Slow Burn Podcast Takes On The Rise Of Fox News

 Whether you love or hate Fox News, there is no denying that the network has fundamentally altered the media landscape. First, it's the first news network that acts as a campaigning tool for one political party -- the Republican Party. Second, the news network is actually 95 percent part of the network's Entertainment division, with a small news-gathering organization. Research the Karen McDougal lawsuit against Fox News network host Tucker Carlson to understand why.

McDougal lost her 2018 lawsuit because, in reaching her decision, Judge Vyskocil relied in part on an argument made by Fox News lawyers: that the “general tenor” of Mr. Carlson’s program signals to viewers that the host is “engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘nonliteral commentary.’” The judge added: “Given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’” about the host’s on-air comments.

In essence, Fox News won the lawsuit because viewers are supposed to understand that hosts like Carlson were not being factual but deliberately provocative.

Finally, despite the clarion call that legacy media organizations are "fake news," it is Fox News that consistently remains free of factual integrity. See the Dominion Voting Systems $787 million dollar settlement for validation of that statement. The pending Smartmatic lawsuit still in progress will reinforce that view.

With Fox News in mind, Slate released the first episode of its new, timely season of Slow Burn, The Rise of Fox News. For the 10th season, host Josh Levin – Slow Burn’s Editorial Director and host of its fourth season on David Duke – takes listeners back to a crucial inflection point in American history: the moment between 2000 and 2004 when Fox News first surged to power and a bunch of people rose up to try and stop it. You’ll hear from the hosts, reporters, and producers who built Fox News, many who’ve never spoken out before. You’ll also hear from Fox’s biggest antagonists—the political operatives, journalists, and comedians who attacked it, investigated it, and tried to mock it into submission. And you’ll hear from Fox’s victims, who are still coming to terms with how a cable news channel upended their lives.

As Josh puts it, “In just a few years the Fox News channel went from nonexistent to bumbling to seemingly invincible. Its sudden, shocking emergence as a cultural force and political kingmaker transformed the country and left a mark on all of us along the way. Today, as another election approaches, Fox’s future prospects feel totally uncertain. It’s been buoyed by its codependent relationship with Donald Trump and nearly sunk by peddling his election lies. It’s been outflanked to the right by insurgent TV news challengers, and it’s now imperiled by a Murdoch family succession drama that recently spilled into public view. What is clear, almost three decades into the country’s Fox News era is that Fox’s fate and America’s are bound together. This series is about how that happened and how it almost didn’t.”

Episode one: We Report. You Can Suck It takes listeners back to Fox News’ beginnings, and the moment the cable news network surged to power. When the Fox News Channel launched in 1996, critics called it disorganized, incompetent, and laughably inept. But it wouldn’t be a joke for long. During the 2000 election, Fox News would captivate the nation – and just maybe change the fate of American democracy.

This season will feature six episodes, with new episodes released weekly on Wednesdays. 

Check out Slow Burn, The Rise of Fox News and discover how millions of viewers take what's said on Fox News as gospel, even when it's been proven multiple times that the network has a tenuous connection to the factual universe. 

In the deposition of Fox News Chairman Rupert Murdoch, he was asked by a Dominion attorney whether "Fox endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election," Murdoch demurred, saying, "Not Fox, no. Not Fox. But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe Maria [Bartiromo] as commentators."

The lawyer pressed on. Did Fox's Bartiromo endorse it?

Murdoch's reply: "Yes. C'mon."

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro? "I think so."

Then-Fox Business Network host Dobbs? "Oh, a lot."

Fox News prime-time star Sean Hannity? "A bit."

Pressed whether they endorsed the narrative of a stolen election, Murdoch finally gave in: "Yes. They endorsed."

In the pending Smartmatic case, Smartmatic was an odd target for the conspiracy theorists because use of its voting technology and software was so limited. It was used only in Los Angeles County, a Democratic stronghold in a state that was not a presidential battleground and where Trump did not contest his loss.

Go figure.