Fox News has long referred to itself as a “fair and balanced” network. The joke is that nothing can be further from the truth. Even the network's “straight news” anchors are extremely conservative.
The network's opinion anchors, however, are extremely right-wing. Sean Hannity appeared on stage with Donald Trump at a rally. Laura Ingraham demonizes immigrants and people of colour on a nightly basis. (And Tucker Carlson has been pushing white supremacist tropes on his show for years.)
Fox’s CEO, though, believes that the anchor's views are in line with what’s happening in Middle America. Lachlan Murdoch recently claimed that his opinion hosts are “center-right.” (cough! cough!)
The executive made the comments during a recent communications summit after he was asked about OAN and Newsmax.
“We compete every day with CNN, MSNBC, other news sources, so having competitors to the right of us is natural,” he said. “Opinion on our channel is center-right. That’s the right place for us to be. That’s where we think our audience is, that’s where middle America is. We’re happy with that positioning.”
Murdoch continued, “That means there’s space to our left and to our right for competitors to come in. We’re confident in our journalism, confident in our reporting. We’re very happy with our opinion hosts. You have to be willing to have competition, and we see that very clearly.”
The Fox head also said that he doesn’t fear the competition coming from OAN and Newsmax. Murdoch said that he doesn’t think that the networks have the financial backing to compete with his powerhouse and he is likely correct.
The three Musketeers!
