When it comes to examining how a terrorist insurrection on the U.S. Capitol could take place in this country, there’s blame to go around in spades, but one place that definitely deserves its rightful share is Fox News. 

We know that the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was the culmination of the ongoing rhetoric from former President Donald Trump and his MAGA bootlickers to fight against their bogus claims of a stolen election, but really it was building long before that. 

As someone who worked at Fox News, I can honestly tell you that it is normal to “foxify” the news. Meaning a reporter or producer takes the facts and rubs them like you would in order to find a genie in a bottle, only in this case the genie is the right-wing agenda that supports the GOP’s position and props up Trump, or Gov. Ron DeSantis, or Gov. Greg Abbott, or the “Big Lie,” or whatever. In the case of Jan. 6, it’s what downplays a violent coup on the government to dismantle democracy. 

For the record, I was only asked to “foxify” a story once for the entertainment vertical of Fox News.com. Thankfully I worked outside of politics, but if it can happen with a fluff piece, imagine what happens on air and with political content. (You know what happens.) 

In 1996, Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch—and then in 2001 Roger Ailes—may have set out to be the voice of the right, the alternative to CNN. Without Fox, truthfully, I doubt the country would be as divided as it is today.

Somewhere along the line, the channel went from being a voice amplifying the right’s policies to a voice set on destroying the left, and the on-air personalities aren’t shy about saying it. They’re paid a lot of money to say what they’re told to say. 

“I work at Fox. I want to see disarray on the left. It’s good for America. It’s good for our ratings,” Fox’s Jesse Watters said on air recently.

Being incendiary is what pays Watters’ bills. And at this point, I don’t think Fox viewers would believe the truth even if the channel pivoted to actual, real, reported news. 

Watters is the same person who recently encouraged an audience at the Turning Point USA conference to “ambush” Dr. Anthony Fauci with a “kill shot.”

At the time I worked at Fox in 2016, Watters was forced to give a nonapology about a segment in Chinatown that was so offensive, my sole Asian co-worker quit.

There’s an entire vocabulary by right-wing media outlets such as Fox News and the New York Post designed to split the country. There are the “coastal liberal elites” versus those who live in the “heartland.” And this goes back to the role Fox played in presidential elections between 2000 to 2008. 

In a paper by Gregory J. Martin and Ali Yurukoglu for the American Economic Review, the analysis found that had Fox not existed “the overall Republican presidential vote share would have been 0.46 percentage points lower in 2000, 3.59 points lower in 2004, and 6.34 points lower in 2008.” 

Martin and Yurukoglu’s study in 2017 is consistent with the earlier work of Stefano DellaVigna and Ethan Kaplan, who found that Fox News convinced a significant percentage of viewers to vote Republican between 1996 and 2000 at a time when the network’s viewership was only a fraction of what it is today.

It’s called the “Fox News effect” and according to Pew, Fox was responsible for 40% of Trump voters. No equivalent liberal news source can claim that. 

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that one year after the riot on the Capitol, Republicans and Democrats are at opposite ends of the spectrum about how they even characterize that day. 

According to the poll, most Americans describe the riot as “mostly violent,” while Republicans call it “mostly peaceful.” The poll then breaks the Republicans into two groups: those who watch Fox News or read FoxNews.com and those who don’t. Fox News Republicans are 15 points more likely to call the rioters “mostly peaceful” while the non-Fox News Republicans are 16 points more likely to call them “mostly violent.” The Republican Fox News viewers were also more likely to believe that punishments for the rioters have been too harsh.

The same holds true for whether Trump takes blame for the insurrection or whether President Joe Biden’s election was legitimate—in both cases, the rate of belief in Fox-viewing Republicans was significantly higher than non-Fox viewing Republicans. 

Fox News is an echo chamber of false information. If you believe the election was rigged and future elections will be rigged, or that vaccines don’t work and masks are just a limitation to your freedom and don’t mitigate COVID-19, you can turn on Fox News and you’ll be supported in your opinion. 

“And once somebody decides, either via one issue or via a candidate or whatnot, that the Republican Party is the party for them, they will then seek information that is from friendly sources, whoever they see that as, and they will be receptive to information that confirms these biases. They will also sample information that confirms these biases, and then will implicitly pick up on the rest of the packaging,” Rachel Blum, a political scientist at the University of Oklahoma, told The Washington Post. 

On Jan. 6, as a violent mob of Trump-supporting QAnon-ers and divisions of white supremacists stormed the Capitol, Fox News hosts begged Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to tell the president to call off the dogs. 

According to testimony from Rep. Liz Cheney, a trio of Fox News hosts including Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Brian Kilmeade, as well as Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. implored Trump to stop the riot. 

“Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Ingraham wrote to Meadows.

Hannity begged for Trump to act, texting Meadows: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol?”

Kilmeade, aggrieved over the appearance of the putsch unfolding live, wrote to the former White House chief of staff: “Please get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished.”

This clearly shows they know the real deal, but they’re not giving up that sweet buttered bread of great ratings with a devout viewership and the full support of the GOP. 

Fox News has a playbook, like all entertainment. In their case it’s “us versus them.” Viewers are made to feel under attack, and only Trump or someone like him can save them. You’re on our side or the other side, and never the two shall meet. 

And like in George Orwell’s 1984, where freedom is captivity, peace is war, and truth is a lie, Fox News twists and distorts and flips reality with their agenda, hoping they can keep the battle of Republicans versus Democrats going for as long as possible. For if we find common ground, where will they be? 

For Fox News, common ground, like reality or truth, is like a wet blanket on a raging kitchen fire. It’s what keeps all of them rolling in high salaries. 

I’ve spoken with and am still acquainted with many current and former Fox News staff, and off the record, many of them don’t believe a single word they say on air. Pay no attention to the man (or woman) behind the curtain. But I’m preaching to the choir here, and that’s the biggest part of the problem, because we too are an echo chamber. 

My question to you is: How can we get the other side to read, listen to, or watch anything other than Fox News? How will they learn if they never turn the channel?