Fox News, the defiantly neocon news network which achieved high ratings by keeping its conservative viewers glued to the dial in a constant state of fear, saw those ratings surge to an all time high after Barack Obama became President four years ago. But as of January 2013 those ratings have plummeted, giving back not only all the ground gained during Obama’s first term but sinking even further to levels not seen since 2001, when the network was just a few years old and still finding its early footing. And while Fox still has its core audience of neocon viewers who consider Obama the antichrist, its more moderate conservative viewers have begun to abandon it now that he’s won reelection. So what happened?
Obama’s victory in 2008 gave Fox News the ammunition it needed for a ratings bonanza: the republican party had already spread accusations that Obama was secretly a Muslim, or secretly a socialist, or secretly born in Kenya. And while there was never any evidence of any of these accusations, Fox drove them home every day in the name of keeping and growing its conservative audience. People tend to watch more news when bad things are happening (think 9/11), and so long as Fox could help its white small town viewers feasting on their own fears that there had to be something secretly ungainly about a black president, ratings remained high. Fox claimed it was the only news outlet telling the truth about Obama, and many of its viewers refused to believe any news report unless it came from Fox itself. Obama’s rise was Fox’s gain.
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