Here is a satirical look at the lengths to which Fox News might go to make the economy appear worse than it is.
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(This is satire.)
With six weeks to go before the election, top Fox Business News executives and anchors are panicking and want the network to make some changes, according to internal emails obtained by this reporter. For example, in light of the stock market reaching record highs seemingly every day, Fox Business is considering a change that would replace the stock ticker at the bottom of the screen with a scrolling list of groceries and how much they cost.
Below, you will find the email exchange that led to the new look.
“This boom economy is killing us,” wrote host Maria Bartiromo in a group email on September 16. “Could we maybe just make up some alternate stock market that does not reflect an economy on the rise?”
It is not surprising that the initial suggestion came from Bartiromo, a fervent supporter of Donald Trump and an avid peddler of insane theories that help her and Fox News viewers cope with reality.
“We can’t just invent fake numbers on this scale,” said producer Mortimer Whiteman. “Obviously, low-level lying to our audience and distorting facts is ok. That’s our bread and butter. But an alternate stock market would open us up to liability on a scale we haven’t seen since we… altered the truth after the 2020 election.”
Obviously, that last part is in reference to Fox News’s role in spreading the Big Lie, which ultimately forced the network into paying Dominion Voting Systems $787 million in an out-of-court settlement.
“Well, we need to do something,” Bartiromo replied. “I’m sick and tired of giving our viewers good news.”
This is when Fox Business News host Stuart Varney weighed in.
“Let’s not dismiss another settlement like that out of hand,” he wrote on September 19. “If it costs us a billion dollars to get Trump elected, then we ought to consider that. We got really good ratings on that one day when stocks were down and Republicans called it the ‘Kamala Crash.’ Our viewers really liked that when they thought their investment portfolios were taking a massive hit.
At this point, CEO Suzanne Scott weighed in.
“No can do. If we make up stock prices, all companies would be able to sue us, and the SEC would almost certainly open an investigation,” she wrote.
Varney then proposed a simple, visual change.
“Could we not simply switch up the colors?” he wrote in a reply. “Everybody knows that green is good and red is bad. So why don’t we change the font color of gains to red and of losses to green?”
Scott reacted favorably to the idea.
“This is exactly the kind of outside-the-box thinking that has made Fox a leader in reality-bending propaganda,” she wrote. “But I fear that this will not be enough.”
And that’s when Whiteman came up with what would eventually become the winning idea.
“If we can’t lie about the record stock prices, why not just ignore them altogether? Let’s turn off the ticker altogether and focus on stuff that individual immigrants did,” he suggested.
“Well, that’s already the mission of the main network,” Scott noted. “So it needs to be business related.”
“Instead of stock prices, why not simply do a ticker with the cost of everyday items Americans need?” Whiteman suggested.
Everybody immediately expressed enthusiasm for the idea and a plan was developed.
“We can’t just do recent cost increases, though, because inflation is now under control and we have been convincing our viewers that it still runs rampant,” Varney interjected.
“Then why not display the increases measured from January 20, 2021?” Bartiromo suggested. “That is not only a political winner but also in line with Fox’s mission of presenting the ‘news’ in a way that is as biased and deceptive as possible.”
“Perfect! Great job, gang,” Scott said, ending the email chain. “This is exactly the kind of innovative thing we can accomplish when we put our heads together. Hail Trump!”
The updated Fox Business News ticker should appear on viewers’ screens by this weekend. It will only be replaced with stock prices on the days when markets are down.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
