By Christopher B. Daly
From TNR comes a story about Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, and his newfound concern for the Latino viewer/voter.
“The fact is, we have a lot—Republicans have a lot more opportunity for them,” Ailes says. “If I’m going to risk my life to run over the fence to get into America, I want to win. I think Fox News will articulate that.”
This new policy will require some pivoting by some of Fox’s top stars — notably Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Both of them were waging war on the air against immigrants for years, right up until the last election proved that there are not enough angry old white people in the United States to win national elections for the Republican Party.
Sean Hannity, appearing with Marco Rubio, now accepts a “path to citizenship” for Latinos and other immigrants.
In a sense, Fox is in the position that the “party papers” of the early Federal period were in. When a new kind of non-partisan paper came along in the 1830s trying to appeal to everyone, the editors of the party papers realized that their partisanship was placing an arbitrary ceiling on the universe of readers they could possibly appeal to. Therein lay the real origins of “neutral” or “objective” news — the desire to reach larger audiences. If Fox limits itself to Republicans, there is no room for growth. (Similarly, if the GOP limits itself to Fox viewers, there is no room for growth.)
Can moderate Latinos save them both?
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