Back in March, Media Matters for America fellow Matt Gertz wrote a column for MSNBC discussing the odd phenomenon of Fox News’ mixed feelings about former President Donald Trump. On one hand, some of the network’s executives and top talent despise Trump and want him to vanish from politics; on the other hand, they know he’s absolutely essential for ratings. The result has been coverage that, while broadly pro-Trump, sometimes zigs and zags between showering Trump with praise and burying him.
But these occasional bouts of sobriety are fast disappearing. The recent cascade of indictments against the former president is pushing Fox once again in the direction of uniform Trump propaganda. That’s because the logic of Fox News’ coverage demands that anything that could cost the right politically is dismissed as morally bankrupt — including pesky little things like laws prohibiting people from trying to overturn election results. This return to pro-Trump dogma, regardless of how NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch might feel about it privately, will further reduce the odds that Trump faces any substantial competition for the Republican nomination, despite Murdoch’s hopes.
Fox News producers and anchors don’t necessarily need to be pro-Trump per se to push this agenda.
In the run-up to the new Trump indictments from Georgia on Monday, the cable network aggressively and preemptively defended Trump. As Media Matters notes, before the indictments were even unsealed, and without a shred of evidence, anchors and guests systematically dismissed any potential charges as purely politically motivated. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., lamented to Fox News’ Pete Hegseth that Georgia prosecutors were “weaponizing the law.” Trump lawyer Alina Habba had the audacity to describe the indictments as “election interference.” On Sean Hannity’s program, guest Mark Levin declared that “Stalin would be proud.” This kind of defense echoed the channel’s coverage of Trump’s previous indictments.
What’s interesting is that Fox News producers and anchors don’t necessarily need to be pro-Trump per se to push this agenda. Instead, this kind of coverage can be animated by a purely partisan agenda of objecting to anything that could hurt the right or help the Democratic Party. (Crucially, it requires an indifference to the law to take full shape.) The effect of this coverage is more airtime for Trump and reinforcement for Trump’s self-mythologizing about being a victim of the establishment. When panel after panel on Fox News drives home the idea that the legal system can’t be trusted anymore, it primes right-wing viewers to think that by supporting Trump they’re defending their own freedom.
While all the expected indictments are out, there will still be a constant drip of news and analysis tied with the upcoming trials and prosecutors’ attempts to secure cooperation against Trump. That drip is powerful unearned media for Trump 2024.
After the Jan. 6 insurrection, Murdoch told a colleague that he wanted to “make Trump a nonperson.” And earlier in the 2024 campaign season, Murdoch reportedly favored Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the nomination — a preference that appeared to shape more favorable coverage from him early on. Murdoch has apparently lost faith in DeSantis’ capacity to topple Trump, but there’s nothing indicating that he has changed his mind about Trump as undesirable. Nonetheless, it seems that the indictments are serving as a vehicle for Fox News to return home to Trump, without ambivalence or hesitation.
Murdoch might wish for a different nominee, but Fox News has a life and a structural logic of its own — and Trump is primed to be the beneficiary of that design.