There are local versions of the problem Fox News now faces as a flack for Trump. First, the Fox situation, then the local equivalent —
Nationally, the Daily Beast website writes of remarks from a former Fox News contributor & panelist:
[Andy] Levy, who served for 10 years as “ombudsman” and nightly panelist on Fox News late-night show Red Eye until its early 2017 cancellation, added: “Fox News should disavow it, but it kinda can’t because, with a couple of exceptions, they’ve backed themselves into this corner and they’re now the Trump News Network, and that’s their life blood.” Levy is now a regular panelist and senior producer of Cupp’s show.
.@andylevy to @secupp: Fox is now the Trump News Network. https://t.co/3jrBy1rFrl
— SE Cupp Unfiltered (@UnfilteredSE) November 28, 2017
Locally, both established newspapers (Gazette, Daily Union) and websites (Banner) have a similar problem: they’ve tied themselves to an economically ignorant boosterism, now to find that actual conditions undeniably lag local claims. Their own mediocre grasp is That Which Paved the Way for an even worse local, nativist impulse. (It’s also a nativism that doesn’t give a about damn hierarchy, forcing publications to pander, or at least stay silent, in an effort to hold on. See Old Whitewater and Populism.)
These nearby publications share this characteristic with a national one: they’ve backed themselves into a corner, on behalf of bad ideas and bad policies. One may be daily thankful for not making a similar mistake.