Steve Doocy has earned his mark of distinction from President Trump.
Doocy had a thought: “We don’t make anything anymore.” Trump agreed with Doocy’s repetition of his own talking point: “We don’t make anything," said the future president.
Consider that this moment of supreme sycophancy occurred months before Trump secured his weekly call-in gig to provide commentary for “Fox & Friends" and years before Trump kicked off his 2016 presidential campaign. The “12” ranking for Doocy is spot-on, a reflection of a deep knowledge of Fox News won through hours upon hours of watching. We know through Mark Leibovich of the New York Times that Trump — a fan of TiVo — isn’t above wasting his hours watching a recorded version of “Fox & Friends.” Hour after hour after hour, Doocy has proved extraordinarily willing to repeat White House spin and extraordinarily unwilling to challenge the president, while longtime colleague Brian Kilmeade has occasionally shown evidence of journalistic familiarity.
On one level, Trump’s loyalty scale advances a well-rehearsed Fox News defense — namely, that there’s a divide between the network’s straight-news and opinion brokers. Whenever people like Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson or Doocy say something ridiculous, that is, the response from the network’s PR shop is that these fellows work on the opinion side of the operation — as if the rules bearing on opinionators allow for racism, misogyny and political activism. It’s a cynical spin on the traditional newspaper’s news-editorial separation. (And there’s some cross-pollination, too. Just last year, Fox News moved Porter Berry, former executive producer of “Hannity,” to a position overseeing all digital content, including news.)
Make no mistake, however: The Shepard Smiths and Bret Baiers can’t redeem the work of the Sean Hannitys. When the Fox News audience surges, so does the misinformation.
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