Oliver Laughland in New Orleans
THE GUARDIAN
Fri, October 8, 2021
FAUX NEWS
As the conservative cable news juggernaut Fox News marked its 25th anniversary on Thursday, commemorations were as polarized as many of the channel’s primetime shows.
The channel, founded in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch, entered its anniversary week as the most watched cable news channel in the United States, with third-quarter ratings this year showing a primetime audience of 2.372 million viewers, well ahead of its closest rivals MSNBC and CNN.
On Thursday evening a number of the channel’s famed conservative stars, including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, paid tribute to their employers live on TV.
“Nobody ever thought we would be successful. Nobody ever thought we would compete. And they were all dead wrong,” Hannity claimed. “This channel now has dominated the airwaves for decades, all while giving a voice to the forgotten men and women in this country.”
On Thursday, the Hill reported the Empire State Building in New York City would be illuminated in red, white and blue this weekend to celebrate the anniversary. The report drew outrage online, with some users on Twitter suggesting the building should, in fact, be under “total blackout for spreading lies and falsehoods”.
A spokeswoman for the building did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation from the Guardian and the report had not been confirmed elsewhere.
As the channel celebrated its anniversary into the evening, hosts on different networks were keen to mark the event with an entirely different take.
The late-night talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel, who presents on the ABC network, used his opening monologue to remind viewers of the channel’s frequent extremist rightwing rhetoric and racist dog whistles, with a reference to the realm of evil created in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy he added they had been “celebrating all day over at Mordor”.
“That’s right,” Kimmel said on Thursday. “Fox News is now old enough to rent a car, fill it with immigrants, and claim it’s heading to your grandma’s house to bury her alive.”
Despite financial and ratings success, Fox News continues to reel from a series of sexual harassment scandals that led to a number of its senior staff including former presenter Bill O’Reilly and founding CEO Roger Ailes departing the company in recent years.
On Thursday other commentators made reference to these , with Trevor Noah’s Daily Show airing a reel of the network’s worst on-air moments of sexual discrimination and harassment.
Fri, October 8, 2021
FAUX NEWS
As the conservative cable news juggernaut Fox News marked its 25th anniversary on Thursday, commemorations were as polarized as many of the channel’s primetime shows.
The channel, founded in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch, entered its anniversary week as the most watched cable news channel in the United States, with third-quarter ratings this year showing a primetime audience of 2.372 million viewers, well ahead of its closest rivals MSNBC and CNN.
On Thursday evening a number of the channel’s famed conservative stars, including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, paid tribute to their employers live on TV.
“Nobody ever thought we would be successful. Nobody ever thought we would compete. And they were all dead wrong,” Hannity claimed. “This channel now has dominated the airwaves for decades, all while giving a voice to the forgotten men and women in this country.”
On Thursday, the Hill reported the Empire State Building in New York City would be illuminated in red, white and blue this weekend to celebrate the anniversary. The report drew outrage online, with some users on Twitter suggesting the building should, in fact, be under “total blackout for spreading lies and falsehoods”.
A spokeswoman for the building did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation from the Guardian and the report had not been confirmed elsewhere.
As the channel celebrated its anniversary into the evening, hosts on different networks were keen to mark the event with an entirely different take.
The late-night talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel, who presents on the ABC network, used his opening monologue to remind viewers of the channel’s frequent extremist rightwing rhetoric and racist dog whistles, with a reference to the realm of evil created in JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy he added they had been “celebrating all day over at Mordor”.
“That’s right,” Kimmel said on Thursday. “Fox News is now old enough to rent a car, fill it with immigrants, and claim it’s heading to your grandma’s house to bury her alive.”
Despite financial and ratings success, Fox News continues to reel from a series of sexual harassment scandals that led to a number of its senior staff including former presenter Bill O’Reilly and founding CEO Roger Ailes departing the company in recent years.
On Thursday other commentators made reference to these , with Trevor Noah’s Daily Show airing a reel of the network’s worst on-air moments of sexual discrimination and harassment.
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