Now that Fox News Channel has embraced the Dark Side following its dealings with Walt Disney corporation, the inevitable disappearance of conservative opinion lies on the horizon.
The recent news that Fox News Channel has made fantastically broad and abrupt changes to its power structure may not have been more than a mere blip on the radar of the Fake News Industrial Complex, but it has surely caused me and many others to prick up their ears.
Years ago, when Fox first reared its right-wing head, the mainstream media was quick to dismiss the network as a tiny, misguided stepchild of the alternative voice of the Republican party; a place where pundits had the unmitigated audacity to opine on subject matter that was all but forbidden to be covered by the powers that be.
During this time, the Clinton News Network (CNN) and National Progressive Radio (NPR) were the main opinion-makers outside the major networks and, as always, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press dominated the print landscape with their lapdog loyalty to big government and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
As happens all too often with empires, they soon discovered that the Fox News Channel was no flash-in-the-pan; rather, it was a phenomenon neither seen nor predicted that would throw the entire Fake News universe into a self-induced tailspin.
It wasn't long before the networks, newspapers, and online pundits began to feel the sting of the conservative movement. The ratings for Fox climbed ever more skyward as the old guard stumbled over themselves to have an answer for their sudden collapse. They knew that something had to be done to combat this right-wing menace, but they lacked the wits and the ingenuity to stop the juggernaut.
There appeared to be only two ways to deal with this new kid on the news block: either the entire Fake News Industrial Complex completely ignore the neophyte network and hope that they burned out quickly, or they changed the direction of the leftist biases and began to present, once again, a fair and balanced menu of news that captured old school journalism as it was envisioned to exist once upon a time. From the point of view of the Fourth Estate, there could be no other choice but to gird up their reporter's loins and launch a non-stop progressive assault on the very principles of objective journalism rather than bow to the pressures of conventional and decent thought.
There are many reasons Fox became the megalodon of cable news and it had nothing to do with fair and balanced reporting. A particular dearth of conservative and right-wing reporting had been present since the very early days of the 1960s. A popular school of thought arises in conservative circles (and is voiced at least once a week) that journalism today is dead, explaining why Fox News Channel was easily able to dominate today's cable news environment...insinuating that the fledgling network only did well because of its great reporting. However, the real reason that Fox rose to prominence so quickly had nothing to do with great journalism, but almost entirely because the airwaves had been so bereft of right-wing opinion for so long that the natural allure of the concept pulled in more than half the country's sentiments.
The combativeness of the left was as explainable as it was expected. Grasping at straws for an answer to the success of Fox was never going to solve the Fake News Industrial Complex's issues. In order for it to visualize the answer, they would first have to ditch their antiquated brand of search-and-destroy journalism. They had to literally let go of their distaste of all things rightward and begin from scratch, allowing the reading or listening audience to come to its own conclusions.
Like a spoiled, rich, trust fund child however, the FNIC opted to continue down the road to destruction. Their rambling distaste of middle America soon transformed into an irrational, blistering rage. Both network and cable news, print media and the US governmental block of Deep State actors blindly followed the ample breadcrumbs left on the trail by the DNC, enabling it to set the meter and mood of nightly digressions into how out-of-step Republicans were and how they were equally hated across the board by everyday Americans.
As the drumbeat increased in frenzied volume, Fox continued to lead the pack. Those days are regretfully over, though, as the left has finally seen a chink in the armor of the vast right-wing conspiracy headquarters.
Just a couple of days ago, Fox succumbed to the gargantuan leftist machine that seemingly gobbles up everything in its gluttonous path.
Walt Disney Co. has finalized a $52.4-billion deal to buy much of Rupert Murdoch’s entertainment empire, a blockbuster union that would radically transform Hollywood into a land of fewer giants.
The stock deal, which Disney announced Thursday morning, represents Disney’s boldest acquisition yet. If regulators approve it, the Burbank behemoth would take over the prolific 20th Century Fox movie and television studio, Fox’s 22 regional sports channels, cable entertainment brands FX and National Geographic, and Fox’s portfolio of international operations, including a fast-growing pay-TV service in India.
The proposed purchase of much of Murdoch’s 21 Century Fox media company accelerates the trend of media consolidation and would eliminate one of the six major Hollywood film studios. Murdoch would retain control of Fox News Channel, the Fox broadcast network and his newspapers.
As of a few days ago, as well, Fox News Channel announced that former House Speaker, Paul Ryan, would be added to the Board of Directors, while an addition of Donna Brazile, famed sneak-peeker for Hillary Clinton during her debates (when she was literally emailing questions from the CNN moderators in advance of the candidate's appearance at the televised shindig) would be paid as a Fox News contributor.
It appears that the death knell for the Fox News Channel as a right-wing-leaning network has played and that opinion show hosts like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham might as well be whistling past the Fox News graveyard at this point. Fox News was always a conservative friendly atmosphere, but truth be told, it was more solidly aligned with the Establishment and those who espoused the "hands-across-the-aisle" mantra and merely threw the steady diet of red meat to the unwashed masses on the right in order to prop up their ratings. Once the Swamp had leeched into the water coolers of the network, it was only inevitable that they would once again return to the traditional edicts set forth by the Dan Rathers and the Don Lemons of the progressive literary world.
This is the beginning of the end of the Fox News Channel that we once loved. Once they toss their three opinionists aside and their ratings begin to tank, they will eventually sink sulkily into the Swamp and join the multitude of progressive news outlets who have come to cherish the marching orders of the DC denizens. Take heart, though, Fox News affiliates: always remember that the biggest failure on the left is always lavished with the highest accolades.
As for the rest of us who will be without a cable news home...there will always be talk radio. Unless, of course, we hand over the Senate and Presidency to the left as well. A note to Rush Limbaugh: Keep an eye over your shoulder.