Posted on 07/25/2016 5:23:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
The idea behind the Fox News channels was by no means a stroke of genius; it was actually a stroke of the blazingly obvious. Why not create a cable news network that was explicitly not another Democrat propaganda machine and directly target the 50 percent of Americans the rest of the media either ignores or treats like dirt? The genius of Roger Ailes came in its execution – everything from the uniquely hot color palette to the uniquely hot journalists to the (at first) unique mix of opinion and straight reporting, all backed by a lean, mean organization that produced great reporting and huge profits. (Disclosure: I occasionally appear as an unpaid guest on Fox and Fox Business and I have friends associated with both).
With the resignation of Ailes – the merits, if any, of the claims against him will be litigated elsewhere – liberals are gleeful that this might finally be their chance to silence the one great television voice of conservatism. It is almost impossible to overstate the impact of Fox on conservatism over the last two decades. Combined with talk radio and the internet, Fox has helped educate and mobilize a generation of conservative leaders and has given voice to tens of millions of people the rest of the media completely disregarded when it wasn’t actively attacking them. It’s been a finishing school for conservatives – many rising conservative stars got their start either on air or behind the scenes. The organization itself is remarkable in its efficiency – when you deal with Fox, they not only get things done right (it’s a high pressure environment and if you can’t cut it, there’s no safe space) but remain remarkably polite. No wonder liberals freak out at the mere mention of Fox; it’s always delightful to see President Faily McWorsethancarter whining about the one big network that refuses to acknowledge his awesome awesomeness.
But the fact is that Roger Ailes was not going to run the networks forever – changes in leadership were coming regardless and that they came during an election year when everyone is looking may make it less likely that we see a lurch to the left its viewers fear. Of course, it would never be called a “lurch to the left” but, rather, a “moderation” or an attempt to “expand the viewership.” Yet it’s hard to see how, or why, one would want to expand the viewership beyond Fox’s tiny little niche of only half the population. Fox has so much influence, and makes so much money, because it’s the only big player the space between the coasts.
However, the left can’t tolerate any dissent, and it will do all it can to try to ensure that Fox becomes yet another dull, goose-stepping transcriptionist for the coastal liberal elite. If Fox wants to stay successful, it will need to resist the urge to be assimilated into the collectivist media collective. There are eager, currently smaller players like the Blaze, NewsMax, and One America Network ready to pounce should the giant stumble after heeding the liberals telling to tie its shoelaces together.
Fox does have problems, but this is an opportunity to address them. Its demographic is skewing older – you see a lot of ads for mail-order catheters. Some of the hosts are looking to move on – there are rumors that after 20 years Bill O’Reilly is ready to retire. And Fox is not immune to the schism within conservatism over the rise of the populist wing of the Republican Party. One big chunk of the audience thinks Fox is too Trumpy, another big chunk thinks it’s nowhere near Trumpy enough.
So, with great presumption, here are some suggestions for navigating the coming changes.
1. Don’t change too much too fast. With all eyes on Fox for the election, this is no time for big changes in the wake of Ailes’s departure. I’m a military guy; leadership is the key to success. Ailes built a solid management team. Keep it in place and don’t allow anyone to distract from the mission with purges of “Ailes’s guys”; focus on performance, not internal politics. Keep the schedule in place too. With all the chaos that has come to characterize 2016, Fox viewers want some stability.
2. Cultivate your current farm team of stars. Recently it seems there are a lot of panels consisting of Fox hosts talking to Fox reporters or other Fox hosts. Let’s see more of great up and coming regulars like (Disclosure: These are all my pals) Katie Pavlich, Guy Benson, Dana Loesch, David Wohl, Ben Shapiro and Larry O’Connor (who ought to be a host right now). And besides being interesting, they skew young. Well, not O’Connor, but the rest of them.
3. Scout for new talent. Fox has always sought out fresh voices, and there are conservative voices out there making waves in radio and on the web who could infuse some new life into some of the older formats. Among other things, Fox producers should be scanning through conservative social media like Twitter to find the people who the people in the Fox target demographic are following. Some may have never been Fox guests; others may not have been on in a while. Here are some you might want to check out (Disclosure: This shameless logrolling for my friends is getting ridiculous): Tony Katz, Stephen Kruiser, Jon Gabriel, Liz Sheld, Owen Brennan, Derek Hunter, Kerry Pickett, David Bruge, Glenn Reynolds, Elisha Krauss, and Kira Davis, among many others.
4. Go steal some talent from the other guys. You’ve done well grabbing stars from competitors in the past. Do some more. It strengthens you while it weakens your opponents’ intermittent, half-hearted attempts at conservative outreach. For example, clearly CNN’s Jake Tapper belongs on Fox. He’s the conservatives’ favorite mainstream media reporter – it’s a sad commentary that a guy who is not a conservative can be generally (though not universally) liked by conservatives simply for trying to play it straight. There are others – bring them home.
5. Get out of New York more. The Big Apple is part of the network’s identity, but more remote broadcasts (or even basing a show or two in Flyover Country) will remind viewer that you are talking to them and not just to Manhattanites.
6. Experiment more. Greg Gutfeld’s special insanity has created a distinctive brand of conservative humor. Turn over an hour at o-dark thirty (Side Note: No one in the military says “zero dark thirty”) to some amusing conservatives (see above), give them a (very) few bucks plus a studio, leave them alone, and see what happens. If it’s good, conservative social media will spread the word and it’ll get DVR’d and take off.
7. Revel in being rebels. Fox is the media outlet that doesn’t run its stories by the establishment for approval. Rub that in your competitors’ faces and be known as the one big media outlet that isn’t a lapdog, especially if we have to endure four years of President Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit’s corruptoriffic antics.
8. Resist the pressure to “moderate.” Because, of course, what the left wants is not moderation but capitulation. No one needs a Fox that does not explicitly welcome conservatives – all the others are trying to look and feel like you, except for their gratuitous slobbering over whichever lib the Democrat cartel tells them to slobber over in its daily media guidance memo. Keep watching social media and let the viewers tell you what’s interesting to them. Don’t let your people forget that their one and only job is to earn Fox’s audience’s approval by ignoring liberal spin and accurately reporting the news. Fox fades if its goal becomes earning the approval of liberals in the mainstream media and at rich peoples’ cocktail parties. If you remember your mission, Fox will be fine.
While Col Schlichter wasn't for Trump at the beginning, he has always said he will be voting for Donald Trump in the general election on November 8th if he gets the nomination
I also will vote for Donald Trump in the general election and btw (by the way for those in Rio Lynda) I have never voted for the nominee (Republican of course) in the primaries unless the president runs for reelection. President Reagan's reelection in 1984 comes to mind, as does President George W. Bush reelection in 2004.
Fox has done a fine job all by itself.
Quote:
“Faux News, especially Faux Business, has been bought and paid for by the Cheap Labor Express.”
If you watch Bartiromo, Varney, and Dobbs on Fox Business at all you wouldn’t say that.
Kurt Schlichter
RU kidding me? Bartiromo is the worst, she is so afraid of Trumps nationalist pro America economic agenda it pours out of her mealy mouth every day. She never net a trade deal she didn't like. She celebrates every factory closing. She is a globalist witch.
Fox Business and One America News network is all you need
Faux business hates Trump. Might as will call it TDS Business Snooze. It is obvious they are globalists and Free Trade hacks. Dobbs is OK for the most part but the rest can all .....
Too late. It’s dead, Jim...................................
Elvis has left the building........................
Lol? They really aren’t that much better than CNN et al.
You got it and all the nay sayers in here are really liberals in “conservative” clothing. They are so easy to see if you open your eyes.
You got it.
Sadly I think the term conservative has no defined meaning today. I have heard too many statements such as, “Now I am as conservative as anybody you will ever meet but I think”...followed by support for such things as free medical care for every American to whatever you can think of. If conservative means believing in the constitution interpreted to reflect original intent there are probably no more than five percent max of American citizens who are conservative. In my view the idea that fifty percent or more are true conservatives is as realistic as believing in the Great Pumpkin. In fact if you support the TRUE meaning of the constitution I suspect that a majority of “conservatives” will recoil in horror and look at you as if you crawled from under a rock. Try telling people that social security is unconstitutional, which it most certainly is and see what they say. Yes, I am a social security recipient but I had no choice in whether to pay the taxes so I don’t feel like a hypocrite for drawing it. I am still convinced that we would be better off now by far if it had never been started and the same goes for medicare. Please, let no one respond with, “What do you think would happen if we stopped social security and medicare now?” It is very likely to happen at some point anyway but it is the wrong question to ask. The proper question is, what would things be like if the government had never decided to act like parents for a nation of children?
They already have. They even did all the conservative debates this year. Which is the reason they decided what candidates we were getting to vote for.
red
Discrediting the truth brought out by the Swift Boat Vets against John Kerry, belittling and downplaying the import of the Tea Party movement, failure to tell the truth behind the motives and "peaceful"/vile actions of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, habitually covering Imam Obammessiah's butt every time he gives aid and comfort to the enemies of the U.S.A., intentionally fails to uphold the law or he signs into "law", "Executive Orders" that are totally unconstitutional and intentionally harmful to America and its c i t i z e n s and then having the unmitigated gall to say "he must not know what he is doing", "I wonder why he would do such a thing?". Packing Fox with liberal "journalists"... This list is endless;
Fox News ceaseless anti Trump "coverage of the Republican Convention was so biased, so tainted and denigrating to conservatives and Mr. Trump we literally had to switch to CNN in order to even hear the speakers because Fox "News journalists" habitually muted what they were saying while leaving the speaker's image on split screen and denigrated the speakers or Mr. Trump and intentionally talked over them the entire time they were speaking/muted so Fox's audience would not know what they had said, but only the anti Trump diatribe narrative Fox was trying to shove down their audience's throats (at least CNN'S liberal "journalist panel" waited until AFTER the Republican speakers had finished before launching into the exact same anti Trump diatribe meme at which point, the audience was able to mute or "fast forward" them AFTER they had at least been given the opportunity to hear what had been said).
And now Fox wants the same conservatives they have ridiculed and stabbed in the back for years to rescue them from obscurity? Fat chance.
mark
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