Fox News Channel has finally dropped its longtime “Fair & Balanced” slogan, as first reported by New York Magazine’s Gabe Sherman.
According to Sherman, the decision was made last August by Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy, because the phrase had “been mocked.”
Other taglines over the years have included: “We Report, You Decide,” as well as “The Most Powerful Name in News.”
This decision to drop “Fair & Balanced” comes across as another way of the network separating itself from the legacy of the disgraced late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who created the slogan when he launched the network in 1996.
“If you come out and you try to do right-wing news, you’re gonna die. You can’t get away with it,” Ailes allegedly once told a reporter.
Sherman writes:
Inside Fox, Ailes held “Fair & Balanced” seminars with staff members. “He would call a group of senior producers and make you watch the channel and he’d point out stuff, like a banner that’s slightly liberal,” a senior producer told me. “He would say, ‘The news is like a ship. If you take hands off the wheel, it pulls hard to the left.’” Ailes also used “Fair & Balanced” when making hiring decisions, such as saying a job candidate “wasn’t ‘fair & balanced,’” because the person went to a college he didn’t like.
A Fox News spokesperson says the network is dropping the slogan from marketing and promos, but that the move won’t influence programming or editorial choices.