11/14/20
MAGA nation may be turning its back on Fox News — but it doesn’t know where to go. Parler, the “free speech”-friendly version of Twitter, saw a massive explosion of growth right after the election — only to be hit with a viral claim that the social media platform was owned by George Soros. QAnon supporters revolted against Newsmax, a conservative cable channel owned by Trump confidant Chris Ruddy, after the network used a photo of a man wearing a hoodie to describe a white nationalist. Nationalist blogs began running hit pieces on Fox News, claiming its viewership was down, and Trump, reportedly mulling his own media enterprise when he leaves the White House, claimed that its ratings had “collapsed,” because “they forgot the Golden Goose.” While Fox News still easily bests newer networks like Newsmax in viewership, a Newsmax show on Thursday night drew more than 1 million viewers for the first time, according to Nielsen TV ratings. And since Fox News network committed the ultimate heresy — being the first to declare Biden had flipped Arizona, and later acknowledging Biden’s victory — the network’s disenchanted viewers may now be up for grabs. So the race is on to determine which outlet — cable, radio, internet or otherwise — will embrace Trumpism the tightest. And the competition is driving the far-right MAGA echo chamber to cannibalize itself.
At the center of it all is an impulse for confirmation bias, according to misinformation and extremist researchers. Trump supporters, they said, are looking for a place to migrate that promotes their theories on why their candidate lost. That’s why they’ve increasingly gravitated to places like One America News Network and Newsmax, two Trump-friendly conservative outlets that are more inclined to embrace the debunked ballot-fraud conspiracies Fox News will not touch. Many of the voter-fraud theories Trump and his allies are pushing have bubbled up from internet conspiracy theorists — MAGA influencers, fringe journalists and extremist commentators who would never appear on Fox News, but have massive followings online. None of them have added up to evidence of widespread voter fraud. Currently, the MAGA movement has loosely agreed that Fox News is the enemy — and attacking the house that Roger Ailes built is guaranteed to win plaudits from the president and his base. Partisan media is fickle and when the incumbent loses, there is a tendency to blame the messenger. Here though, there are millions to be made on blaming Fox, so there is a big profit motive to drive the wedge by OAN, Newsmax and Parler.
www.politico.com
www.salon.com
