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As Fox News tries to determine its place in the post-Trump media landscape, the network has claimed it is moving “center-right.” A laughable claim, critics say, which is easily refuted by Fox’s prime-time far-right cope, but also by the change in tone of a key midday talk show.
Outnumbered, who debuted in 2014 as a female-led panel show (with a gimmicky “lucky one” named as the only male panelist), has always straddled Fox’s increasingly blurry line dividing his “hard news” And his wings of opinion. But the show has long winked at its “fair and balanced” credentials by featuring a lone liberal expert among its rotating panel.
However, over the past several months, and as Fox grappled with a drop in ratings – at least in part due to MAGA die-hards ditching the network after its press office made specific calls on the network. election night for Joe Biden – the noon talk show seems to have put two keys on the bench. liberal regulars of Marie Harf and Jessica Tarlov.
And rather, Outnumbered took a noticeably right turn, stacking his panels with conservative voices and giving more prominent placement to fiery provocateurs like Tomi Lahren. The resulting show is one that, like much of Fox’s programming, now seems focused on highlighting the conservative grievances of the era’s culture and war.
“Tomi [Lahren] has no credibility, no summary of experience other than derogatory yelling on the internet.“
– A current Fox News staff member
“The ratings have gone down and they want more right-wing voices,” a Fox News staffer told The Daily Beast in assessing the new tone of the midday show, especially in light of the network’s overhaul. ‘much of its lineup to add more straight hours. – wing opinion commentary.
The extended Outnumbered the absence of Harf and Tarlov – who continue to appear elsewhere on the network – notably occurred almost immediately after an intense skirmish on the air in early December between Harf and the permanent host of the program Harris Faulkner on the cover of the deadly coronavirus pandemic program. .
Harf, a former Obama State Department official, challenged Faulkner on Outnumbered after spending nearly a full hour talking about Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s five-year interactions with a suspected Chinese spy, or complaining about the coronavirus-related indoor dining restrictions, while giving only 20 seconds air in the United States, exceeding 3,000 per day COVID-19 dies for the first time.
An enraged Faulkner shouted at Harf, complaining that it was “offensive” that the liberal panelist “took a picture there”. The host further berated her colleague, “You can’t see my heart and trust me when I tell you that it hurts us all to mourn these Americans and people all over the world.”
Prior to Faulkner’s explosion with Harf, the liberal Fox News contributor had appeared in 11 of the previous 24. Outnumbered broadcasts and had been rotated to appear at least twice a week. Jessica Tarlov, another regular Outnumbered panelist, had appeared four times during that same period and had been rotating once a week with the show.
However, after this December 10 broadcast, Harf and Tarlov were removed from any future bookings on Outnumbered, according to two sources close to the situation. And since then, neither of the two women has returned to the series.
The only left-wing panelists to appear on the noon-day show are now radio host Leslie Marshall, a self-proclaimed “centrist” Democrat, and Johanna Maska, a former Obama spokesperson who sat on the panel last week. Fox News host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, a self-proclaimed libertarian, also remains a staple of the show.
Otherwise, the show appeared to increasingly rely on incendiary warriors from conservative culture like Charlie Kirk, MAGA youth leader, reactionary podcaster Dave Rubin, failed congressional candidate Kim Klacik and – au much to the chagrin of Fox staff members who spoke with The Daily Beast – Tomi Lahren.
The career bomb thrower – best known for his stuffy and breathless rants on digital streaming service Fox Nation, his often hateful tweets (some of which have been publicly berated by his own colleagues), and for being fired by Glenn Beck – suddenly became a routine presence on Outnumbered.
Lahren recently resumed her contract with Fox and since December has appeared at least 18 times on Outnumbered, co-accommodation at least twice a week. Given that his commentary and debate style is more at home in Fox’s decidedly right-wing prime-time viewing, some Fox News staff consider his new rise to be breathtaking.
“It’s an absolute joke and further proof that the show shouldn’t be taken seriously,” said a current Fox employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from management. “When I was hired, I was told that [Lahren] would never be on legitimate shows like Outnumbered or The five, that she was just Fox Nation. I am as confused as everyone. Tomi has no credibility, no summary of experience other than derogatory yelling on the internet. “
Another Fox staff member suggested Lahren was a logical choice to spice up the network’s daytime programming amid declining ratings. “She’s good at stirring the pot… whatever it takes these days,” the employee said. “Fox loves the rates.”
While the network’s actions – including scheduling choices that include the addition of two more hours of right-wing commentary at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. – indicate a definitive far-right shift to solidify MAGA’s die-hard conservative base , Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corp. sort of insisted on the opposite earlier this month.
“We think where we’re targeted, the center-right, that’s where we should be targeted. We don’t need to go any further, ” he said while touting the company’s advertising revenue earnings. “We don’t think America is further to the right, and obviously we’re not going to pivot to the left. All of our major competitors are on the far left. “
After the election last November, however, the whole calculation of Fox News programming changed. Disgruntled pro-Trump viewers have dropped out of the network in droves following Arizona’s Fox advance appeal for President Joe Biden on election night, a move that put President Donald Trump’s plan a step further. to falsely declare victory.
As Fox experiences a post-election drop in ratings – Fox has since witnessed a rebound and recently returned to number one in prime time – the network has made a concerted effort to win back MAGA loyalists by focusing more directly on conservative opinion and the battles between culture and war. A key part of that change included his hard news broadcasts devoting ample time to discuss and amplify the opinion monologues delivered the night before by famous Fox pro-Trump firefighters Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
The odds panic became evident after the now former Martha MacCallum’s 7 p.m. show The story was beaten on a January evening face-to-face in ratings by Newsmax, the upstart cable operator who appealed directly to disgruntled Fox viewers by openly adopting Trump’s “stolen” bogus election ploy. MacCallum’s loss to Newsmax’s Greg Kelly in the key advertising demographic of viewers aged 25 to 54 scared network bosses “in their hearts,” staff members told The Daily Beast at the time.
And the new direction of Outnumbered ultimately appears to be another part of Fox’s blatant right-wing turn towards ranking issues in combat.
“It’s a complete joke,” a Fox News insider told The Daily Beast. “They don’t even try to have a fair discussion anymore.”
“The symbolic liberal was there only for the spectacle”, concluded this person. “Liberal opinion has only served them as a T-shirt for the rest of the gang to get some hits their audience wants to hear. Now, in their desperation to keep audiences on the run, they’re too afraid to have any opposing views on the show for fear that more people will click on Newsmax.
Diana Falzone was a camera and digital reporter for FoxNews.com from 2012 to 2018. In May 2017, she filed a sex discrimination and disability complaint against the network and settled and left the company in March 2018 .
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