2023 A Year in Review on Fox News - The Good, the Bad, and Three Quarters of a Billion Dollars
A condensed overview of the shows Decoding Fox News has covered in 2023
I’m a bit late in getting this to all of you as I contracted COVID-19 sometime around December 22, 2023 and spent my entire Christmas holiday sneezing, coughing and sleeping. My unexpected illness put me a bit behind schedule but I’m happy to share everything I came up with from last year.
The spreadsheet for the shows I covered on Fox News this past year stretched to over 11,000 rows. It was a huge undertaking to consolidate categories and clean up entries for the entire year.
Top Ten Moments on Fox News for 2023
All things considered Fox News had a lousy year in 2023. The network remained at the top of ratings for cable news but it was absolutely crushed in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. The network also fired its most popular primetime host.
It was also the end of an era as Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire media mogul who founded Fox News, finally retired and passed the torch to his son Lachlan.
#10 - Gavin Newsom destroyed Ron DeSantis in a debate.
Fox News tried its best to spin the event as a huge win for DeSantis but “The Guardian,” summed it up with the headline, “His debate with Gavin Newsom showed Ron DeSantis will never be president.” DeSantis was an awkward mess who seemed more like a malfunctioning animatronic figure who longed to be a part of Disney’s Hall of Presidents attraction.
#9 - Republicans performed miserably in an off year election.
The morning of the big showdown Steve Doocy was cheering on white geriatric Fox fans in a popular Virginia diner. The network predicted Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin would gain Republican majorities in both state houses and could even use the momentum to enter the 2024 presidential race. By the end of the evening it was clear Democrats would rule both houses in Virginia, a ballot measure ensuring abortion rights in Ohio passed with a large majority and a Democrat would remain in the governor’s mansion in Kentucky. Fox hosts did a lousy job of hiding their disappointment as discussions turned to how abortion rights were hurting Republicans in elections all over the country.
#8 - Fox News claimed a car accident was a terrorist attack.
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving a car exploded at a border checkpoint near Canada at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, NY. A Fox News journalist reporting from New York City, six and half hours away from the accident, declared that the explosion was part of a terrorist attack. Her Fox News counterparts made the assumption, based on no evidence, that the incident was carried out by Islamic extremists as a response to the Israel-Hamas war. About three and half hours later the network conceded that the accident was not a terrorist attack.
#7 - Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker of the House
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) offered a motion to vacate the chair on the House floor. Chaos followed as Republicans could not successfully pick a new speaker leaving the House of Representatives without leadership for over three weeks. After three nominees failed to get enough votes Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), a far-right extremist, was elected as the new speaker.
#6 - Jesse Watters’ mother called into his debut show at the 8:00 p.m. time slot
Jesse Watters has worked at Fox News since 2001. Watters is 45 years old, a father of four children, and on his second marriage. His mother referred to him as “honey bun,” then advised him to stay away from fake stories and conspiracy theories. This was especially cringe worthy since Watters promotes false stories and conspiracy theories pretty much every night.
#5 - Fox News paid out a $12 million dollar settlement to a former employee
Fox News settled with Abby Grossberg, a former employee, over her claims that the network was a hostile and discriminatory workplace. She also claimed that Fox News coerced her into providing false testimony in a deposition in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit. One of the shows she worked on was “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
#4 - Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6th Nothing Burger
In March, Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Tucker Carlson 41,000 hours of previously unreleased footage from the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Carlson promoted it as an evidence of a vast government coverup to hide the true nature of the riot. The Fox host made several false claims about the entirely underwhelming surveillance footage that mostly showed protesters milling about the Capitol. The reveal was so lackluster that Carlson didn’t even dedicate a full week to the story. Ray Epps, a protester singled out in the additional footage, filed a defamation lawsuit against the network and Carlson after the Fox host repeated unverified claims about Epps and his role in the attack.
#3 - Donald J. Trump was criminally indicted four times and is facing 91 charges.
The former president faces criminal charges in New York State for bookkeeping fraud. In Georgia prosecutors charged Trump and his allies under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act for their role in trying to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in that state.. Trump also faces federal charges for mishandling classified documents and for his role in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Fox News hosts got increasing less hysterical as each new indictment was announced.
#2 - Tucker Carlson got fired from Fox News.
Carlson’s dismissal from Fox News surprised most media journalists including myself. Carlson was a ratings bonanza for the network as his show got the second highest ratings on cable news right behind “The Five.” Carlson also consistently won the largest audience in the coveted 25-54 age demographic, the group most valued by national advertisers. Fox News never officially revealed why they decided to part ways with their most popular host but Carlson’s tensions with management, his extremist views and problematic texts/emails revealed in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit all played a role.
#1 - Fox News paid out $787.5 million dollars to Dominion Voting Systems.
It was the largest defamation settlement in history. This story was so much fun for so many reasons. Dominion Voting Systems was able to leak some of the court briefings to the general public. In these legal documents it was revealed in text messages and emails that Tucker Carlson allegedly secretly hated Donald J. Trump and that Sean Hannity and other primetime hosts never believed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Judge Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo appeared to promote The Big Lie more than anyone on the network. According to interoffice correspondence in the Dominion legal briefs Fox News executives knew they were promoting a false story but were more concerned about ratings and revenue. Fox is also facing an , another voting systems company.
Honorary mentions
Dan Bongino was also fired from Fox in 2023 and the network wasted a crazy amount of airtime on a story about a Chinese spy balloon that according to the Pentagon did not collect any sensitive information as it pass over the country.
The Top Guest
When I removed all of the Fox News employees and paid contributors the top guest for 2023 was Rep. James Comer (R-KY). This is especially ironic since he recently declared he won’t appear on “Fox & Friends,” due to Steve Doocy’s critical remarks about his never-ending investigations into Hunter Biden.
Top Bogus Expert
Michael Shellenberger had the most appearances as a bogus expert on the shows I covered on Fox News. Shellenberger will talk about multiple topics for which he has no training or expertise.
He’s a calm well spoken white man who speaks with authority and that’s good enough for Fox News.
Shellenberger has also written books about climate change despite the fact that he has a master’s degree in anthropology and no degrees in climate science or a related subject.
Here’s a breakdown of six false or misleading claims he made on Fox News in 2023.
Bogus claim #1 - Only 6% of species are critically endangered.
“Jesse Watters Primetime,” January 3, 2023
“Those of us that actually care about nature have done a really good job taking care of it. You know, the truth is that we are not in a mass extinction. 6% of species are critically endangered. That's 6% too many. But that's nowhere close to the 75 or 90% that are required for a mass extinction. And we have 25 times more protected areas than we did in 1962,” said Shellenberger.
Due to space I’m just going to breakdown his first claim.
Shellenberger uses the term ‘critically endangered.’ According to the World Wildlife Fund critically endangered qualifies as a species considered to be facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. According to WWF 26,500 species are critically endangered with another 96,500 species endangered or vulnerable.
The number of 6% of all species is largely meaningless because Shellenberger leaves out some extremely important context. Only about 1.2 million species have been identified on planet earth but scientists estimate there might be as many as 8.7 million plant and animal species. Roughly 80% of all animal species are insects while 80% of all species are plants.
Here’s how the World Wildlife Fund breaks down the number of endangered species in a far more meaningful way. The following is a list of species considered critically endangered to vulnerable.
40% of amphibians
25% of mammals
14% of birds
27% of selected crustaceans
31% of sharks and rays
34% of conifers
33% of reef corals
Bogus Claim #2 - Police killings are down from previous years.
“Jesse Watters Primetime,” 1/30/23
“I think it's important to put this into some context. Police departments actually did a very good job reducing the rate of force and killings. Overall inclusion of African-Americans since the 1970s until today,” said Shellenberger.
According to reporting by The Washington Post, the number of fatal police shootings has risen slightly. Police killed the highest number of people on record in 2022.
Bogus Claim #3 - New York City was banning pizza ovens.
“Fox News Tonight,” 6/28/23
“To ban pizza ovens,” said Shellenberger.
In the larger segment it was clear that Shellenberger was referring to a proposed ordinance in New York City that would require filters for coal burning pizza ovens.
There was no movement to ban pizza ovens. According to reporting by the New York Times, the Department of Environmental Protection proposed regulations requiring most restaurants with coal- or wood-fired ovens installed before 2016 to be equipped with an expensive emissions filtration system, as first reported by The New York Post.
The new regulations were a follow-up of a law passed by the New York City Council in 2015 that required restaurants installing new ovens to follow the same guidelines.
Bogus Claim #4 - AOC shutdown a nuclear power plant in New York state
“Fox News Tonight,” 6/28/23
“You know, engage in, you know, counterproductive efforts like shutting down nuclear power plants. They did that in New York City. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who says that climate change is the end of the world, helped to shut down a nuclear power plant that was replaced entirely by fossil fuels,” said Shellenberger.
Shellenberger was referring to the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The decision to close the plant was made two years before Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was sworn into office.
The power plant was mistakenly built on a fault line and had experienced a number of radiation leaks over the years. It was also extremely close to the most densely populated area of the country. The movement to shut down the plant was decades long and proceeded the birth of Ocasio-Cortez.
Bogus Claim #5 - Shellenberger pretended he was a therapist or doctor
“The Ingraham Angle.” 6/30/23
“How pernicious is this, given the landscape as it's developing? Yeah, it's really disturbing. I mean, I see parallels as well between the radical left's affirmation of gender dysphoria and the medical mistreatment of adolescents, very similar to the affirmation of addiction and mental illness and the deprivation and medical mistreatment of people that we call homeless,” said Shellenberger.
Shellenberger is not a therapist, addiction expert or medical doctor. In the longer segment he didn’t offer any data or evidence about trans people or gender dysphoria.
Bogus Claim #6 - California has the highest rate of poverty.
“Fox News Tonight,” 5/16/23
“I mean, you have to remember that we're just absolutely in love with self-image of ourselves as welcoming and tolerant in California. But we are absolutely mistreating the poorest people in our society. We have the highest rate of poverty in the whole country,”said Shellenberger.
California does have the highest number of impoverished people but it’s also the largest state in the country with 39 million residents. In terms of poverty rates per capita California is nowhere near close to the top ten. According to American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau years 2019-2021 Louisiana has the highest poverty rate in the country at 19.6% it was followed by Mississippi, New Mexico, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.
By the Numbers
Vivek Ramaswamy appeared more than any other Republican candidate for president.
Hunter Biden was #2 for 2023. The war in Ukraine didn’t even make the top 15.
Hunter Biden was apparently far more important than inflation in 2023.
This was an interesting big picture. I know more about what Faux did and went through and yet do not feel contaminated. Thanks!
I appreciate how much work you put in on this, especially since you were just recovering from Covid. Thank you for all you do and Happy New Year!