Breaking News (Part 2): How’s That Working Out For You?

Did you know Fox News pundits, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, got their start on MSNBC? Hmm.

DATE 2025

(6-minute read)

Keywords: Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Hutchinson Commission, social responsibility

When talking about politics and news, it’s commonplace to pair the Fox News Channel and MSNBC by situating them on the political spectrum. Fox News on the right, MSNBC on the left (CNN left of center). All three networks have been at the forefront of “more opinionated news shows.”

To see how the dynamics I introduced in previous posts are playing out, let’s look at their impact on major cable news networks.

MSNBC, a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC, premiered in July 1996 as an alternative to CNN, which began in 1980 as the first all-news channel with 24-hour coverage in the United States. MSNBC is owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. In October of that year, Rupert Murdoch, an Australian-born American and media magnate, introduced the Fox News Channel, which is owned by Fox News Media, a subsidiary of the Fox Corporation.

Fair and Balanced

Fox News was launched with a decidedly ideological posture under the banner, “Fair and Balanced.” The “tone of defiance,” as one writer put it, signaled to its intended audience – political conservatives – that Fox planned to counteract what they “viewed as a liberal bias ingrained in television coverage by establishment news networks.”

It worked.

With its narrowcasting format, Fox galvanized political conservatives and became the top-rated cable news network, beating rivals CNN and MSNBC in total viewership. Studies show:

While Democrats in the United States turn to and place their trust in a variety of media outlets for political news, no other source comes close to matching the appeal of Fox News for Republicans.

The Pew Research Center issued a report describing the ideological makeup of the three major cable news networks:

The Fox News audience skews more ideological than that of its two main competitors. Fully 60% of Fox News viewers describe themselves as conservative, compared with 23% who say they are moderate and 10% who are liberal, according to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center. By contrast, the ideological makeup of CNN viewers (32% conservative, 30% moderate, 30% liberal) and MSNBC viewers (32% conservative, 23% moderate, 36% liberal) is far more mixed.

It's one thing for ESPN to target sports enthusiasts or HGTV, adults aged 25-54, with a slight female skew, interested in home improvement and design. What does it mean that a news channel’s format is designed to appeal to a specific political constituency?

Two high-profile lawsuits involving Fox News provide some insight.

No Reasonable Viewer? Really?

Tucker Carlson, former Fox News talk show host

In one, lawyers for Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson persuaded a U.S. District Court Judge to dismiss a defamation suit brought by former Playboy model, Karen McDougal. The judge ruled in part that the “general tenor” of the Carlson’s show should be enough for viewers to realize he is not “stating actual facts” about his subject matter.

Not only that, but “given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer “arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism” about the statements he makes.” A CBS News headline read:

“Judge tosses suit over Trump affair story after Fox News argues no ‘reasonable viewer’ takes Tucker Carlson seriously.”

In another suit, Dominion Voting Systems argued that Fox News made bogus claims that executives and on-air personalities knew to be untrue, “damag[ing] the company’s reputation by peddling phony conspiracy theories that claimed its equipment switched votes from former President Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden.” Moreover, internal correspondence revealed

“the network’s senior-most executives and highest-profile hosts chose not to disclose what they believed to be the truth of the election out of fear that the facts would alienate Fox News’ audience and throw the highly profitable business into ruin (italics mine).”

Fox News settled with Dominion Voting Systems to the tune of $787.5 million.

It is no wonder the author of a study involving Fox viewers concluded:

[Fox News] is a purveyor of propaganda and misinformation. What it’s not is a source of “news” – at least not by any normal definition.

The dictionary definition of propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.”[i] I suppose that is what is meant by “alternative facts” in the current vernacular.

Over at 30 Rock

Something of a different nature happened at MSNBC this year where a shakeup of news anchors was widely criticized and had fans concerned the network was “backing away from its liberal identity.” Race, politics, and ratings all seemed to be at play in what the Daily Beast called a “bloodbath of non-white anchors,” most notably Joy Reid, host of the primetime show, The ReidOut.

Joy Reid, former MSNBC talk show host

Even Rachel Maddow, the network’s mainstay and highest-rated anchor, referred to the corporate decision to let go of two non-White primetime hosts (Reid and Alex Wagoner) “indefensible” and “unnerving.”

Rumors and speculation abounded. It was all about ratings. Potential market expansion, company executives wanting MSNBC “to be on better terms with Republicans.” Politics. Reid was fired because of her pro-Palestinian views on the war in Gaza and for “cultivat[ing] new Black voices on her show.”

Perhaps all the above.

As part of the White House’s broader initiative to end DEI policies, the administration is investigating Comcast and other media companies. Meanwhile, Comcast, is seeking FCC (Federal Communications Commission) approval to spin off its cable networks, including MSNBC, CNBC, and others into a new independent company called SpinCo. The restructuring apparently has to do with cost savings and is in response to the growing trend of audiences shifting toward streaming services and away from cable networks.

Whatever the reason, one communication professor concluded that MSNBC was “moving a little bit away from the left with these recent changes.”

Our Top Story Tonight

Perspectives are unavoidable. We all have a vantage point from which we see the world and envision our lives in it. It’s essentially a story we tell ourselves about the way the world works – or should work – what’s right and wrong, who are the good and bad guys. Shared perspectives give us a sense of belonging to a community of like-minded believers.

It’s no surprise that in today’s diversified media landscape we have news channels that come at the world from a distinct vantage point – basic ideals, values, and assumptions. That said, the basic function of news media is to inform and educate audiences with reportage and analysis that gives us access to what is “going on” in our communities, the nation, and the world. As this suggests, the news industry plays an agenda-setting role in society.

Perhaps the most important function of journalism in democracies is its role as “the Fourth Estate,” a watchdog on those in power. Citizens rely on news agencies to monitor and report on the conduct and performance of government and other institutions.

For all these reasons, in a landmark study published in 1947, the Hutchinson Commission asserted that

…it is imperative that a commitment of social responsibility be imposed on mass media. According to this social responsibility theory, the press has a moral obligation to consider the overall needs of society when making journalistic decisions in order to produce the greatest good. 

To be sure, the profit motive, market research, ratings competition, and advertising revenues have always been defining features of the American press. It seems clear however that these dynamics are playing an outsized role today, putting strain on accepted journalistic principles and standards, i.e., truth, accuracy, fairness, independence, diversity of opinion, and balanced representation.

Not to be misconstrued, I am not advocating a return to the era of the Fairness Doctrine I brought up in my previous post, but rather a revitalization of the US media environment based on the longstanding role of the press and an affirmation of democratic social, political, and cultural norms. There is no perfect solution, but in this time of rapid change is there a better place to start?

Take a Moment to Read:

• John Gramlich, “5 Facts About Fox News,” Pew Research Center, April 8, 2020.

Photo Credits (in order of appearance)

• Steve Bott from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

• Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

• Mayaluk, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

• Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Footnotes

[i] OED Online, under “propaganda, n.,” accessed April 10, 20205, https://www.oed.com/dictionary/propaganda_n?tab=meaning_and_use#28217086.

William D. Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture and author of a number of books, including Reforming Hollywood: How Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. With his continuing commentary, he is trading footnotes for fiction, writing novels under the pen name (or nom de plume, as the French put it), Patmos Rhodes.