9 ms·

Fox45 and Fox News are essentially totally unrelated. You are the unwitting victim of misunderstanding the somewhat complex and historical way TV stations are n

Fox45 and Fox News are essentially totally unrelated. You are the unwitting victim of misunderstanding the somewhat complex and historical way TV stations are named in the US (out of curiosity, what is your approximate age and region you are from? I doubt an older American, raised with broadcast over the air, would ever make this mistake). I will explain: That site is from a local TV news station called "Fox 45 Baltimore" and they have some news. it is a local broadcast (formerly VHF or UHF, idk how digital HD broadcast works these days) TV station and FCC licensee in Baltimore that has nothing to do with Fox News. These licensees exist in neerly every major city, as do NBC, ABC etc affiliates. They harken back to an era of something called "broadcast station networks" in which local stations in different cities formed federations to share programming production costs. this system arose in the 1940s or so I believe. Fox45 and other similar stations are beholden to a broad local audience, albeit skewing older because young people don't watch TV offline much. Fox News on the other hand is a cable TV channel that has nothing to do with those other stations. it was likely founded decades later. the idea that Baltimore would be a "city with a large fox news presence" is so laughable that I really have to imagine you are very young or from somewhere very far from the northeast US. there is also a movie production company you may have heard of called 20th century Fox. it has produced many classics. none of these 3 (and a variety of other companies with the Fox name) have neerly anything to do with each other. I believe it all comes down to licensing the same trademark from each other due to historical mergers, acquisitions, and sales over the last hundred years. The Fox name originated almost a century ago with an ancient early Hollywood company called Fox Films, and later merged with 20th Century something or the other. corporate genealogy is the most monstrously complicated thing you'll ever study so I am sure I mangled many details. this is just what I remember as general common knowledge when and where I grew up. I was born in New Jersey in the 80s for reference. best regards, and enjoy reading more on this topic if it interests you. Wikipedia will be your friend here. Try reading about defunct networks like MBS, UPN, or The WB. or look at the odd Genesis of MSNBC. the MS, a younger reader might be surprised to learn, stands for Microsoft! to be clear I am not criticizing you but rather taking joy in getting to introduce you to a truly complex field of knowledge that you never before realized was right in front of your eyes: the mind bending way corporations and brands with long histories are named. try looking at the corporate genealogy for general electric or IBM or Bayer or the former AOL Time Warner. it's as complex as anything in the software world

jwalgenbach 5y ago
There is not a direct relationship between Fox News and Fox 45. That is true. But... Fox 45 Baltimore is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and corporation with a definite pro-Trump bias, and a history of making editorial decisions pushing stories to the right. So you can say that Fox News and Fox 45 don't have anything to do with each other in a corporate tree, but the are both pushing the far right narrative because they largely follow the same editorial dictates.
- galdosdi 5y ago
  Glad you brought that up, since the concentration of ownership of stations is an entirely separate, but even more serious source of bias. Station ownership is way less obvious to consumers than network affiliation. For example, Sinclair also owns some NBC, ABC, CBS, CW, and Univision stations (a fact I only just looked up myself). I am sure many consumers (like the parent) assume all Fox stations are owned or managed by Fox, NBC stations by NBC, and so on, when it's much more complicated for historical reasons, which is what I want to draw attention to.

jwalgenbach 5y ago

There is not a direct relationship between Fox News and Fox 45. That is true. But... Fox 45 Baltimore is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and corporation with a definite pro-Trump bias, and a history of making editorial decisions pushing stories to the right. So you can say that Fox News and Fox 45 don't have anything to do with each other in a corporate tree, but the are both pushing the far right narrative because they largely follow the same editorial dictates.

galdosdi 5y ago
Glad you brought that up, since the concentration of ownership of stations is an entirely separate, but even more serious source of bias. Station ownership is way less obvious to consumers than network affiliation. For example, Sinclair also owns some NBC, ABC, CBS, CW, and Univision stations (a fact I only just looked up myself). I am sure many consumers (like the parent) assume all Fox stations are owned or managed by Fox, NBC stations by NBC, and so on, when it's much more complicated for historical reasons, which is what I want to draw attention to.