Since the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7th, an unlikely marriage has taken place between Jewish Americans –who overwhelmingly identify as Democrats– and the country’s most prominent right-wing media outlet, Fox News; it has become a refuge for many who believe that the mainstream media has been overly-critical and too hostile to Israel.
On Thursday, Fox hosted its morning show, “Fox & Friends,” from the Second Avenue Deli on the Upper East Side, which advertises itself as “an authentic Jewish culinary experience.” The store was recently the site of antisemitic vandalism after someone painted a swastika on their door.
Co-host of the show, Lawrence Jones, received a loud round of applause when he said that the media had done a poor job of reporting on Israel’s struggles. He went on to say that when it came to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, it’s justifiable to pick a side, “I think we’ve taken the side of life.”
Elliot Galpern, who was in the audience, thanked Jones off camera after the show; a long-time registered Democrat, he said that he would have never imagined turning to Fox News and, until recently, would have laughed it off as “fake news.” In an interview he gave following the event, he pulled out his phone to show Israeli publications that were documenting Hamas’ atrocities, “These should be headlines in the United States,” he said.
Ross Abramson, a software engineer and NYU graduate, told the New York Times that he had found the coverage on Fox “less antagonistic” and said that “you don’t feel as attacked.” In an interview with The Free Press, an unnamed liberal woman from Minneapolis said, “My friends and I are like, ‘My God, we find ourselves watching clips on Fox News.”
According to Nielsen data, since September, Fox News’s audience has grown by a larger percentage than CNN and MSNBC in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, and Miami. Viewership in New York has increased by 16%. Fox News had more people who identify as Democrats watching in prime time than either CNN or MSNBC.
Fox has insisted that it’s shining a light on the rising state of antisemitism, both at home and abroad, and claims that other mainstream publications vilify Israel. However, while it’s true that antisemitism is skyrocketing and poses a very real threat, it’s critical to discern how Fox utilizes this as a shield to push an aggressively one-sided narrative that minimizes the mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Fox’s coverage of the ongoing conflict tends to put a spotlight on the radical elements of the pro-Palestinian opposition, especially on college campuses, while at the same time consistently minimizing civilian death tolls from Israeli strikes.
On Tuesday, when mainstream news outlets like CCN and MSNBC were covering the bombing of the largest refugee center in Gaza, Fox News was playing a report from southern Israel about two Israeli soldiers who had died in battle.
Fox also recently debuted a new page on their website called “Antisemitism Exposed.” The section strongly tends to focus on college campuses and the ongoing protests supporting Palestine. Ironically, many mainstream conservatives lament cancel culture (particularly in defense of their anti-trans vitriol) but are eager to cancel impassioned college kids from attaining future employment because they expressed their potentially misinformed opinion on Israel-Palestine.
Fox’s hypocrisy doesn’t end there, however. The modern-day conservative populism that exists in America has aggressively vilified globalization, and a significant portion holds up George Soros, a prominent Jewish billionaire, as the boogeyman of a new world order and of the ruling “Jewish cabal”; the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 had people marching with tiki-torches chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
There are fewer issues in current times that are more divisive than the ongoing conflict in Gaza. As a result, people are increasingly looking to pundits that will satiate one of two polar narratives; the first end of the extreme is that Israel can’t be held responsible for the situation of Palestinians in Gaza and that any actions taken to eliminate a foreign terrorist cell are justified, at the other end there is a very large contingent that believes Israel has no right to exist at all. Mainstream media has been attacked aggressively from both sides for not taking stronger stances one way or the other.
While we shouldn’t expect objectivity or any significant measures of neutrality from Palestinians or Israelis who are physically living through the conflict, or from the Jewish population being plagued by antisemitism, we, in the general public, should do better. Unfortunately, due to social media, people abroad are more likely to adopt one of these biased perspectives rather than use their position of privilege to engage with the issues more rationally; many choose to add fuel to the fire rather than seek any meaningful resolution.
As evidenced by the recent story of the missile strike on the Gazan hospital (which was also initially erroneously reported by Fox), there are many legitimate criticisms of the mainstream media landscape. The reality that these outlets don’t exist to pander to their base, as is the tendency of independent media and Fox News, however, is certainly not one of them.
