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Posted on 05/26/2013 8:22:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Yes, there is life after Fox News.
Sarah Palin “parted ways” with the network in January. Dick Morris was gone the following month. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were suspended as contributors in March 2011 while they considered presidential runs. They haven’t come back.
Being escorted — or, in some cases, shoved — off Fox News’s big stage has tested the ability of the four to find ways to stay relevant, whether through social media, books, radio shows, public appearances or other projects. In the time since these former high-profile paid commentators departed the most-watched news channel in the country — and its unquestionably massive media platform — they’ve all remade their media personas with varying degrees of success.
Some have undoubtedly faced diminished exposure and influence (Morris), while others have been fairly effective at keeping themselves and their causes in the public eye (Palin). And experts say the benefits of having appeared regularly on Fox News tend to live on long after the commentators left the air (Santorum and Gingrich).
POLITICO interviewed some of the former Fox News stars, spoke with a number of Republican consultants and media experts and used databases to determine the number of mentions in the media to assess what remains of the impact and media presence of Palin, Morris, Gingrich and Santorum.
Each is experiencing a kind of newfound freedom from being liberated from the bounds of Fox — whether it’s Morris on his new radio program, Palin continuing to own social media, Santorum developing new projects and gearing up for a potential 2016 presidential bid or Gingrich making the TV rounds and being considered as a potential host for CNN’s “Crossfire” reboot.
“If Fox had taken them off the air in a world without the Internet, it might have had more of an impact,” said Dan Schnur, head of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. “But there’s no shortage of venues for partisan voices to be heard. If anything, it just requires these individuals to be a little more creative.”
Here’s POLITICO’s look at life after Fox:
Dick Morris
For 13 years, Fox News gave the political strategist and pollster the airtime for 3,000 interviews. And then they shut him down.
After his very wrong election prediction in November and widespread mockery — Mitt Romney did not win the presidency in a landslide, it turned out — Morris did not appear on the network for three months. And in February, news broke that Fox News wasn’t renewing his contract.
Morris wasted little time in lining up a new media gig, although on a much smaller scale — in March, he was named the host of an afternoon show on Philadelphia’s WPHT radio station. Instead of regularly stopping by “Hannity” or “The O’Reilly Factor” — among the highest rated shows on cable — to talk politics, Morris is now holding court with Philly listeners for four hours a day.
“I’m brand new in talk radio — the only thing I know for certain is that I love it,” Morris told POLITICO.
And his new bosses say they are pleased so far with Morris’s talk radio debut. Andy Bloom, WPHT’s operations manager, said the station feels “great about how the show is developing and have had nothing but terrific feedback.”
But as for Morris the media personality, there’s no question that getting the boot from Fox has meant losing major influence — there’s no chance he can just appear on screens in 90 million homes around the country a few times a week anymore.
Still, he said, “it’s too early to tell what a move from TV to radio will mean” for his influence on political discourse.
That’s putting the best face on it, media experts said.
Tim Graham, the Media Research Center’s director of media analysis, said Morris getting canned by Fox just means the so-called worst pundit of 2012 will fall off the radar for many viewers in the same way he has for political insiders over the years.
“I think in his case, him leaving Fox hurts his reputation, hurts his visibility,” Graham said. “His whole appeal to people was that he had been a pollster for Bill Clinton. The whole idea of, ‘I know Bill Clinton,’ was a hot commodity in ’98, but it’s 2013. I think he’s in danger of being yesterday’s news.”
If Morris says he hasn’t missed Fox News, it seems the feeling is mutual. Since leaving, he’s been mentioned on the network only four times, according to the television monitoring service TVEyes — and most substantially as the punch line of a joke.
“All right, Bill,” Dennis Miller said after Bill O’Reilly threw to him for a segment on the Feb. 20 edition of “The O’Reilly Factor.” “Dick Morris with a leaf blower outside. Dubs is barking, I can hardly hear ya.”
Nonetheless, Morris isn’t spending much time gardening in his life after Fox — he’s got his radio show, a column in The Hill and his international consulting work to focus on. “I have never been a darling of the media and don’t expect to become one now,” Morris said.
Fox News didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Sarah Palin
With a passionate fan base and a powerful social media presence that can launch hundreds of thousands of clicks, Palin’s life after Fox has been just as influential — and divisive — as during her tenure on the network, observers say.
(PHOTOS: Sarah Palin’s political career)
She joined Fox News as a paid contributor in 2010, after she had resigned as Alaska governor. This January, Fox News confirmed the three-year run with the former Republican vice presidential nominee was over.
Even without a formal arrangement, Palin still gets her name out there often on Fox News, with 135 mentions in the past 90 days on the network, according to TVEyes. And Fox News has hardly blacklisted her as a news subject — Palin’s comments on social media and her speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference and the recent National Rifle Association convention in Texas have been clipped and discussed on the network.
“She really took to Facebook and Twitter, and for whatever anyone may think of her or say about her, that’s given her a certain foundation for continuing to voice her opinions,” said Liz Mair, a Republican communications strategist who served as online communications director at the Republican National Committee in 2008.
“I think her objective was to make traditional media filters fairly irrelevant for her purposes, and I think she’s actually succeeded pretty well in doing that,” Mair added. “In many regards, she has succeeded in building those tools and getting away from traditional media dominance in a way that is highly enviable to those on both sides of the aisle.”
And even without her gig as a regular on Fox News, Palin still garnered much of the same coverage in the first four months of this year as she did in 2012, according to the Nexis database. From January 2012 to May 2012, Palin received 223 mentions in newspapers; 69 in Web-based publications, such as CNN.com, Washingtonpost.com, POLITICO and USNews.com; 563 in blogs; and her name appeared in 46 news transcripts, for a total of 901 mentions. During the same period this year, in her post-Fox News life, Palin’s still very much in the conversation, with 118 mentions in newspapers, 55 in Web-based publications, 726 in blogs and 12 in news transcripts, for a total of 911 mentions, and she also wrote an op-ed for the conservative website Breitbart.
Fox News was never “the foundation of her public personality at all,” Mair said. “If somebody took Facebook or Twitter away from Sarah Palin, then that would have a significant impact on her media profile.”
Palin did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment.
Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum
With their suspensions from Fox News in 2011, Gingrich and Santorum became media free agents and failed presidential contenders.
In regard to Gingrich, since leaving the network, he’s reportedly been called a “prick” and a “sore loser” by Fox News head Roger Ailes — according to Zev Chafets’s biography of Ailes — and the former House speaker responded by insisting things are “fine” between him and the network president. And despite it all, Gingrich continues to appear occasionally on Fox News, although not in an official capacity.
By running for president Gingrich reinvented himself and reignited his relevance in the media world beyond the network, experts said.
But Gingrich — who told POLITICO in an email his media career is “not a topic I want to discuss” — was never really defined in the media by his association with Fox News in the first place.
He has a whopping 1.4 million Twitter followers, with whom he shares updates and thoughts on everything from politics to zoos to Downton Abbey. Along with his wife, Callista, Gingrich has a production company based in Washington for his media projects. He’s active on the speaking circuit, a prolific writer and the host of a kind of online school dubbed Newt University.
For Gingrich, Fox News already played the role of the “successful rejuvenator” of his career, said Bruce Haynes of Purple Strategies.
This year, he has been mentioned 146 times in newspapers, 72 times in Web-based publications, 602 times in blogs and 25 news transcripts, which includes appearances on Fox News’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” “Hannity” and “Fox News Sunday.” He’s also recently stopped by NBC’s “Meet the Press” and ABC’s “This Week,” and he has appeared on a number of shows on CNN, the network he’s currently in discussions with about a possible role on the potentially soon-to-relaunch “Crossfire,” sources have previously told POLITICO.
It’s not a surprise that someone like Gingrich should maintain a robust media presence after Fox News, said former paid contributor Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired from Fox News in 2009 and now is a HuffPost Live host. Being released from Fox News, Hill said, is something he considers a big positive for his media career, allowing him “to articulate ideas and to be more thoughtful.”
As for Santorum, after losing his Senate seat in 2006, he signed a deal the following year to serve as a Fox News channel contributor. He stayed with the network until March 2011, when Fox News suspended him, along with Gingrich, until each made the respective decision to run for president. Although the bid failed, his 2012 campaign directly translated into major name ID and buzz for another run in 2016.
With an eye on the next election — Santorum senior strategist John Brabender says the Republican has “not hidden from the fact that he’s at least very open to the idea of taking a second look at running for president” — Santorum’s also looking beyond Fox.
And in a way, Fox News already served its purpose for Santorum. Signing in 2007 was perfect timing for Santorum: He was able to generate name recognition outside Washington and his home state of Pennsylvania through his regular appearances on the network before kicking off his campaign.
Today, Brabender said, the former Fox News contributor has plenty of media projects on his plate, mostly notably with Patriot Voices, Santorum’s “grass-roots and online community” of supporters. The organization currently has an online radio show that broadcasts every other Tuesday, and there are plans to broaden its media output.
There’s also a book on the horizon that Santorum is writing with his wife, Karen, as well as an announcement soon about his involvement in the film industry. He’s been doing a regular column that was picked up by Townhall, and Brabender told POLITICO the former Republican senator plans to keep writing extensively, giving speeches around the country and start increasing his appearances on TV.
“There is a positive to that experience that lasts, in lecture fees, in enhanced visibility,” said Graham. “There’s a benefit to being on Fox that lasts.”
I just wish FOX would dump Rove.
AND, Juan Williams, and Bob Beckel!
Ping!
-PJ
Newt has appeared quite a lot recently on Greta’s show.
Thanks very much. As you can see I was first on the thread.
:)
Sarah Palin remains the most influential!
For someone who has been placed in persona non grata by the media, Sarah sure does live rent free in their heads. Their obsession has no bounds. It is to laugh.
I'm sure the pundits at Politico stay up nights worrying about Sarah Palin's future.
You’re so right. She didn’t Fox News at all.
Fox kept the RINOS.
Sarah moving on from Fox would do more to bring their relevance into question than hers.
Who watches FOX anymore, they have become the LameStreamMedia
I quit watching faux news because they went left and is full of rinos.Screw’em
“After his very wrong election prediction in November and widespread mockery”
Sure as hell didn’t hurt RINO #1 Porky Pigg Rove.
Like Sarah for example. Rove never had any use for her. Never had any kind words for her. Why not? She was the most popular and beloved and yet he viewed her in the same frame as the lamestream. Never stood up for her. Never came to her rescue.
AND, because he didn't stick up for Bush, Rove is highly responsible for the GOP losing the House in '06, so let's put Rove in his proper place: MENDACIOUS LOSER.
Rove is a perfect fit at Faux News, but idiot Fox doesn’t realize that both Conservatives and democrats hate him. He’s a true loser all the way around. He gains them NOTHING.
To: 2ndDivisionVet
Who watches FOX anymore, they have become the LameStreamMedia..............
I agree. The only program we watch (ocasionally) is “Greta’s”, other than that pretty much a waste of time.
Juan and Bob are amiable and honest foils.
Rove is the big problem, including with his column in their sister-organization WSJ.
He’s an evil little bald bastard.
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