Slow Burn and the Birth of Fox News

There is not a day since April 14th of last year that I haven’t missed my dad. But on multiple occasions, I’ve been quietly thankful that he isn’t here to see this presidential election.

The rhetoric around the election has been detestable, and I’m not confident he would have been immune to the ugliest parts of it.

He was, for many years, a diehard watcher of Fox News, and he was a testament to the network’s power and influence. It warped his worldview, and at some point during the Obama years, my mom simply forbid Fox News in the house. They watched old Hollywood mainstays on Turner Classic Movies, instead.

Fox News was, in its way, both a sort of soundtrack and time-capsule of many important memories in my life. It was Fox News where our household got much of its news on 9/11 and the days, weeks, months, years, and wars that would follow.

It was Fox News that we sleepily threw on in the background right as my brother was about to ship out for Navy basic training. We were in a hotel room in Knoxville, Tennessee, and we woke up to news of a mass shooting in Las Vegas during an outdoor country music concert.

A few weeks before my dad passed away, I remember sitting in his hospital room as news and commentary played after The Covenant School shooting in Nashville. Of course, it was Fox News. It was close to home, just a few hours away in my home state of Tennessee, and it felt somehow worst to hear this tragic news along with the talking points of Fox News, many of which my dad would nod along with from his hospital bed. The news itself was too much, too sad, too familiar, too much of the wrong kind of distraction in light of a still-new cancer diagnosis.

About a week or so later (early in the week he would pass), I remember rushing back to Tennessee, and when I got to the hospital around 4 a.m. after driving through the night, Fox News was on in the waiting room outside of the ICU. I remember thinking it was somehow more unhinged and, in their estimation I'm sure, edgy when only the most diehard viewers and not many others were watching. The channel was as natural as the air we breathed down there, and while the TV's volume might have bothered a few of the other weary souls trying to sleep a few hours, I was probably the only one having to hope that nature and the laws of physics wouldn't betray me and eject my eyeballs from rolling them so hard at what was being said by D-list anchors in the extended Fox News universe.

I was thinking of Dad as I listened to the first episode of Slate’s Slow Burn podcast’s latest season on the rise of Fox News. The podcast has been one of the best in the game since its inception, and this season promises to be not just entertaining but vital to understanding our current reality. I miss him, and before I missed him like this, I missed the version of him that wasn't so Fox News-influenced.

The Rise of Fox News | 1. We Report. You Can Suck It. - Slow Burn

In Slow Burn’s 10th season, host Josh Levin takes you back to a crucial inflection point in American history: the moment between 2000 and 2004 when Fox News first surged to power and a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it.You’ll hear from the hosts, reporters, and producers who built Fox News, many who’ve never spoken publicly. You’ll also hear from Fox’s biggest antagonists—the political operatives, journalists, and comedians who attacked it, investigated it, and tried to mock it into submission. And you’ll hear from Fox’s victims, who are still coming to terms with how a cable news channel upended their lives. Want more Slow Burn? Join Slate Plus to immediately access all past seasons and episodes of Slow Burn (and your other favorite Slate podcasts) completely ad-free. Plus, you’ll unlock subscriber-exclusive bonus episodes that bring you behind-the-scenes on the making of the show. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Subscribe” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen. Season 9: Gays Against Briggs A nationwide moral panic, a California legislator who rode the anti-gay wave, and the LGBTQ+ people who stepped up and came out to try and stop him. Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas Where Clarence Thomas came from, how he rose to power, and how he’s brought the rest of us along with him, whether we like it or not. Winner of the Podcast of the Year at the 2024 Ambies Awards. Season 7: Roe v. Wade The women who fought for legal abortion, the activists who pushed back, and the justices who thought they could solve the issue for good. Winner of Apple Podcasts Show of the Year in 2022. Season 6: The L.A. Riots How decades of police brutality, a broken justice system, and a video tape set off six days of unrest in Los Angeles. Season 5: The Road to the Iraq War Eighteen months after 9/11, the United States invaded a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. Who’s to blame? And was there any way to stop it? Season 4: David Duke America’s most famous white supremacist came within a runoff of controlling Louisiana. How did David Duke rise to power? And what did it take to stop him? Season 3: Biggie and Tupac How is it that two of the most famous performers in the world were murdered within a year of each other—and their killings were never solved? Season 2: The Clinton Impeachment A reexamination of the scandals that nearly destroyed the 42nd president and forever changed the life of a former White House intern. Season 1: Watergate What did it feel like to live through the scandal that brought down President Nixon?

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