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Fox and “The Wall Street Journal” in the White House

From the series Chronicles of the new American nationalism

The mass media empire financed by Rupert Murdoch includes, in America, Fox Broadcasting, established in 1986, the 24-hour cable news channel Fox News, launched in 1996, and Fox Business, created in 2007; the same year Murdoch acquired the prestigious newspaper The Wall Street Journal. Murdoch, who since 2020 has also owned the streaming platform Tubi, first arrived in the country in the 1970s with the tabloid New York Post. In terms of trade and foreign policy, as well as style, the group covers a wide range of positions.

Fox is the TV network that has most favoured Donald Trump and most benefited from his political rise, compared to its competitors. Within the group, Fox News is the brand most in tune with the current administration: some commentators have become government officials, yet remain on-air voices, starting with Trump himself. When the belief took hold that appearing on Fox News was a way of communicating with the president, figures of international standing made use of it, and advertising revenue soared.

It would be a mistake, however, to interpret Fox's criticisms of liberal politicians and media as unconditional support for Trump. Trump and Fox News have successfully used one another, influencing each other in turn, and occasionally paying the price for the excesses of show politics.

News and emotions

The man who, in 1996, gave Fox News its stylistic imprint was its first CEO, Roger Ailes. He was one of the architects of the spectacularisation of American politics, having served as an adviser to George H. W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and, above all, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Capitalising on the latter's victory, Ailes published You Are the Message in 1988, a handbook in which he reiterated in his own way the change he had helped bring about. For Ailes, television makes informality indispensable in all forms of communication, and the key to success is to avoid "a presentation of material [that] is intellectually oriented, forgetting to involve the audience emotionally".

Fox News was the embodiment of this philosophy and of the conservative ideas shared by Murdoch and Ailes. The channel "promoted news", wrote The New York Times television critic James Poniewozik recently, "but its main crop was feelings", particularly negative ones. "Making viewers feel – feel angry, feel betrayed, feel threatened", as in a thriller, "was vital to keeping them tuned in for hours". But beyond the technique, Murdoch and Ailes's initiative was in tune with the times.

Riding the wave of change

In an article published in this newspaper on the birth of Fox News, it was noted how the 1992 presidential election had revealed the "growing dissatisfaction of significant sections of the electorate towards the two dominant parties". Ross Perot saw this as an opening for an independent, liberal and populist candidacy, which siphoned votes away from the Republicans. At the same time, Newt Gingrich rose through the Republican Party to become speaker of the House, trampling political etiquette and leading the tax revolt against Bill Clinton that gave rise to the Tea Party. A "commercial" and ideological space had opened up for a non-liberal, populist, and conservative television network, and this was recognised by Rupert Murdoch" ["Fox News Channel", Lotta Comunista, June 2006, now in Gli imperi dei mass media in America].

In the 1990s, Fox News, like Gingrich, capitalised on the disillusionment caused by the betrayal of Reaganite optimism. It then broadcast the images of destruction on September 11th and was on the offensive during George W. Bush's wars. From the Obama presidency onwards, it rode and amplified fears over America's vulnerabilities, made manifest by resentment, the withdrawal from overseas commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by the rise of China.

Trump, a regular guest on Fox News, was despised by Murdoch; yet he shared the channel's rhetoric: nostalgia for the past, anxiety over immigration, and fear for the future of "middle-class" incomes. As Poniewozik writes, Trump was Fox's "most successful product", albeit "unintentionally".

During the 2020 presidential election, the network promoted claims that Joe Biden had "stolen" the election from Trump, inflating the ratings. But since these allegations involved a mechanical vote-counting system, Fox News agreed to pay 787.5 million to settle the manufacturer's defamation lawsuit.

A media NSC?

When Trump became president for the second time and altered traditional American foreign and trade policy, The Wall Street Journal levelled substantive criticism at him. Supporters of liberalism and America's international commitments remain predominant on Fox Business, while on Fox News they coexist with colleagues who have shifted to populist positions, pro-tariff and sceptical of international commitments.

Trump has inspired the mass media to adopt his political and programmatic style, and has turned to Fox News to form his second-term cabinet, boosting the network's appeal.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of the leading American bank JP Morgan, has commented on the president's trade and foreign policy in lengthy interviews on Fox Business and Fox News. According to The New York Times, presenter Brian Kilmeade was contacted by Andriy Yermak, the right-hand man of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during Trump's initial attempts to mediate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Retired General Jack Keane, a regular guest on Fox News, is said to have played a key role in unblocking an arms shipment to Kyiv, which had been suspended by Elbridge Colby and Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon.

Fox in the Gulf

This year, in the course of the war launched on February 28th by Israel and the United States against Iran, Washington and Tehran agreed to a round of negotiations, held in Pakistan in mid-April.

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, which strongly supports the war against Iran, opposed the diplomatic initiative: Trump had already acknowledged the influence of the Journal, responding to the newspaper's own columns to criticise regarding rating now, while also acknowledging its influence in foreign policy, he replied on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded: "The Wall Street Journal, as usual, has no ear for their words". The Journal, in a new editorial, proposed either expanding military action or imposing a blockade on Iranian ports, as Keane had advocated the previous day on Fox News. The general had suggested initiating negotiations with China, using Gulf oil on which Beijing is economically dependent as leverage.

The following day, Trump ordered the naval blockade, and the Journal staked a claim to the logic behind it: "We raised the blockade option in Saturday's paper", as the General Keane in an appearance on Fox News, "and it makes sense as long as Mr Trump is willing to accept the energy market ram[...] Iran now has an incentive to restore traffic in the Strait. As does China [...] Let Beijing pressure the regime to resume oil shipments".

So far, the idea of keeping Hormuz in check to force Beijing to put pressure on Tehran has not yielded the hoped-for results. But take note: Fox News and The Wall Street Journal are staking a claim to a seat in the Situation Room – the decision-making chamber – of the White House's show diplomacy.

Translated from the original work by , published in Lotta Comunista, , p. 14.

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