Fox News and the New York Post, two of the main conservative American media controlled by magnate Rupert Murdoch, have in recent hours distanced themselves from Donald Trump, a first since 2016, and perhaps a turning point.
“Fox News sucks! “- translation” Fox News feared “: for the first time, Thursday evening, in Phoenix (Arizona), supporters of the American president, attacked the channel considered, for five years, as an unwavering ally of Donald Trump .
In question, the announcement by the chain of the victory of Democratic candidate Joe Biden in Arizona on Tuesday evening. The Trump team called on the channel to retract, to no avail, as other media refrained from declaring a winner, pending the end of ballot counting in this key state.
Fox News has since also treated allegations of massive electoral fraud by the Trump camp and the president himself with great caution.
“We have not seen” proof, said again Friday, on the air, Bret Baier, political journalist most in view of the chain. “We weren’t shown anything. “
So is Fox News “letting go” of Trump, after contributing to his surprise victory in 2016?
Professor of communication at DePauw University, Jeffrey McCall recalls that Fox News has always been a two-faced channel.
On the one hand, a few star presenters, more editorialists than journalists, ultra-conservative, and on the other, a much more measured editorial staff.
Several Fox journalists, such as the moderator of the first presidential debate, Chris Wallace, are thus recognized for their professionalism.
On the editorial side, the star of the antenna, Sean Hannity, very close to Donald Trump, estimated Thursday evening that “the Americans (were) right to have suspicions, (…) not to believe in the legitimacy of these results ”.
For Jeffrey McCall, the treatment of Donald Trump in recent days and the early announcement of Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona testify “to the efforts Fox News is making to operate as independently as possible from editorial writers.” “
But for Reece Peck, author of “Fox Populism”, a book on Fox News, this distancing “could alienate some viewers and encourage them to go to another channel, like OAN”, the little news of information in the States United which unreservedly supports Donald Trump.
Behind this channel whose audience reached records for a cable channel – 14.1 million viewers on election night – is magnate Rupert Murdoch.
Known for his conservative views, he has nevertheless, for several months, sided with the idea of a victory for Joe Biden, according to the Daily Beast site.
However, “I do not see the Murdoch family calling the editorial staff to explain to Brett Baier how to cover such and such a story”, tempers Jeffrey McCall.
“He feels the wind”
The octogenarian mogul’s other creature in the United States, the New York Post, could be “a more accurate reflection of Murdoch’s views,” Reece Peck believes.
For him, the tycoon “exercises much more control over” the Post than over Fox News.
While the ballot count drags on, delaying the announcement of the winner of the presidential election, the New York Post has notably taken up none of the Trump camp’s theses on alleged electoral manipulations.
A few days ago, however, he was in the maneuver to bring the allegations – from those close to Donald Trump – against Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.
On Friday, two opinion pages recognized that Donald Trump was probably going to be beaten, a scenario that the president stubbornly refuses the eventuality.
“At times, Murdoch feels the political wind,” argues Reece Peck, professor at the University of the City of New York (CUNY).
And Joe Biden is one of those moderate Democrats he could tolerate. “Biden doesn’t scare the American business community too much,” explains Reece Peck.
If the journalistic wing of Fox News seems to have momentarily taken the ascendancy, star columnists like Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson nevertheless remain the key to the channel’s audience and its profits, recalls Jeffrey McCall.
Whether or not Donald Trump remains in the political landscape, Fox News “will continue to counterbalance what is called the mainstream media”, close to the Democrats, he said. And is expected to remain the default destination for millions of conservative viewers.