Fox News faces backlash from company’s creative side
Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan announced Tuesday that he will leave Fox’s TV production studio, citing his personal disgust with Fox News as the reason.
Fox News and Fox’s TV studio are both owned by 21st Century Fox. Levitan said on Twitter that he will leave even if the studio changes ownership, as the parent company is considering acquisition offers from the Walt Disney Co. and Comcast.
“I look forward to seeing #ModernFamily through to the end and then, sale or no sale, setting up shop elsewhere,” wrote Levitan, whose fouryear production deal with the studio is up in July.
Modern Family has long been the highest-rated comedy on ABC — entering its 11th season this fall — and its syndicated repeats are a staple of Fox-owned TV stations and cable’s USA Network.
Levitan’s announcement came after he joined film director Paul Feig and Seth MacFarlane, the creator and star of the Fox TV hits Family Guy and The Orville, on social media in recent days to criticize Fox News’ consistent support of President Donald Trump’s policies and posturing.
Such open criticism of Fox News coming from within Fox’s own creative community marks an unusual level of discord within a sprawling media company that has long managed to contain a wide range of dissenting viewpoints.
But internal tensions have boiled over in the wake of Fox News’ coverage of the Trump administration and its policies toward immigration.
Fox’s prime-time commentators have been among the staunchest defenders of the administration’s policy decision to separate and detain children who illegally cross the border with their parents — an action roundly criticized by Democrats and Republicans.
Levitan’s disdain for Fox News runs deeper, as he said the network’s “23-hour-a day support for the NRA, conspiracy theories and President Trump’s lies gets harder to swallow every day as I drive onto that lot to make a show about inclusion.”
The hour that Levitan is excluding is presumably the afternoon newscast with anchor Shepard Smith.
Levitan added: “Fox Studio has been a wonderful home for most of my career — so many amazing people there who share the concerns about @Fox News but aren’t in a position to speak out.”
MacFarlane wrote on Sunday that he was “ashamed” to be associated with 21st Century Fox, citing Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson’s recent statement to viewers that they should ignore all other news sources.
On Tuesday, MacFarlane made a $2-million donation to National Public Radio and a $500,000 donation to Los Angeles-area NPR station KPCC.
Feig also denounced Fox News’ coverage of Trump’s immigration policy in a tweet.