As Fox News becomes what many feel is yet another liberal mainstream media outlet, conservative Americans are seeking an alternative to the once “fair and balanced” media company. According to the Daily Wire, Trump allies are hoping to achieve just that by raising money to establish a “right-of-center media company to rival Fox News.”
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that private-equity investor and Trump supporter Thomas Hicks is looking to raise $200 million to purchase a smaller news outlet and build it up to be a direct competitor to Fox News. The report states Hicks is looking specifically at Newsmax, which has experienced considerable ratings spikes following the election, according to Nielsen data.
And though Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy told Variety that he has not had discussions with Hicks about purchasing the network and is not currently interested in selling, he admits that “investors, investment banks, and strategic players” have taken an interest in the outlet recently.
Ruddy added, however, that it is not his intent for Newsmax to become “Trump TV,” but prefers for the network to maintain its mission of serving as a truly “independent news agency” that would be open to giving President Trump a weekly show post-presidency.
Still, Ruddy unabashedly stated, “Newsmax is moderately conservative and we will continue to have a moderately conservative viewpoint on things — including the president.”
For years, Fox News was wildly popular for serving as one of the few mainstream-media companies to provide news without the left-leaning agenda. That began to change when the more liberal Murdoch family took over the company from the reliably conservative Roger Ailes. That transition took place at the same time that Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination, prompting the “Never Trump” movement that many claim pervaded the news network.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh claims Fox News’ editorial shift is the direct result of the “Never Trumpers,” a sentiment shared by Andrea Widburg at American Thinker, who accused Fox’s change to “creeping NeverTrumpism.”
The 2020 election season has proven to be the most damning stage on which Fox News showcased its shift leftward.
As observed by Jeffrey M. McCall of The Hill, Fox News garnered criticism from President Trump and his supporters for its faulty polling that consistently showed Biden with a significant lead, “a margin that didn’t play out on Election Day,” McCall wrote.
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace was accused of blatant bias when he moderated the first presidential debate.
“Trump is debating the moderator and Biden,” Fox News’ Laura Ingraham tweeted.
On Election Night, Fox News was the first to inexplicably call Arizona for Democrat Joe Biden, even as there were still one million votes waiting to be counted, prompting Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller to call the media company a “complete outlier.”
Though President Trump won Arizona in 2016 by a margin of 3.5 percent, Fox news’ Decision Desk Director Arnon Mishkin defended his early call on Election Night, saying he was “absolutely” certain of it.
“It’s been clear for a while that the former vice president is in the lead in Arizona and was most likely to win the state,” Mishkin said.
During a November 9 interview with White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in which McEnany was discussing the status of the voter fraud investigation, Fox News’ Neil Cavuto cut McEnany off.
Cavuto interjected, “She’s charging the other side with welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting. Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good conscience continue to show you this.”
“That’s an explosive charge to make, that the other side is effectively rigging and cheating. If she does bring proof of that, of course, we’ll take you back,” he added.
Fox News’ slide leftward was not limited to matters related to President Trump, either. During a September interview with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Fox News host Melissa Francis interrupted Gingrich when he criticized leftist billionaire globalist George Soros for his funding of the violent anti-police protests.
“I’m not sure we need to bring George Soros into this,” she said at the time, which prompted a long awkward silence before Francis said, “Ok, we’re going to move on.”
Frustrated with the mainstream media’s left-leaning agenda, Americans are turning away from Fox News, causing the media company’s ratings to plummet. According to the National Pulse, the figures are lower than those of CNN and MSNBC.
“The numbers show that on November 6th, Fox pulled 2,266,000 viewers while CNN saw nearly twice as many at 4,009,000 viewers. Similarly, MSNBC, per Fox’s internal numbers, counted 2,983,000 viewers, beating Fox by over 700,000 viewers,” the National Pulse reported on November 9.
Meanwhile, Newsmax experienced a ratings boost of 184 percent following the election. Ruddy told Variety that the network is hoping to “overtake Fox News in the next 12 months,” a prospect he believes is “doable.”
