Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott is in serious danger of losing her job, according to The Daily Beast, a probable casualty of the network’s recent ratings woes.
From The Daily Beast:
[A]ccording to six people familiar with the situation, Scott’s days at Fox News may shortly be coming to an end, following a tumultuous few months in which the conservative cable news giant’s ratings have sagged following the November election. A significant portion of the network’s conservative viewership has abandoned Fox for Newsmax, a rival pro-Trump channel that openly disregards factual reporting. To make matters worse, Fox has also suffered historic ratings losses to CNN and MSNBC, despite an intensely dramatic news cycle.
In response to a request for comment for this story, a Fox Corporation spokesperson said, “Your premise is wrong. It is wishful thinking by our competitors.” But when pressed for a statement of support for Scott from Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch, none was forthcoming.
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[Rupert Murdoch] is now playing a more active role in decision-making at the network with his son Lachlan. Part of their increased involvement, sources said, included the overhaul of Fox’s daytime lineup, which was announced Monday and included moving news anchor Martha MacCallum out of the early primetime 7 p.m. slot in favor of more opinion-based programming at that hour—an obvious attempt to appeal to a hardcore conservative base.
The Murdoch pair are said to be “disenchanted” with Scott and [President Jay] Wallace, with the poor ratings being the main topic of conversation. “I mean, Rupert got involved with the shuffling of the lineup, so that’s never a good sign for someone in charge,” a current Fox staffer told The Daily Beast. “What is the point of having a manager running your business if you have to run the business yourself?”
The article goes on to note that Wallace “has been in hot water” since Fox’s Decision Desk correctly called the state of Arizona as a win for Joe Biden on Election Night and that Chris Stirewalt, who oversees the Decision Desk, has not been seen on Fox since mid-November.
A legitimate news network would be proud that its team beat the competition a week ahead of just about everyone else. But Fox seems to consider that a problem. Given the network's new daytime lineup, given how Fox has laid off a quarter of its fact checking and research unit and given the Hannitization of FoxNews.com, there’s every reason to believe that Fox will become even more of a propaganda outlet and even more untethered from anything resembling journalism.
(Scott image via screen grab)
