Fox News went from considering breaking up with Donald Trump to wholeheartedly embracing him in 2021

The Washington Post

"In the weeks before the 2020 election, as Fox News executives and luminaries came to terms with its possible outcome, some began to see in it a long-awaited opportunity — a chance to break up with Donald Trump," explains The Washington Post's Sarah Ellison. "Even the president sensed a growing distance from the network that was once so closely aligned with him...The sentiment was held most fervently on Fox’s news side and in its Washington bureau, according to current and former Fox News personalities familiar with the dynamic who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations. Many felt the network’s identity had become too tightly bound up with its opinion hosts — some of whom had become not just on-air cheerleaders but behind-the-scenes advisers for a president adored by their viewers — at the expense of the organization’s old self-forged image as a 'fair and balanced' news operation. Yet the post-Trump era opened for Fox with a ratings drop that quickly prompted a recalibration of those 2021 visions. Now, one year later, the dream some harbored of distancing from Trump is long over. The biggest threat Fox now faces is a pair of looming lawsuits from two voting technology companies that claim the network, far from turning away from Trump, allowed Trump-allied personalities — including on-air hosts as well as guests — to falsely malign them with bogus conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud in 2020. Over the course of the year, Fox managed to reassert itself as the No. 1 ranked cable programmer — and wholeheartedly realigned itself with the former president and his supporters."

ALSO:

• Fox News appears to be okay with Jesse Watters' and Lara Logan's derogatory remarks about Dr. Anthony Fauci
• Fox News hosts acknowledge they're working remotely amid Omicron spike
• Fox News "won" 2021, rising from last place to crushing CNN and MSNBC