Fox tells the truth, finally

The New York Times has an article by Michael Grynbaum about a change at Fox News:

Fox News is Fair and Balanced is no more. In the latest sign of change at the cable news network, the Fair and Balanced motto (photo) that has long been a rallying cry for Fox News fans, and a finger in the eye of critics, is gone. The channel confirmed that slogan and network have parted ways. “The shift has nothing to do with programming or editorial decisions,” the network said in a statement. Instead, the slogan was dropped in part because of its close association with Roger Ailes, a network founder, former chairman and the originator of the phrase, who was fired in August of 2017 in a sexual harassment scandal.

The network said that Fair and Balanced was shelved as a marketing tool after Ailes’ departure. In its place is a new motto: Most Watched, Most Trusted. Another Fox slogan, We Report, You Decide, has also been retired, although the network said that it had returned occasionally.

Some viewers may be surprised. Several Fox News personalities still toss the phrase “fair and balanced” into on-air conversation, though it no longer appears in graphics. Gabriel Sherman, longtime Fox News chronicler, reported on the New York magazine website that the motto was gone for good.

The new motto, Most Watched, Most Trusted, mimics the firm cadence of the previous slogans, but does not have their Ailes-tinged tone of defiance.

For conservative-leaning viewers, Fair and Balanced was a blunt signal that Fox News planned to counteract what Ailes and many others viewed as a liberal bias ingrained in television coverage by establishment news networks.

But the slogan also caused conniptions among liberal critics of Fox News, who viewed it as an intentional needling of anyone who might question the network’s view of the news.

Ailes, who died in May, created the slogan with both purposes in mind. He coined the phrase when he and Rupert Murdoch founded Fox News in 1996, and it stuck.

Executives at Fox News acknowledge that it is rebuilding. This year, Fox News has continued its years-long streak as the top-rated cable news station over all, beating its rivals MSNBC and CNN in total viewership. But the loss of anchors Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly has taken a toll in prime time. In May, MSNBC was the highest-rated network in a key industry category, weeknight viewers 25 through 54, for the first time in nearly seventeen years.

On Wednesday, executives at Fox News played down the shedding of Fair and Balanced, saying that the move was strictly a marketing decision and that the network’s approach to news coverage had not changed. One senior network official emphasized that the slogan was officially dropped last August and virtually no one had noticed.

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