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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFox News Is Dropping Its 'Fair & Balanced' Slogan
By Gabriel Sherman
June 14, 2017
2:04 pm
As Fox News moves further into the postRoger Ailes era, the network is shedding one of its most iconic elements. According to network executives, Fox News has abandoned the marketing slogan Fair & Balanced. The decision was made last August after Ailess ouster by Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy, because the phrase had been mocked, one insider said. Another executive explained that the tagline was too closely associated with Roger. Fox executives have been instructed by management to market the network by its other tagline: Most Watched. Most Trusted.
It is hard to overstate the significance of what shedding Fair & Balanced means for Fox News. (It would be like the New York Times giving up All the News Thats Fit to Print.) Ailes invented the slogan when he launched the network in 1996, and over the years it became a quasi-religious doctrine among Foxs anchors and viewers. The effectiveness of Fox News as a vehicle for conservative ideology depended on it. If you come out and you try to do right-wing news, youre gonna die. You cant get away with it, Ailes once told a reporter.
Inside Fox, Ailes held Fair & Balanced seminars with staff members. He would call a group of senior producers and make you watch the channel and hed point out stuff, like a banner thats slightly liberal, a senior producer told me. He would say, The news is like a ship. If you take hands off the wheel, it pulls hard to the left. Ailes also used Fair & Balanced when making hiring decisions, such as saying a job candidate wasnt fair & balanced, because the person went to a college he didnt like.
In the annals of modern advertising, Fair & Balanced will be considered a classic. The slogan was Ailess cynical genius at its most successful. While liberals mocked the tagline, it allowed Ailes to give viewers the appearance of both sides being heard, when in fact he made sure producers staged segments so that the conservative viewpoint always won.
A Fox News spokesperson confirmed that the network is dropping the slogan but said the branding change wont affect programming or editorial decisions.
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/fox-news-is-dropping-its-fair-and-balanced-slogan.html
Squinch
(51,026 posts)Afromania
(2,771 posts)spanone
(135,897 posts)underpants
(182,942 posts)dalton99a
(81,635 posts)Just a bullshit PR move.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)one was a total nitwit, it was easy to see Fox News as a total RW twisted propaganda outlet from day one.
underpants
(182,942 posts)James Earl Jones voiceover
Wow the Fox people really worked hard on theirs huh?
"been mocked"
BTW "Fair and Balanced" was used by Ailes for the first "news" network he started - funded by the Coors family.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Yes, the right has a strong tendency to interpret unpalatable truths as "liberal."
The new slogan is also far more honest than Fox's coverage. "Most watched. Most trusted." Yes and yes.
Brother Buzz
(36,478 posts)Gothmog
(145,650 posts)AgadorSparticus
(7,963 posts)Gothmog
(145,650 posts)ProudMNDemocrat
(16,811 posts)Fair or Balanced.
It has been and remains the PROPOGANDA channel for the Republican Party.