Fox on the run

Created
Wed, 24/05/2023 - 07:00
Updated
Wed, 24/05/2023 - 07:00
Apparently, they just convey quite enough hate and bigotry toward LGBTQ people: On air, Fox News personalities have been endlessly attacking so-called “woke corporations.” But now, Fox News finds itself in the right’s cultural crosshairs — with conservatives accusing it of promoting “trans ideology” in its own workplace. The inciting incident is a Monday morning story in the Daily Signal, the media arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. In the story, reporter Mary Margaret Olohan writes that Fox’s employee handbook allows employees to use “bathrooms that align with their gender identity, rather than their biological sex,” permits them to “dress in alignment with their preferred gender,” and requires that their coworkers use “their preferred name and pronouns in the workplace.” Many of Fox’s rules in this area appear to be in line with state law: The company’s headquarters are in New York, where state law explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity (something Olohan notes in passing but doesn’t dwell on). Fox told me in a written statement, “FOX News Media is compliant with all Human Rights laws mandated by the cities and states in which we operate, including New York and California.” That there’s less to the Daily Signal’s exclusive than meets the eye didn’t stop many on the culture war right from blasting Fox as a sellout. Matt Walsh, an influential anti-trans podcaster at the Daily Wire, led the charge. According to Walsh, Fox is “actively working to suppress conservative voices” — an apparent reference to the network’s ouster of Tucker Carlson — “while promoting leftism in its most radical…