Foxocracy: Inside the Network's Playbook of Tribal Warfare

by Tobin Smith Narrated by Danny Campbell

Overview

From a 14-year Fox News contributor, guest anchor, and two-time New York Times bestselling author comes an unprecedented insider's account of the Fox News playbook-the production secrets and manipulation strategies Fox uses to influence viewers, divide families, weaponize the daily discourse of news and public opinion, and addict a core audience on right-wing rage and fear.

Fox News did not start America's culture war-but they have the manipulative and destructive genius to exploit it. For the first time, a Fox News veteran-fourteen years as contributor and guest anchor-exposes and diagrams the pages within the Fox News playbook that the liberal and progressive candidates will be fighting against in 2020. This is the very same playbook that Fox News used to move 12% of Independents to vote Trump in 2016 and win previous the Democrat strongholds of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Author Tobin Smith takes readers behind the scenes of the actual production of the “Fair and Balanced” opinion pieces and panel segments that feed a ravenous right-wing audience. How are these productions rigged so that right-wing pundits always win? What techniques does Fox News use in manipulating its viewers' tribal right-wing instincts: to addict them, to activate a hatred toward partisan enemies; and to hook them on feelings of intellectual and cultural superiority?

Filled with never revealed conversations with Fox News executives and opinion programming producers, breaking down the collateral damage among friends and family caused by the waging of an endless culture war, Foxocracy brings incendiary proof from an insider and on-air talent of audience manipulation psychology and production tactics. And perhaps even more frightening, this book reveals how that the playbook is now being used by Fox News rivals like MSNBC and CNN.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Eye-opening…An erstwhile insider's broadside against Fox News…Revealing.”—Kirkus Reviews





“Pulls back all the blinds hiding the true nature of Fox News...Should be on the bedside of every American voter.”—National Compass

Kirkus Reviews

2019-09-29
A former Fox News contributor exposes tactics that the network uses to distort the truth and keep viewers hooked—and how the network became "a 24/7 Donald Trump infomercial."

Smith (Billion Dollar Green: Profit From the Eco Revolution, 2008, etc.), a financial analyst who contributed to the network from 2000 to 2013, may be too optimistic when he writes that Republicans will "learn to love"—or at least tolerate—this relentlessly unflattering portrait of Fox News. Few right-leaning viewers will warm up to his report on what chairman Roger Ailes said when asked about his "target audience": "Look at me—I am the audience. White, fat, balding, age 55-to-dead. I'm a Red State Midwest conservative guy sitting at home in his favorite chair with a remote control surgically attached to his hand." Even fewer conservatives may buy Smith's argument that Fox News typically tries to frighten them with "white tribal identity porn" and then offer hope that they can defeat the "liberals/libtards/socialists" out to get them. However, if this book isn't likely to cause the mass defections from The Sean Hannity Show or The Ingraham Angle that he'd like, it offers a few eye-opening details. Are the "opinion-debate" segments rigged? Yes, producers try to pit a "milquetoast" liberal against a stronger conservative. Is it a coincidence that female hosts look "so hot"? No, Ailes required some to wear push-up bras. Given such tactics, how can Fox News attract self-respecting guests? A "paid contributor plebe" made $500 per appearance and "went to a fixed $5,000 per week" after a certain point, writes the author. As a "liberal Fox News piñata," Juan Williams earned $2 million per year for about a half-hour of work per week. "I'd take a beating every day for $20,000 a week at 35 minutes of cumulative weekly airtime," writes Smith. "Wouldn't you?" Whether they agree or disagree with his book, most readers will give him a few points for honesty.

An erstwhile insider's broadside against Fox News with some revealing tittle-tattle.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177839066
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	10/29/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos