How Would Fox News Have Covered the Watergate Break-in?

By Jon Friedman, June 10, 2022

With the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in fast approaching – June 17, 1972 was the fateful day – there is a great temptation to play a juicy parlor game in these polarizing times. I can’t help but wonder, and speculate about, how Fox News and the rest of the pro-Right American media might have covered such a seismic event.

Oh yes, the U.S. was plenty polarized in 1972. Did you watch any of CNN’s recent excellent Watergate-centric documentary? President Richard Nixon so despised the Washington Post, for instance, that he obsessed about crushing it. While President Donald Trump has made a point of vilifying the New York Times, CNN and others as “fake news” – a grossly incorrect description, by the way – the twisted Nixon felt that he had his reasons for despising the Post. In his landmark media history book, The Powers That Be, author and historian David Halberstam suggests that Post cartoonist Herb Block – aka Herblock – got under Nixon’s thin skin more sharply than any news writer.

History provides us with a good idea of how the 2022 Right wing media would attempt to dismiss and discredit the import of the Watergate caper. The Nixon propaganda machine, remember, dismissed the Watergate caper as a “third-rate” break in.

I imagine the likes of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and the rest of Fox’s partisan Greek chorus would revive that characterization as a mere jumping-off point. It’s easy enough to imagine those Fox personalities brushing aside any outcry about the bungled “burglary” as sour grapes from the Democrats over Sen. Hubert Humphrey’s presidential loss in 1968 and Nixon’s likely re-election by a huge margin in November 1972 (which did happen).

Our modern-day Republican-loving Right wing media would likely hammer on the splintered and weakened state of the Democratic Party, which was in even worse shape in 1972 than President Joe Biden’s administration is in today. Lyndon Johnson’s stunning announcement in early 1968 to not seek re-election opened the door to Bobby Kennedy. After RFK’s assassination, Humphrey snagged the nomination. Dogged by his role in Johnson’s failed Vietnam strategy, Humphrey lost to Nixon and left his party divided. In 1972, Humphrey was damaged goods and Sen. Ed Muskie was hardly charismatic. Sen. George McGovern won the 1972 nomination but got trounced at the polls, winning a single state — Massachusetts.

It’s possible today’s Right wing media might not have even uttered the word “Watergate” throughout 1972, while the Washington Post, the New York Times, CBS, NBC and others became obsessed by the ramifications of the mushrooming scandal. You can almost hear the Fox team chortling about the imminent death of the Democratic Party.

Their enjoyment wouldn’t last, of course. The Watergate hearings, including the revelation about the existence of the tapes that would ultimately sink the Nixon presidency, mesmerized the country in the summer of 1973. Indictments of Nixon’s top aides and sundry other shady characters followed in 1974. Fox would have had no choice but to recognize the importance of the story, though they surely would have taken the opportunity to pummel Watergate Committee chairman Senator Sam Ervin and other Nixon foes.

No doubt, the conservative media would have given Nixon plenty of coverage after he resigned in disgrace in August 1974. He would have had ample opportunity to defend himself and his administration, and to criticize the Left wing media, the Democrats and even some Republicans for undermining him and driving him from office. Eventually, the Fox News crew might even have started calling for his return to the White House.

Sound familiar?

Jon Friedman wrote Jon Friedman’s Media Web column at MarketWatch.com for more than 13 years. He now teaches college in New York State.

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