"This is going to be a big story..." How Fox News Did It

Was monitoring Fox & Friends this morning (7-28-17), which, as the "friends" are all too happy to tell you, the New York Times finally conceded is the most powerful show on television. Maybe it was a Freudian splotch that the editors missed. Maybe it was a cheap trick to sell more papers, since even the Times seems to understand somehow that its days are numbered. Interestingly, the gentleman at the failing Times who wrote the article called it "the illusion of children’s TV — that your favorite show is as aware of you as you are of it — except that for Mr. Trump, it’s real." Which is a really weak shot, because it tells me that James Poniewozik doesn't understand, or thinks his readers are too dumb to understand, that that isn't just the illusion of children's television - it's the illusion of all television in general. And if you don't think that's why you watch television, then you're only deluding yourself. Can't you see, that illusion is the only thing that could make an allegedly "rational" natural creature, which humans are, sit down on a couch and stare at shadows from inside a box for minutes, hours, even days on end. Television is a rather occultish phenomenon, if you'd only stop and think about it. But I'm getting off-topic, and no doubt, I have insulted you. So let's get to how Fox News rose to become the number one force in cable "news," and perhaps cable television as a totality. Which, you can be sure, NBC-Universal is busy using their control of the cable networks to try to sabotage as quickly as possible in the darndest of ways.

First off, this is a highly complicated issue, and if you want real answers, you're going to have to kind of stay with this a bit. So drink some coffee, pop your addle-all, if you're a millennial, or whatever your coping mechanism is, get in your safe space, get your crayons - no I'm just kidding. But if you want to understand this, point is, this is not going to be an easy read. I recommend as a prerequisite every other article I've ever written as well as my own sources, all here. And it's important. Because media is co-opting your life, and you'd like to take control of your mind back, don't you? Well, perhaps that's not worth the effort. But if it is, read this.

Which poses a few questions. First off, as GQ wrote of eons ago, that brings up an interesting marketing question. Fox News has long thrived on a marketing message playing two sides of the same coin; the "underdog" mentality against the evil mainstream media, and at the same time, the "we're number one in viewership" bit. And in recency, it's been teetering toward the latter by nixing the Fair and Balanced and upping the Most Watched - Most Trusted. The first, perhaps taking from what CBS has been saying about itself, and the second, what CNN is still saying about itself. And of Fox, it's probably true, at least, compared to other television.

Taking On The "MSM"

Since Fox and Friends - and the network, for that matter, are at the top of the ratings - and the network has been for the last few presidencies, as Brian Kilmeade said in that earnest and eager way which makes him a great foil to the cool and confident Steve Doocy - and I actually asked Brian in an email about this (no response) - are you folks going to stop attacking the Mainstream Media now? Because Fox News is, at least by the logical, traditional definition, the new "mainstream media" of sorts. Granted, we have to ignore the fact that digital and new media is the new emerging force, and television is really nothing at all compared to the emerging digital realm, or won't be for long, which is why millennials and post-millennials don't watch television, etc. By the way, Fox, for millennials, you want to create an ad-free alternative, would be a good step toward capturing more millennial viewers, though your overhaul to stay relevant will have to be much more relevant. Again, lots of tangents here - we're talking about how Fox News beat out the rest of television, and how it has become the "mainstream media" it is constantly attacking.

Now, it's not really a moral question that puts Fox News in the wrong, frequently attacking the "MSM." And honestly, the acronyms have to stop. There are too many acronyms... and I guess part of the charm of Fox News is the distinctly unpolished kind of underdog persona, which is believable because it is more truthful than the rest. You can really tell - or think you can really tell - that the performances you're watching are extemporaneous compared to the talkers on all the other "news" stations combined.

Granted, some of the performances are more traditionally teleprompter-based, in the tradition of CNN which the main networks still swear by. And the audience knows it's not real. Especially, again, millennials, which, by virtue of the broken family that raised the millennial majority, are experts at detecting fake personalities.

Here's the thing, though. Now that the New York Times has, perhaps in a fit of desperation, done Fox News's advertising for them, ceding the "Most Powerful TV Program" title - let's chalk it up to sportsmanlike New York news community camaraderie - Fox News might be making a big mistake by obsessing too much over the MSM, even though most of us know what they mean by it - basically, the legacy mainstream media. The "bad guys" before Fox descended from heaven and died and rose again so that the news industry might live. CNN. ABC. NBC. CBS. You know, the "Mainstream Media."

Well, there's a marketing problem with Fox continuing to insist on attacking the "MSM" ghost that doesn't exist anymore, thanks to Fox News (according to the Fox News marketing narrative). First off, there's a very real possibility that in the very near future, real Americans who hate the "MSM" may find it wearisome that Fox News continues to beat to death a horse that's already dead. Besides Washington D.C., does anybody actually watch the MSM Boogieman? Why resurrect a boogieman that's already dead? And granted, much of it is really an emotional marketing ploy on the part of Fox. You can't have a good drama without a good villain. And let's face it; traditional legacy media - with exceptions, mind you, is as good a villain as any. I mean heck, media has tanked the morality of this country. There are literally Americans who write death threats, to this day, of all the MSM stations and their affiliates, because, lacking in restraint though they are, they know the toxic nature of television. So there's kind of a reactive element at work here; and you see it in the "breakfast" segments on Fox and Friends - like in the famed 70's movie, network. And it's effective, if only because every other network lies through its teeth so frequently and so blatantly, none the least of which is represented in the inane fumings of the Times TV blogger I opened with here. Which brings us to...

Fox Being Fox; Telling The Secrets Of The TV Trade

Attacking the rest of its industry - mind you for perfectly admirable purposes - is really in the Fox conglomerate's blood. If there's anything that Fox news knows how to do, it's undermine its own industry. And I say most sincerely that I don't believe that's a bad thing, because I believe that media is, as President Trump asserts, the enemy of the people. And so there's a very noble element in Fox undermining its own industry. But we must keep in mind, if we're to analyze how Fox rose to the top of television news - and News Corp is well on its way in the print arena, if anybody cares - that Fox is simply being Fox, just like Trump is trump. And journalists, just like politicians, always find themselves on the losing end if they fail to "let fox be fox," or let "Trump be Trump." Like Trump, its personalities, while less "polished" in the traditional sense, are more real, more honest - or at least they appear so.

For the uninitiated, the Fox network, under much less noble pretense, broke the oligarchy of the big three by veering toward more sensational programming. Back in the day, there was NBC, CBS, and ABC; and before cable, Fox was that lone wolf, per se, that was willing to take its content a little more extreme than the rest to get the viewers, news-wise, drama-wise, and the like. And now, Fox News, of course, kind of being that rogue magician that goes out and tells the audience the secrets of the trade that make the old magic show completely worthless and a dead industry. Think about it; when was the last time adults went to a magic show in your personal experience? Fifty years ago?

Again, I think the audience wins when Fox reveals how the trick is done, because the show isn't about bunny rabbits, it's ultimately about the success and safety and sovereignty of the nation we live in. But again, here, I'm not looking to place blame or praise Fox News, I'm just helping you understand how Fox did it. And Fox has a long-standing legacy of that TV network that goes where the others don't, and in the case of Fox News, it's gone all out to sabotage its own industry, perhaps for the good of all Americans. I do think that's to be praised.

Kind of an example, if you ever watch Fox and Friends specifically, are the open acknowledgements of the teleprompter - and all the networks do this now, but none so much as Fox. It is important to acknowledge that the "working set" is in style these days. But again, it's important to remember that just like the so-called "social media," the "working" in "working set" is just about as real as the "social" is in "social media." Just as the so-called "social media" is still media; don't you ever forget that a working set is still - a set. More to the point, the Fox and Friends set is quite an elaborate set. As a sidebar, does anybody know if The Gap is paying F&F? I suppose that when you're in the position F&F is in, you don't quibble over details like that. Did the Gap just get incredibly lucky? I do believe if The Gap survives, it will be because of F&F, as Amazon continues to kill retail.

A Star In A Flailing Industry

Saying Fox News has risen to the top of cable television is not quite like being America's number one Horse and Buggy Producer. But it's getting there. Television's future is necessarily dismal, because the same technological "progress," really the root of all "progressive" politics (and a malevolent one, I would add) which ultimately undid the telegraph, and then the paper, and as we speak television -- television as we know it is on the way out.

When you're on a sinking ship, you want to be on the top of that sinking ship. America appears to be slowly awakening to the delusion of its prolonged oversaturation of media products. Which is great for America - perhaps we'll actually regain the intelligence and willpower, and virtues we once had - if we can overcome the anti-social media threats which are taking Television's place, which is another discussion entirely.

Point is, and this also kind of carries the point about why Fox News may not want to attack the Mainstream Media so much these days - its important to remember that tech is killing television by drowning America in an overly abundant supply of mind-candy of all sorts through digital, new-media channels. There's too much content, too much supply; and when you have too much supply of anything, value decreases.

Disney understands this threat, at least ephemerally; its scary technologies show that it is poised to use its brand leverage to, essentially, set the morally repugnant goal of becoming the number one producer of the cheap "feelies" Aldous Huxley warned us about in Brave New World. How? By investing in technology to speed self-destructive, imagination-hijacking mind-candy to Americans' minds faster than anybody else, and more effectively. It all comes down the candy-crush skinner box. How do you provoke a reaction in your audience that keeps them "clicking," or coming back over and over again for as much time as possible as frequently as possible. It's very sad, what Disney is doing, its stories morally repugnant and anti-American. Walt Disney himself acknowledged that communists with anti-American sentiments had taken over his studio using the union system, fomenting discord and weakening the will to work hard and passionately. And that's really what's wrong with Hollywood, too. There's no imagination left, no willpower, just programming.

Which is why, returning to the case of Fox News, it may be the long-term television success if only because it is resisting, as Fox News has from the beginning, the false technologically-deterministic-imposed narrative inherent in the media structure. When you run a television station, it's much easier to program your audience profitably than to act in their best interests. That's a fact.

But again, there is something real in Fox News, to the extent television can be real - and that is zilch - which, while it's still television, I guess really, if you're going to bet anything on television, since content is king, Fox News would seem to have some of the best content on the market, by the ratings, by moral standards. The most edifying content. The most distinguished, or distinctive content. There's a lot of pandering to its conservative core; there's major, major insults to morality which are a result of the same technologically-deterministic kinds of media forces which affect all media outlets.

I never really have considered television - and most of us who have worked in it and understand how news works - a generally reliable source of information. But if you must resort to television as a means of understanding the world around you - and even that, I caution against, because all television inevitably leaves you less informed in all the ways that matter - I suppose I'd have to recommend Fox News, as anti-Christian as it is, particularly in regard to the marriage issue.

Conclusion, and Recommendation To Fox News

It's the best news television. But - of course, that's not saying very much about the idiot box. To kind of put this in perspective as one of the many talking heads that Fox used to sell itself to advertisers - and really sell you, the viewer, to advertisers - Fox News has served, and is serving, a very useful and good public service purpose by undermining, as it were, the potentially single most toxic force in American public discourse, which is media, as President Trump has so eloquently tweeted. Now that Fox News has served that purpose of neutralizing the profiteers of the legacy "Mainstream Media," or whatever CNN and the networks, and the AP are going by these days, it will be interesting how once Fox completes its damage of destroying the media villain Americans love to hate - I guess my prescription for Fox News would be that the next step is taking on the new manipulative Mainstream Media equivalent for millennials, which is the anti-social media which is convincing America that it is an unbiased source of information while it is anything but. The studies are out there that Google - the first place many Americans go (even at Fox News, presumably) for quick and dirty research - has some major liberal axes to grind with America, to the point of communist, anti-American ideals. I mean, Google is super-liberal. And they're going to need a formidable enemy - one with just the very human element Fox News has managed to maintain with sheer perseverance, effort, and that underdog mentality which it maintains to this day, which has gotten it to where it is. Google believes in salvation through technology, whereas Fox, while it makes lipservice to God, believes in salvation through good-old-fashioned Hard Work, which is closer to the Protestant Work Ethic which got America to where it is today. And there's something to be said for that. I do hope, and trust, that Fox News will never lose that human element, and will always "Try harder," as Avis once advertised, in the human realm, and never trust an algorithm to do a man's job.

For more cutting-edge media theory and commentary by Peter Vadala, click here.