Above illustration: Since I screen-grabbed this the “Donny Dumped” story was replaced at the top of their website with this one. It is not particularly flattering as it reports on the chaos that has been a hallmark of the Trump White House. It notes that “more than 60 percent of those with the title of assistant to the president left within the first 18 months.”
Yesterday I wrote:
In that story I wondered whether the recent stories about how Fox News reporters were covering Trump truthfully would lead to Rupert Murdoch and the powers at Fox to change their opinion shows from being Trump cheerleading squads to being more balanced when Trump’s poll numbers tanked to the point he had little chance of being a two term president.
There was yet another story, featured on HUFFPOST today about how members of their news division were defending their journalistic integrity (right). Yesterday Neil Cavuto said “First of all, Mr. President, we don’t work for you. I don’t work for you. My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you. Just report on you ― call balls and strikes on you.”
Here’s another story from HUFFPOST: Ex-Fox News Reporter Reveals What Old Colleagues Think Of Donald Trump’s Attacks — Carl Cameron said Trump’s latest outburst at the network makes members of its news department “sick to their stomachs.”
I am not sure what this all adds up to. It would appear that if these HUFFPOST stories are accurate there is a battle going on at Fox between the news reporters who are attempting to actually be journalists and report the news and the opinion windbags who vacillate between being in glassy-eyed thrall to Donald Trump to having wild-eyed rage attacks against those who dare to speak the truth about him.
One thing I can say for the Fox News website is that they keep it updated frequently. This is their current opening page which changed since I began to write this:
What the new main article does is cherry-pick a story to highlight the portions to put James Comey in the most damning light, for example:
You can be sure you’ll never see a story like Slate’s “Inspector General Report Reveals Charges Against James Comey To Be Mind-Numbingly Stupid” on Fox’s website.
My hunch is that the most pro-Trump consumers of Fox News follow their favorite flame-throwing opinionators on television. This may be because they don’t depend on the Internet for news and opinion. I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of them don’t watch a Fox News news show unless there is, oh say, a hurricane headed toward Mar a Lago or a major shooting incident.
They watch the likes of Tucker Carlson for the entertainment value. They also watch such shows because the hateful rhetoric supports their own beliefs, and because doing so helps them never to be bothered by the growing evidence that their worship of Trump is founded on a tissue of lies.
The poll: I have tuned into Fox News a few times just to see if they were covering breaking news which was on MSNBC. I don't even know what number it is on my TV. I see segments from their broadcasts on MSNBC. How about you?