I guess if you are going to do a job, you should make sure and do it right. In this case, Fox News’ job appears to be fully and totally destroying their viewer base.

Today, Kayleigh McEnany held a press conference on behalf of the president. This was part of an ongoing effort to keep the public abreast of what efforts were being made in regards to legal challenges involving the election. To the extent that fraud was discussed at the presser, it was done by citing actual events that have been largely confirmed to have happened.

Fox News didn’t care, though. They not only cut away, Neil Cavuto stupidly and arrogantly announced that they could not show the presser “in good conscience” because they couldn’t “verify” some of the claims.

Note the Twitter “warnings” on these tweets as well.

Fox News cuts away from the Trump campaign press conference with Neil Cavuto saying that they "can't in good countenance continue showing this" when @PressSec says that Democrats are "welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting" in the election pic.twitter.com/0d5B5cJ0D8

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 9, 2020

This infantilization of the American people by the news media is disgraceful and dangerous. Let us hear what government officials say and then do your editorializing. You’re not our parents. https://t.co/my0gMPoxB4

— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) November 9, 2020

As David Marcus (of The Federalist and Post) explains, this is asinine infantilization of the citizenry. We are all capable of hearing the claims made by McEnany and judging them via whatever merits we chose to apply. What we don’t need is a self-righteous “news” network censoring pressers from elected officials because that news network doesn’t like the opinions being expressed. And in the end, charging that the Biden campaign doesn’t care about fraud is simply an opinion (though one that is backed by plenty of evidence). Is Fox News going to start cutting away from Biden anytime he questions the motives of a Republican? Somehow, I seriously doubt it.

Meanwhile, Fox News’ ratings continue to collapse.

BREAKING – Fox News ratings crashed on Saturday to record lows behind CNN and MSNBC. Before the election, Fox constantly dominated CNN and MSNBC by more than double in viewership

— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) November 9, 2020

The gap between Fox News and CNN has shrunk greatly, something that most wouldn’t have thought possible just a few months ago. But this is what happens when you continually spit in the face of your viewership. No one is asking for Fox News to actively be biased on the hard news side or lie to their viewers. What is being asked is that they not censor material in a misguided attempt to “protect” people from “misinformation.” It’s absolutely insane that they would even attempt this. It’s the kind of thing CNN does, and Fox News is supposed to be better than that.

If they think Tucker Carlson is going to continue to save them, I think they may be mistaken. Heck, who knows how long Carlson and the other ratings dominators at the network even stay there long term? Things are obviously moving in a direction that is going to endear them to CNN fans, but will destroy the viewership that has built the network into what it is. That’s their choice, but it’s a really, really stupid one.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)