‘Woke’ Behind the Scenes, Fox News No Longer Worth Watching

by Roger L. Simon

Forget about boycotting Fox News for blocking Tucker Carlson, as bad as that was. We’re past that stage.

A leaked company handbook—the contents of which were published by The Daily Signal on May 22—reveals that Fox and presumably its parent News Corp. are on the other side of the ideological struggle gripping this country from conservatives that are the bulk of its audience.

Turns out, Fox is “woke” behind the scenes. From the Signal:

Fox News employees are allowed to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, rather than their biological sex, and permitted to dress in alignment with their preferred gender. They must also be addressed by their preferred name and pronouns in the workplace.

These are just a few of the policies outlined in the company handbook, dated January 2021, a copy of which was shared with The Daily Signal. Fox also offers to help employees come up with a ‘Workplace Transition Plan’ to ease their gender transition at work.

“The revelations come amid conservative consternation at Fox Digital’s use of activist language like ‘gender-affirming care’ in stories on its website, as well as the site’s consistent use of female pronouns for biological males like TikTok celebrity Dylan Mulvaney and swimmer Lia Thomas (formerly known as Will Thomas).”

This should be no surprise, considering who owns News Corp. (The Murdoch family and “woke” investment firms BlackRock and Vanguard) but it’s noteworthy that the handbook dates back well over two years.

So, not only was Carlson living with and under it, but also Greg Gutfeld, Maria Bartiromo, Steve Hilton, Pete Hegseth, Tammy Bruce, Jesse Waters, and other popular Fox News hosts considered by the right to be ideological allies.

These are people who would likely agree that the roots of the transgender movement are Marxist, with the overall intention of weakening or breaking up the nuclear family. The goal that evolved from that would be strengthening the role of the state, ultimately making it all-important.

This same group would be unlikely to approve of trans guys using the ladies’ room or competing in women’s sports. Indeed, we have seen them say as much, literally and satirically.

One can assume that working at Fox hasn’t been easy for many of these people, yet more so since the firing or, shall we say, the sequestering of Carlson.

Who will be next, one wonders? Rumors abound as Fox continues to play a double game, allowing some to say what they wish, up to a point, while reining in the less successful.

You would think some, or maybe all at heart, would want to leave. Why haven’t they? Money is part of it; it’s unlikely others could match Fox’s salaries. But something else may weigh as much, if not more, heavily.

As with Carlson, their contracts may constrain them from going elsewhere. We are given to understand that Carlson is still in the employ of Fox and is being paid by them. They have simply taken him off the air, essentially censoring him. It’s likely the network has a corporate policy of similar contracts with others as a different, almost sadistic, form of non-compete.

Would Gutfeld, now the self-styled “King of Late Night” with or without his competition squelched by the Writers Guild strike, want to be taken off the air and silenced in that manner? He might prefer to live in what the French existentialists used to call “bad faith.”

We, the audience, have a different choice. We don’t have to live in “bad faith,” watching Fox and not knowing when the indoctrination will set in.

It will, at first “gradually,” then “suddenly,” as one of Ernest Hemingway’s characters said of his bankruptcy in “The Sun Also Rises.”

Already, if you listen, as I do while driving, to shows such as Glenn Beck’s that are interrupted on the half-hour by news bulletins from Fox, the content is now no different from mainstream media and heavily slanted liberal or left.

This augurs for a bright future for Newsmax, also for Epoch TV and NTD. But it’s also worrisome and depressing. Fox, with its considerable reach, in the past made a significant contribution to balancing out our media at a time when the left’s dominance was increasing and even-handed journalism was becoming no more than the object of lip service.

Were we being gulled all along? Though not 100 percent sure, I suspect not. I think the change came, in Hemingway’s words again, “gradually,” when Rupert Murdoch began his recession to retirement and left things to his sons who apparently wanted to be popular at Manhattan cocktail parties. I believe Rupert’s personal disdain for Donald Trump also factors in.

Nevertheless, you don’t have to boycott Fox. It’s not a beer. And there’s nothing much worth watching anymore anyway.

First published in the Epoch Times.

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One Response

  1. Once at flood tide
    Believing it could not subside
    The fools in their ego canoe
    Paddled addled and sank askew.

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