 Murdoch got Fox News into every cable subscriber's house by completely inverting the cable media business model. Normally cable providers would pay carriage fees to networks to be allowed to carry said network's programming (so, for example, Cable Company X pays Cartoon Network \[insert money\] per year to have the rights to broadcast Cartoon Network programming in their packages). Fox News did the opposite: when it was first starting, they actually paid cable providers to carry the network to ensure as much access as possible.

(As a side note: this wasn't exactly a *new* strategy. TBS became a cable mainstay because they didn't charge carriage fees. CNN took a similar tack, particularly because the 24 hour news model was untested and no one really wanted to pay for such a gamble. But a network actively paying cable providers to carry their content was practically unheard of.)

Then you have the cross-selling. Ailes and Murdoch had good relationships (personal and professional) with various conservative darlings (Rush Limbaugh being one of the biggest). Those voices pushed Fox News *hard*, likely on the urging of Ailes and Murdoch.

Also, a lot of Boomers and older came of age and lived in an era where the talking heads on the news *simply didn't lie*. It just wasn't something that happened. They never had to engage the news, consider verification, analyze the source. When Cronkite or Rather said something, that's because *that's how it was*. Being suspicious of news media is just something that generation never had to do.

(It's also probably why that generation was *so paranoid -* perhaps rightly so - of information on the early internet - because it was a media that *did* require active and vigilant verification, and it's a skill that wasn't really in their toolbox. Journalists took care of the verification, they just had to have a trusted news source).

Then you have the simple fact that the Boomers are frankly just a conservative generation as a whole, and they always have been. They had been watching (honest) news media taking down conservative politicians and talking points for years, and when Fox News came along? Finally they had a "news" channel that didn't challenge their people or beliefs. It was an easy match.

And, finally, IMO, Fox News also had luck on their side - a mere year and a half after it was founded, President Clinton was impeached for the Lewinsky Scandal, and that gave the channel and its pundits all of the ammunition it needed to really weaponize their propaganda and radicalize their viewers - *and* get them angry at broadcast and other cable news media for their supposed "spin" to protect Clinton.

&gt;Is it just the only channel they watched before more options were available?

 Pre-cable-news, yeah, there were basically 3 options for your television news: ABC, NBC, and CBS. CNN obviously changed the game entirely - both by putting the news on a cable channel, as well as creating the "24 hour news" model - and then NBC took the plunge when they partnered with Microsoft to create MSNBC. Fox would come half-a-year after that.

In terms of the big cable and broadcast news giants, Fox is actually the baby of the bunch. Its viewers actively chose it in a market that already had quite a few options.

If you're particularly interested in Ailes and the rise of Fox News, [Rolling Stone did a pretty in-depth piece](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-244652/), although fair warning: it is a long read (as is most of *Stone*'s journalistic pieces).

**TL;DR:** Fox News was created explicitly as a spin factory to protect Republicans, and it was pushed (at great monetary cost) to viewers in an attempt to insulate them from damaging-to-conservatives news reporting. With that said, though, the people watching it always had options and often had the example of *actual* journalists to compare Fox's drivel to, so it's also on them for falling prey to such bald-faced liars (or just being so intellectually lazy/dishonest as to actively immerse themselves in media that panders to them and tells them exactly what they want to hear).

Also, read the *Rolling Stone* piece, it really does a good job of putting the pieces together.Title: A winning memoir! Review: Wendy McClure's memoir is a funny, heartfelt story about modern life as a twenty- or thirty-something. McClure happens to be larger than the average/ideal/typical/whatever single female. She's a girl who sits in a bar, waiting for friends, and gets told by an older, drunk man that she would be much happier and fulfilled if only she could buckle down and lose thirty pounds. When she does decide to lose weight, her goals include being able to shop in any store she wants, to be judged on something other than her looks, to blend in like any other smart, funny, single woman.While a weight loss journey is what ties the entire narrative together, the success of the book rests on McClure's spot-on observations and humor. I enjoyed my time with Wendy, and I'd love to read more about her life. Don't miss out on her book of kooky Weight Watcher's recipe cards: The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan. Does this product review convey a negative or positive sentiment?
Positive<reponame>smwa/wistfulbooks
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