“It was just after 7 a.m. on the set of ‘Fox & Friends,’ but the studio already looked like the scene of a college all-nighter.”
This is how the Los Angeles Times’ Matea Gold opens a lengthy profile of the Fox News morning program, which continues to average more Total Viewers than CNN’s American Morning and MSNBC’s Morning Joe combined.
While the success is obvious, “The hosts’ political observations and pungent personal comments have stirred controversy, drawing detractors even as they have raised the show’s profile,” she writes.
The conversation sometimes dips into looser territory (a “master debater” aside between co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, described by Gold) and draws controversy, like in July with the New York Times photo-shopped images that started a war of words, but the program has also been a stop for all major political candidates.
“You have to remember that the mainstream media is not fair and balanced,” said co-host Gretchen Carlson. “I’ve worked there. And so we maybe look a little different because we’re talking about issues that nobody else is.”
Said Doocy: “We take the news seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously.”
Click continued to see Monday’s F&F After the Show Show…