‘Fox Needs to Get the Full Bud Light Treatment’: Conservative Media Expresses Outrage After Fox News Trans Policy Leak
New reporting from the Daily Signal, a conservative publication associated with the Heritage Foundation, sought to spotlight the incongruence between Fox News’ coverage of transgender issues and its own internal policies. The condemnation from others in right-wing media has been as harsh as it has been swift.
According to the Signal, “Fox News employees are allowed to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity, rather than their biological sex, and permitted to dress in alignment with their preferred gender. They must also be addressed by their preferred name and pronouns in the workplace.”
The article, which is based on the leak of an internal handbook, goes on to paint those policies — which comply with New York City non-discrimination law — as part and parcel of a larger agenda, citing the alleged blacklisting of pundit Matt Walsh and a 2022 news segment that admiringly covered a transgender teen in California.
The leak to the Signal comes as Fox News remains under fire from allies of Tucker Carlson over his firing from the network last month. One former producer for Carlson told the Signal that “They [Fox] want you to think it’s this place that supports traditionally conservative values, but in reality, they’re pushing this nonsense behind the scenes.”
In a statement, a spokesman for Fox said the company is “compliant with all Human Rights laws mandated by the cities and states in which we operate, including New York and California.”
Walsh, who works for The Daily Wire, a conservative media company that has seen success with video podcasts and has courted Carlson, reacted to the story by calling for the network to receive “the full Bud Light treatment” from conservative news consumers.
“As @MaryMargOlohan reports for the Daily Signal, Fox News is fully woke on trans ideology. I‘ve been personally blacklisted from appearing on the network because of my stance on the issue. This is confirmed by DS and I’ve heard it off the record from Fox producers,” tweeted Walsh. “There is zero daylight between Fox and MSNBC on the trans issue. Fox needs to get the full Bud Light treatment. They are actively working to suppress conservative voices while promoting leftism in its most radical form. Enough is enough.”
Conservative commentator Erick Erickson took note of Fox boasting about having received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, commenting that it was the “same thing Bud Light wanted.”
“To report this is to essentially forego future Fox News appearances. What does that tell you about how right-wingers feel about Fox at the moment?” asked the Federalist’s Eddie Scarry.
“They were the arbiter of conservative politics for two decades,” lamented Daniel Horowitz of the Blaze.
His colleague Auron MacIntyre submitted that “Fox got rid of Tucker so they could deliver more Caitlyn Jenner conservatism. They’re as woke as any corporation they pretend to rail against.”
“I personally know several employees, some very senior, who hate their local style going along with far left activists and their propaganda terms,” claimed the Daily Caller’s Geoffrey Ingersoll.
Fox has provided extensive coverage of the controversy over the relationship between Bud Light and transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which resulted a major drop in sales for the beer company. In an appearance on the network last week, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called for an investigation into the brand’s efforts to appeal to children.
“If you look at things Dylan Mulvaney has online, it’s things like ‘days of girlhood.’ There’s another video where Dylan Mulvaney is singing, ‘My name is Eloise and I am six.’ There’s another one where Dylan Mulvaney is shopping for Barbie dolls,” said Cruz. “These are clearly things aimed at teenagers and even children younger than teenagers, which violates the rules.”
