Fox News has been in the news a lot in recent weeks thanks to the alleged actions of former CEO Roger Ailes, who has been accused of sexually harassing dozens of women over the past two decades. Ailes was pushed out by Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch, but it turns out the problems are only just beginning for the official network of the Republican Party.
There are now reports from media experts who say that the longtime right-leaning focus of Fox News may be about to change, and such a change could doom the news outlet to mediocrity.
Some media analysts say Murdoch would never give up the lucrative cash cow that Fox News has become,but others point out Fox has already lost a lot of credibility with many viewers. Fox’s core audience demographic is aging and dying off, and many younger viewers have already jumped ship from Fox and get their information from sites such as Breitbart.com. As Politico noted in an article this week:
“Ailes’ number may well have been up soon enough anyway; the real question the new allegations continue to raise is what, if anything, Ailes can manage for a next act.”
New reports from Gabriel Sherman of “New York” magazine are also exposing a nasty secret which has long been hidden inside the insular world of Fox News: Others at the network have also been involved in sexual harassment or in covering up for superiors who treated female employees in horrible ways.
Among those implicated, along with Ailes, are Fox News executives Bill Shine, Dianne Brandi, and others who allegedly kept women quiet by offering them multi-million dollar severance packages which also contain “iron-clad nondisclosure provisions.”
Media Matters, which has looked closely at Fox and the culture within the news network, says Fox will have to totally “clean house” if it plans to survive. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters recently wrote:
“I don’t expect Fox News to become a beacon of journalism anytime soon. But it’s hard to justify allowing Fox News to continue to reward an outdated, hands-on, Mad Men culture.”
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