What the Media Has Learned from Trump’s Presidency

Fox News, which once had close ties with Donald Trump, has now become bad news in Trump’s eyes, which is something no one expected.

In the last moments of the election, Fox News was one of the first to announce Trump’s loss in Arizona. After the election, Trump’s “friend” and Fox reporter Geraldo Rivera publicly asked him to leave with “grace and dignity.”

When Trump used a live broadcast to discuss the election scandal, the Fox anchor unexpectedly said, “I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this,” and directly cut off the broadcast, angering Trump. Recently, Trump has scolded Fox News on Twitter saying they have done a series of unforgivable things, also saying that, “I can no longer watch Fox News. I can’t believe that they can do so badly!”*

For many years, Fox News and Trump have always come hand in hand. Fox has even been ridiculed by other media in the past four years as having been “a big scam created by both Trump and the media.” Trump will leave office and the media will welcome the Biden era. Will the ratings of Trump-addicted media crash? How will they respond to the situation?

Eight days before Trump announced his campaign as the Republican presidential candidate in 2015, he met with senior officials from Fox News to discuss how to organize his 2016 presidential campaign. In the three months before the primaries, Trump was a frequent guest on the Fox & Friends morning show and even accepted an interview invitation for three days before the election. In his first six months after taking office, he posted 185 tweets mentioning Fox, which helped Fox to grow in popularity.

After four years, the lying politician finally showed his true face. CNN reporter Brian Stelter who wrote the book, Hoax, stated that Trump said in private that he can counter the rules of the media game and scare reporters into a frenzy. He posts Tweets every day, leading to 24 hours of constant issues and controversy, and creating a Trumpist version of reality.

However, the media believes that this is not only Trump’s problem. The American political party structure and the desires of the TV entertainment market are both accomplices.

Although Trump is good at creating controversy, he is often misled by the right-wing media around him. For example, his constant insistence that the election was fraudulent was an illusive drama supported by both Trump and the right-wing media.

Newsmax has recently experienced a surge in viewership because of the wave of Trump supporters changing media platforms, along with the recruitment of former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who stepped down due to a controversy, and former Fox White House reporter, Megyn Kelly, thus attracting many Trump supporters.

Recently, Newsmax expanded its newsroom to the United Kingdom and prepared to welcome a new audience; however, their good ratings only lasted for a couple of days before dropping again.

Statistics show that 40% of Republican voters watch mainly Fox News. Fox and Trump’s conservative remarks and intentional creation of controversies not only increased voter turnout in the Republican Party’s two elections, but also made voters highly politicized and attentive to social disputes. Most of them believe that only Trump cares about their silent voices.

The more Trump lies, the more powerful the media that supports Trump becomes. This has been called the “war on the press” by academics, but executive editor Marty Baron of The Washington Post has said, “We’re not at war with the administration, we’re at work.”

Chairman of Fox Corporation Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch also recognized the reality and gradually began recruiting Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters and producers before the election. They stated that as part of the mainstream media, Fox will undergo transformation and reorganization to restore objective news and become a better opponent. It will also protect the market of speech and help conservative voices be heard.

Fox News recently lost one-fifth of its viewers, its ratings have been surpassed by CNN, and it even suffered a small loss to the conservative internet media Newsmax. The cost of restoring objective news has been considerable, but executives say that this was expected. They estimated that the advertising and subscription fees can be offset, and their news still needs to return to the objective truth. Chris Wallace, a Fox reporter who has won awards for excellent journalism, has said that Fox can no longer be the puppet or mouthpiece for the Republican Party, and should return to truthful professional news and take the role of referee.

The choosing of sides by the media has caused society to become more divided, which is a misfortune in American history. The media’s blind faith in Trump and desire for viewer ratings have caused them to turn a blind eye to climate change, racial discrimination, immigration, inadequate health care and severe economic inequality. This has disappointed many journalists, but many in the media have not yet been awakened.

Trump will leave, but populist Trumpism will not disappear. Just like a released genie, it will be hard to put back into the bottle. There are many people waiting to receive Trump’s political assets. When he appears, will the media that has been unable to resist temptation? No one knows now.

The author is an adjunct professor at National Chengchi University College of Communication.

*Editor’s note: Although accurately translated, this quoted passage could not be independently verified.