Ralph
Peters, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel, has been a Fox
News contributor for over 10 years. He
has been a tough critic of Barack Obama, once describing him as having been “date
raped” by Vladimir Putin and was briefly suspended in 2015 for calling President
Obama a "total pussy" while on the Fox Business Network.
I lead with this background for its important to appreciate that
Peters is no Liberal Snowflake hiding out in a fox skin fur. Earlier this month, Peters chose not to renew
his contract with Fox News stating "Over my decade with Fox, I long was
proud of the association. Now I am
ashamed”. Ashamed….
“Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional
order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia
among viewers”, Peters said in resignation letter to his colleagues, adding , “In
my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet
for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and
ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts--who have never served
our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch
profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts,
the intelligence community and, not least, a model public servant and genuine
war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid
warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same
organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our
system of government for profit.”
Peters makes several extremely important points that speak to the
selfish behavior of Fox News, which is causing long term damage to our
imperfect democracy.
First, he reflects upon the fact that Fox once had a mission to
offer a legitimate and much needed outlet for conservatives. On the surface, this was a well-intended goal,
but the face of American press has morphed dramatically over the last few
decades. Walter Cronkite was once considered to be the most
trusted man in America, so much so that when his perspective turned on the Viet
Nam war, President Johnson was quoted as saying “If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the
country." Since those days, the press
has clearly leaned left in its outlook, which set the stage for the arrival of
Fox News. It was a void waiting to be filled.
If Fox News had only stayed true to its
original mandate, things might have turned out
better for them and better for all of us. While the network was being established back
in 1996, co-founder Roger Ailes actually used the slogan ……."Fair and
Balanced". Honestly, I am not making this up. Check out Wikipedia if you don’t believe
me.
Peter’s resignation refers back to those days,
when real value could have been added by the arrival of the network, but sadly,
somewhere along their path, they lost their way.
Second, Peters references the Fox’s more prominent role in the press
today as “a propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous
administration”. Think about this
for a moment. A Fox News contributor is accurately
depicting the network’s action as the defacto spokesperson for the Trump
administration, where the only speech that emanates out is so far from the
truth, it’s officially …“propaganda”.
Third, Peters hits the nail on the head when he states that “Fox
News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.” The profit motive was not far from the minds
of the Fox executives who released a reply to Peter’s resignation statement
which read “We are extremely proud of our top-rated primetime hosts and all of
our opinion programing,”
Their reference to their top-rated primetime hosts is
accurate. Of course they are top-rated,
Fox News effectively has a monopoly owning the only major conservative voice in
the main stream media, while all the other networks fight over the left leaning
and moderate voices in our country, so how can they lose? Fox’s profits is their raison d'être. They achieve those profits by catering to a
large minority of America, and they are not going to let anyone poach their
territory. So as many conservatives and
republicans morphed into the current base of Trump supporters starting back in
2015, they moved with their market. They
moved to protect their brand with no concern for the loss of the any remaining credibility
they might have once owned.
There is a reason President Trump is not rushing to fill the Director
of Communications role, formerly held by Hope Hicks, who officially left the
White House on Friday. It’s not because he
is his own Director as many political commenters have postulated. No, it’s because he already has Fox News
acting in this role. Under the guise of
being “independent”, they offer additional validation to his base. This has led to a circular, reinforcing
dynamic, where the President is happy, Fox News is happy, and Trump supporters
are happy. They are all tucked in and
cozy, in their hermetically-sealed bubble, undisturbed by all the fake news
around them.
And for the rest of us, who choose to live
outside of any bubble, it’s now confirmed. Walter Cronkite is no longer with us and we are not in Kansas anymore Dorothy.
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