Fox News launching weather channel: Forecast grim!
Not content with eliminating the usage of factual information in cable news coverage wth his continuing travesty, Fox News, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is now looking to expand his empire into the meteorological realm with the announcement of the impending launch of Fox Weather, a 24 hour streaming service designed to do to the dominant player in the TV environmental forecasting business — the venerable cable mainstay, The Weather Channel — what Fox News did to CNN in the political news space.
Murdoch’s motivation for launching the new service is not due to any egregigiously poor weather forecasting errors on The Weather Channel‘s part that has led to widespread disenchantment with the market leader’s accuracy or expertise.
Nor has there been a huge grassroots display of disssatisfaction with the creeping progressivism that the channel’s constant coverage of weather events so tightly linked to a global climate emergency may be spun into by ignorant science deniers.
No, it appears as if the only reason for creating the new streaming Fox Weather brand is the precipitous decline in ratings that Fox News, as well as every other news outlet, has suffered since the ticking time bomb that is Donald Trump vacated the premises at the White House.
Once Trump no longer represented an immediate and dire threat to life as we know it, people quickly realized that they no longer needed to stay tuned to their TV sets and mobile devices around the clock to stay current with the latest erratic decision or disastous policy pronouncement.
Moreover, despite the regular promotion on Fox News of climate change as a myth designed by the “deep state” to con the populace and force Americans to give up their gas guzzlers right before the federal government comes to sieze their guns, Murdoch and the other Fox executives know quite well that the dangers of the environmental emergency are real and see news about the increasingly dire effects of the changing climate as a profitable growth industry.
What else would you expect from a company that makes sure that all of their executives and on-air talent are fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus so they can gsurvive to go on air and broadcast anti-vax conspiracy theories?
Given that the new Fox Weather streaming service will soon be available, we thought that our dear readers deserved a preview of what their coverage might be like once it begins hitting people’s AppleTVs, Roku boxes, and smart devices.
Most information channels provide a brief preview of what viewers can expect to appear in the upcoming programming at the top of each hour. Here’s what we imagine the promotional blurb for Fox Weather might sound like if someone like Tucker Carlson was hosting that particular hour.
Tucker Carlson (voiceover only, as storm footage fills the screen emblazoned with the Fox Weather logo):
“Good evening and welcome to Fox Weather, your home for the unbiased truth about the skies above, as God intended! We have dangerous conditions tonight across the country with evil winds blowing over the southern border this morning in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.’
Heavy cancel culture vibes are spreading in the Northeast and in Western coastal areas and you can expect dense fog over Middle America for the next four years as President Biden’s contagious dementia rages across the central plains.”
“Plus, the entire country is at risk of flooding with phony climate emergency claims pouring in from deluded scientists who hate America, and we only have the Democrats to blame.”
While this imagined scenario is pretty obviously a work of parody, even the august folks at The Washington Post couldn’t help from engaging in a similar exercise, in their case, a made-up sample of a fictional Fox Weather 24-hour daily programming grid, developed by pithy columnist Alexandra Petri.
“2—4 a.m.: Dangerous Hurricane Now Making Its Way from Foreign Waters to Your Home Because Joe Biden Isn’t Strong Enough
4—6 a.m.: Cloud Caravan Shaped Like All Your Worst Nightmares Is Almost to Your Neighborhood
6—8 a.m.: Worst Weather Moments of the Obama Administration
8—9:30 a.m.: Tucker Carlson Asks Whether Anyone (Dr. Fauci?) Can Explain Why Clouds Look So Much Like Sheep If We Aren’t Being Programmed to Obey
9:30—11 a.m.: Static Shots of Trump Golf Courses Where the Weather Is Very Nice
11 a.m. — noon: Sinkhole Given Free Hour to Defend Itself
Noon — 1 p.m.: Paid Programming — MyPillow Also Serves as a Personal Flotation Device Not That You’ll Ever Need It
1—2 p.m.: It’s Not Raining Anywhere We Have Sent Correspondents! America Is Doing Much Better Than Other Stations Would Have You Believe!
2—3 p.m.: You Shouldn’t Feel Bad About These Wildfires
3—4 p.m.: We Just Broke a 100-Year Heat Record in Five States, But They Wouldn’t Call It “Permafrost” If It Were Not Permanent Frost
4—5 p.m.: Sixteen Hurricanes the Mainstream Media Is Trying to Keep From You and Refuses to Name Yet
5—5:30 p.m.: Rainbows: Fine in The Privacy of Their Own Homes But I Don’t Need One Over My Workplace
5:30—6 p.m.: Paid Programming — These Sunglasses Are Stronger Than the Sun Itself! They Have the Properties of Copper!
6—7 p.m.: Things Used to Be Better When I Was Younger, But the Weather Wasn’t One of Them, The Weather Has Always Been Like This and It’s Fine
7—8 p.m.: Lightning: Why Is God Upset? Our Panel Weighs In.
*Primetime lineup*
8—9 p.m.: It’s Raining! Counterpoint: No, It’s Not!
9—10 p.m.: I Personally Have Never Experienced a Derecho and Don’t Think They’re a Problem
10—11 p.m.: Could the Flood Be Because of Something Your Child’s Public School Teacher Is Doing Wrong?
11 p.m. — midnight: Greg Laughs About the Weather
Midnight — 2 a.m.: Two Hours of People Saying “Merry Christmas” in July”
The ease with which one can write convincing satire about Fox News‘ upcoming weather service is a sure indication that the parody captures the true absurdity of their propagandistic methods and elevation of their politiclas agenda over the truth.
Enjoy the brief days left in this country without a polarizing influence on meteorological contorversies while you still can.
With Fox Weather on the way, the safest course of action is to stay indoors, lock all your doors and tape all your windows, and, most importantly, turn off all of the electronic devices that could conceivably be able to tune into this new excuse to make Rupert Murdoch and his family even richer than they already are.
For Fox Weather, the forecast is for environmental disinformation and the faux patriotism of American exceptionalism and perpetually blue skies under authoritarian GOP rule.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Alexandra Petri at The Washington Post.
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