The TV Set: The Seven Stages Of Fox News Grief

Without doubt the best TV of the past week has been Fox News post-Obama election win.

Far from "fair and balanced", Fox anchors became raw and unbalanced - there was the kind of emotional outpouring that reality TV directors would give their right Snooki for. These folk went way off the script.

From the, now infamous, moment when right wing commentator Karl Rove went into denial of the Republican loss, it was quite obvious we were in for a rough ride through the seven stages of grief.

Rove has always loomed large on Fox and so, of course, he was a guest on the news outlet's live coverage of the US election last week. At the point of the evening when all media outlets began to call the election in favour of Barack Obama and the Democrats, Rove challenged the call. The excruciating moment made all the more embarrassing by Rove's insistence that everyone else's figures were faulty. It got to the point where election coverage co-host Megyn Kelly had to hike to the network's tally area and ask their backroom nerds to justify their calling it a night for the Democrats. Never has denial been so beautifully realised in TV drama. Ah, if only Foxtel's other Rove was half as convincing.

From that moment, Fox News became addictive viewing. Well, at least for the two or three days immediately after the Karl Rove meltdown. You see, Fox News believed that the election of Obama four years ago was a glitch. They truly believed that the results of the midterm elections for the House Of Representatives in 2010 was proof of that. In 2010, the US experienced the rise of the ultra-conservative wing of the Republicans, The Tea Party (though they claim to be a non-partisan movement). Not only did hilarity ensue due to Fox News' liberal use of the word 'tea-bagging' (until some party pooper pointed out the term was also sexual slang) but it also led to The Tea Party winning seats. Fox News thought that showed the tide was turning. However, it has since dawned upon the Fox powers-that-be that it may have been Tea Party popularity that was the glitch.

And so after the denial the next six stages of grief landed in quick succession. There was pain - pretty much immediately after the Rove incident. Never had professional anchors appeared on screen looking so agonised. It was hard not to feel sorry them... for the briefest of moments. Because the anger kicked into gear as soon as all the onscreen staff had managed a decent night's kip. Moving fast for a team still mopping up tears, the Fox News site published the article 'Five Ways The Mainstream Media Tipped The Scales In Favour Of Obama'. The gist of this piece became the mantra for Fox News' squawking heads over the next 24 hours [it must be pointed out here that a network pulling in close to five million viewers for its top-rating show The O'Reilly Factor is seriously hard-pushed to not be considered a part of the mainstream media itself].  One commentator spat out the word "excessive" in relation to how the 'lamestream' media laid on its praise for Obama. Over and over again we were reminded that the media nit-picked presidential wannabe Mitt Romney's gaffes and buried stories about the bad economy (just weeks beforehand Fox News had questioned figures showing that the economy was improving under Obama). The anger boiled over best during one of the network's flag ship shows, Hannity. Host Sean Hannity actually snapped at regular pundits who had bet against him over the election results. A sulky Hannity begrudgingly agreed to fork out for the lost bet of a dinner.

Then came the depression. One Fox face almost sobbed about the masses who voted against presidential candidate Mitt Romney, "they ought to be on our side". Then came the 'upward turn' stage when they grasped onto the fact that Republicans held on the majority of seats in the House - "we didn't lose," squealed one joyous commentator. The 'reconstruction' stage followed swiftly as Fox frontpersons blatantly began plotting how to rebrand Republican policies to appeal to those who voted for Obama. The new mantras became "Latino" and "Hispanic". Most of Friday's post-election broadcasts set out to show how Latin-friendly they could be. There was even an hispanic band playing on one program. See, we've already forgotten Fox's unswaying support for the harshest of immigration policies over the years. Hell, we've even forgotten that hours earlier they were blaming Latinos for voting for Obama because, along with all those blacks and sluts, they wanted those free abortions he was dishing out. Nope, now Latinos were a race who fundamentally share Republican Christian values.

This can only mean that the final stage of grief, acceptance and hope, is on the way. This will never be as good television as watching Fox convince us that Democrat followers voted in Obama because they are so dumb they actually believe he's magic. [This 'magic' conspiracy even earnt itself an entire segment on one Fox News program.] Who wants to see hope and acceptance on Fox? Because as Fox News itself learnt from the first Obama election, 'Hope' sucks.