CHRIS CRUCIAL: Can we be honest about Fox News, please? 🦊

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1. What Fox News Is (and Isn’t)

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

In the least shocking news ever, Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the president, is getting her own show on Fox News.

Here’s how the New York Times covered it:

The president and his children are frequent guests on Fox News. But there is no precedent for the close relative of a sitting president to host a high-profile show on a major television news channel.

“My View with Lara Trump,” expected to air on Saturdays at 9 p.m. Eastern, will include a mix of analysis and interviews with influential figures. The network is describing the show as focused on “the return of common sense to all corners of American life,” echoing a phrase, “common sense,” that the Trump administration has frequently deployed.

“Unprecedented” is a word we have been using a lot in the first 16 days of the second Trump presidency. But it fits! Again!

In truth, the Lara Trump show on Fox is simply the latest proof point of the non-stop turnstile between the network and the Trump White House.

Consider the number of of Fox News-affiliated folks now serving (or nominated to serve) in the Trump administration:

• Pete Hegseth, former Fox anchor and now Secretary of Defense

• Tulsi Gabbard, former Fox contributor and nominee to be Director of National Intelligence

• Mike Huckabee, former Fox News host and now Ambassador to Israel

• Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News host (and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr.) and now ambassador to Greece

There are more. Many more. Nineteen in all, according to the Times.

Now, it’s worth noting that MSNBC and CNN have hired people who worked for past Democratic (and Republican) administrations. And people who were contributors for those networks have gone on to work for administrations too. Heck, George Stephanopoulos got famous working for the Clinton campaign in 1992!

But what is abnormal or, well, unprecedented, is the a) the sheer number of crossovers between Trumpworld and Fox News and b) the high-level positions these people are taking in the current administration. I mean, Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense for, uh, Pete’s sake!

The broader point here to me is this: Fox News isn’t really a news channel. It is an entertainment channel that does news. Which, to my mind, makes it very different from NewsNation, MSNBC and CNN and all of the other major broadcast outlets.

Let me say this before I go any further: This is not an attempt to dunk on Fox. Or to paint every single person who works there with the same broad brush. Bret Baier, for example, strikes me as a newsman first and foremost. I am certain there are lots and lots of good journalists there like Bret. Please understand that.

What I am trying to explain is the very real difference in the strategic position of Fox versus the ethos of the other competitors in its space. Fox, I believe, is primarily looking to entertain/anger its audience, with news reporting as a vehicle to do that. For the other networks, the opposite is true — they report the news and hope that it entertains people (and keeps them watching).

It might seem like a subtle distinction. But it makes a massive difference in a) what sort of content they produce and b) how people receive it.

Let me take one obvious example to prove my point: How (and how much) Fox covers the media versus how everyone else does it.