Sharyl Attkisson - FOX News and CBS News

True story about @FoxNews and @CBSNews In network newsrooms, they typically had other networks playing on television monitors in the newsroom. That was a way they kind of kept track of what the others were doing. As 24 hour cable news was invented, we began adding them to the repertoire. CNN, MSNBC, CNBC could be seen on monitors in the newsroom and individual reporters' offices. Then, along came FOX. I had just begun assignment at the CBS News Washington DC bureau and was interested in the new network. I quickly noticed that FOX had interesting news items sometimes day before the rest of us would pick them up! It seemed to me that we and the other networks weren't monitoring FOX News in real time the way we were obsessively watching other news outlets. Since nobody else seemed to be doing it, I put FOX News on my monitor in my office. Newsrooms are funny because there is a lot of group think and you'd think it would be the opposite. I'm pretty sure I got pegged negatively by some colleagues because I had FOX News on my monitor. The fact is, I was being a responsible news monitor. Nobody else was. I would go into the newsroom and point out stories they had that were good. I would point out examples where we and others would pick up the same story days later. Meantime, FOX News took off audience-wise. One day Les Moonves, who was president and CEO of CBS Television, came to the Washington Bureau. This may be the only time I remember meeting with him there. He called a newsroom meeting in the conference room. Les saw something was happening with the FOX News phenomenon. He posed a question to the room regarding the expanding, exploding Fox audience. "Is FOX News touching upon something we should be paying attention to or is it just pandering to conservatives?" I know what I thought. FOX News was touching something important. Until then, the news had widely been produced for a largely, though not exclusively, liberal audience. If we began diversifying our range and voices, we could pluck into that audience-- and heaven knows we needed audience! I didn't speak up at the meeting. I was the new kid on the block and nobody really wanted to hear what I had to say, in my opinion. Other correspondents and producer did speak up in one unified voice. "They're just pandering to conservatives." "Nothing to pay attention to." I think we all missed an opportunity way back then to recognize we were too often talking past half of America, or a least a sizable chunk. All news outlets have our strengths and flaws, but FOX News resulted in making us examine ourselves and, at times, reluctantly cover stories and issues that we tried to ignore. Congratulations to Fox News for 30 years of work!

— Sharyl Attkisson 🕵️‍♂️💼🥋 (@SharylAttkisson) October 8, 2026

It is amazing the way Legacy Media chose to dismiss FOX News rather than learn from its phenomenal rise.

President Trump's political rise was similar in that he was dismissed by establishment politicos. They refused to learn from President Trump's appeal. They wouldn't acknowledge why his message was so popular. They refused to acknowledge the forgotten men and women of America and lost.