Bill O'Reilly's Departure From Fox News & More

Incredibly shocked to learn of Bill O'Reilly's firing yesterday. But then again, not so much.

Ever since James and Lachlan (Rupert Murdock's sons) moved into their powerful positions as Executive co-Chairs, I've noticed a subtle and gradual shift at Fox News.

Little by little the older, more conservative hosts/pundits seem to be given less and less prime time exposure, while the younger and more moderate ones take center stage.

In addition, many of these younger and newer Contributors are former Obama staff and/or are affiliated with the three major networks.

Now ...  nothing wrong with keeping up with the times, wanting to expand your audience to include the next, younger generation and those with opposing views. After all Fox News touts itself as Fair and Balanced. Gotta at least somewhat live up to that moniker.

However, with this change is a subtle but no less major shift in opinion and coverage, where a more politically correct atmosphere echoing the NYT's, WaPo, NBC, ABC, CNN is becoming more prevalent.

And why is the above happening?

Could have something to do with James and Lachlan taking over.

My research shows that Lachlan votes Democrat and supported Hilary Clinton. While James leans moderate Republican.  So it makes sense that they may be trying to move the channel more to the center or even to the left in order to reflect their own biases.

Thus getting rid of Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly.  What could provide more justification, not to mention a politically correct reason, for the brothers to oust these two, than the sexual harassment  issue? How does one ever truly fight the 'he said, she said' battle and win?

However, with the above being said, it's interesting that neither O'Reilly or Ailes ever fought against or denied outright (that I know of) the accusations of sexual harassment in a public way.

So maybe they are true.

Or it could be possible that they knew they didn't have a prayer in the court of public opinion and thus quietly settled out of court in order to avoid a media circus, even though the accusations might have been false.  
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I tend to think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

That O'Reilly & Ailes have probably acted inappropriately, but never thought in a million years they'd get called to the carpet because of their powerful positions. If there was rape or any serious physical abuse going on, no doubt we would have known about it a long time ago.

Regardless of whether the firing of Ailes and O'Reilly was justified or not, FNC is no longer the station it used to be. And in some ways, by both Ailes and O'Reilly getting the boot, they are a reflection of that change and also of what's to come.

Whether these changes are organic or manipulated by the brothers who now run it, I'm not really sure.

But gone seems to be the cutting edge reporting.

I'm finding shows like Sharyl Attkisson's Full Measure much more informative and hard hitting.

Also watching more of CRTV,  the conservative online news channel with shows hosted by Mark Levin, Michelle Malcolm, etc. These anchors all used to be regular contributors to FNC. But for whatever reason, they're rarely seen anymore.

Could it be that Internet tv is slowly becoming the wave of the future and thus will eventually fill the need for a conservative voice that Fox now seems to be gearing away from?

As I always say, only time will tell.