Han­ni­ty can indulge in con­jured con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, yet he has the high­est rat­ings in cable­land, and a direct pipeline to the occu­pant of the White House.

“The Mur­dochs are mer­ce­nar­ies,” a for­mer anchor tells Stel­ter, even more than was Roger Ailes. The bot­tom line is every­thing. Hence, with the Repub­li­can Par­ty becom­ing Trump’s par­ty, Fox became Trump’s state television.

Despite pri­vate reser­va­tions about Trump’s sta­bil­i­ty and tem­pera­ment, Han­ni­ty has become the president’s sound­ing board as well as therapist.

“Fox was the gas sta­tion where Trump stopped to fill up his tank of resent­ment,” Stel­ter writes. At one point, a fawn­ing Han­ni­ty asks, “Do you think the news media in this coun­tryand their cov­er­age on this, owes you an apology?”

“Well, they do owe me an apol­o­gy, a big one,” Trump replies.

“They owe you an apology.”

Stel­ter has writ­ten a gos­sipy book, filled with the back­ground frus­tra­tions of those inside who want Fox to be a more hon­est operation.

The book fol­lows a quar­tet of Fox reporters and anchors – Carl Cameron, Shep­ard Smith, Brett Baier and Chris Wal­lace – who rep­re­sent or rep­re­sent­ed the “straight news” side of the oper­a­tion. They are repeat­ed­ly out-Foxed by the prime-time mouths. Man­age­ment refus­es to con­demn even the most out­ra­geous excesses.

Cameron and Smith would even­tu­al­ly leave the network.

So would Meg­yn Kel­ly, nev­er on sol­id ground after direct­ing a blis­ter­ing debate ques­tion to Trump about his treat­ment of women, and back­ing up the sex­u­al harass­ment com­plaint that caused Ailes’ down­fall. Wal­lace has sur­vived, and will mod­er­ate the first gen­er­al elec­tion Trump-Biden debate next week.

The incen­tive to stay in place at Fox, and to keep Fox in its place, is that bot­tom line. Lach­lan Mur­doch has set­tled into a ten acre, $150 mil­lion estate in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Papa Rupert lives with fourth wife Jer­ry Hall (ex-Mrs. Mick Jag­ger) in a $77 mil­lion Man­hat­tan townhouse.

Sean Han­ni­ty has a $10.5 mil­lion Long Island man­sion, close to the airstrip where his Gulf­stream is parked, and has digs in Florida.

Roger Ailes received a $40 mil­lion pay­out, and Bill O’Reilly got $25 mil­lion, when the harassers were forced to leave.

Ex-net­work big­wig Bill Shine was still receiv­ing a $2.5 mil­lion a year set­tle­ment while work­ing as White House com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor under Trump.

For­mer House Speak­er Paul Ryan is paid $330,000, a rel­a­tive pit­tance, for part-time work as a Fox director.

Tuck­er Carl­son has digs in Florida.

In a rare decent act, he sought to warn Trump of dan­gers from the loom­ing pan­dem­ic. He drove across the Sun­shine State in ear­ly March, arriv­ing at Mar-a-Lago just in time for a $150,000 gala hon­or­ing the birth­day par­ty hon­or­ing Kim­ber­ly Guil­foyle, girl­friend of Don­ald Trump, Jr.

Trump con­tin­ues to com­pare COVID-19 to the com­mon flu. As Stel­ter notes, “Sev­er­al peo­ple who were at Mar-a-Lago on the 7th were sick by Fri­day the 13th.”

The big names at Fox have done well, but they have not done good. They have helped cre­ate a con­fronta­tion­al pol­i­tics from which civil­i­ty has vanished.

“This sto­ry is about a rot at the core of our pol­i­tics,” Stel­ter writes.

“It’s about an ongo­ing attack on the very idea of a free and fair press. It’s about the dif­fer­ence between news and pro­pa­gan­da. It’s about the dif­fer­ence between state media and the fourth estate.”

“So excuse me if I swear a lit­tle – but I am alarmed, and you should be too.”