Democrats won't debate on Fox News. They'd stand a better chance in 2020 if they did. [View all]

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

One common misconception about Fox News is that it’s filled with wall-to-wall programming and personalities boosting Trump and his every utterance — a frequent charge of the network’s critics. True, some hosts, such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, support the president and do not hide it. But these are the proprietors of opinion programs, and they are no different from opinion columnists like The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman and the New York Times’ Charles Blow, or MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. On the news side at Fox, several anchors refuse to toe the Trump line and remain devoted to solid reporting of stories and discussion of issues. (Full disclosure: I am an occasional guest on news and opinion shows on Fox News and Fox Business, and I am not compensated for these appearances.)

There is an immediate, highly relevant historical example here: the third and final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in October 2016. Fox News’s Chris Wallace hosted it, and figures from the left and the right cheered his work. The New Yorker’s television critic, Emily Nussbaum, tweeted: “Gotta say, Chris Wallace is a pro. Cool demeanor, asking clear follow-ups,” while the New York Times wrote that Wallace “mixed humor with scolding and persistence with patience to guide his charges toward the most substantive encounter of an unusually vicious election.”

Lower-profile and lower-stakes coverage follows basic journalistic principles, too. Harris Faulkner earned praise from Slate, a frequent Fox News antagonist, for a segment discussing gun policy that she moderated in 2017 (note: I was one of the participants). Anchors Shepard Smith, Neil Cavuto, Dana Perino, Martha MacCallum, Bret Baier and others have also repeatedly received plaudits for their devotion to presenting the truth. Does the DNC think they have suddenly abandoned those values? (Mayer’s piece alleged that a Fox News reporter was told to kill a story about Trump’s affair with Stormy Daniels. Even if true, the executives who made the decision are no longer with Fox News.)

Further, since the 2016 election, Democrats have openly discussed their desire to win over Trump voters -- many of whom are Fox News viewers. According to Nielsen, the network’s viewers are 94 percent white and have a median age of 65: exactly the demographic in which Democrats will need to make headway in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.