Fox News is a “destructive propaganda machine” whose right-wing hosts “don’t really have rules” and push “a political agenda” over “facts.” The network is “assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law,” “fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers,” and “wittingly harming our system of government for profit” while producing “birther-like coverage” that “feels like an extension of the Trump White House.”

That’s what current and former Fox employees have said since Donald Trump was elected president and his administration and the network effectively merged.

Big names like Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace have sought to hold space at Fox for more responsible reporting while publicly criticizing their more conspiracy-minded colleagues. Less prominent staffers keep quiet publicly but anonymously denounce the network and its biggest stars to other news outlets. And a handful have quit after years or even decades at the network, condemning Fox as they left.

Carl Cameron, Fox’s former chief political correspondent, is a member of that last group. One of Fox’s first employees, Cameron spent more than two decades reporting from the political campaign trail before retiring from the network in August 2017.

Cameron told CNN’s Brian Stelter that he had left in part because “the opinion hosts in prime time and elsewhere on Fox had become more than I could stand.”

“I have no objection to opinion hosts,” he added, “but I do believe that it’s important that the information be accurate, fact-based, verifiable, and information that helps as opposed to hurt people in their effort to make a good decision when it comes to our politics.” He later said that the access some Fox hosts have to Trump “is questionable, if not dangerous,” adding that they “need to be understood as allied” with the president.

Former network strategic analyst Ralph Peters did a media tour after declining to renew his contract last March and criticized Fox’s sinister turn toward Trump. Bill Kristol, who spent years as a network contributor before leaving in 2012, has also slammed the network since Trump’s election. And longtime Fox reporters Adam Housley and Conor Powell both reportedly left due to similar concerns with the network’s direction. This group of five spent nearly 70 years combined at Fox.

Fox’s internal critics deserve few accolades. It may have taken Trump’s election for them to see it, but the network’s bigotry, conspiracy theories, and partisan machinations were built into its business model from the very beginning. And the effort they make to silo off the network’s “news” division and focus their critique solely on the “opinion” hosts shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the “news” division’s purpose in Fox’s corrupt propaganda machine.

But it’s still striking that so many long-serving Fox employees have concluded that the network is an unrestrained organ of the White House. If even they can no longer lie to themselves about where they worked, the situation is quite alarming.

Former Foxers slam network as “propaganda machine” rife with “partisan misinformation”

Carl Cameron, former Fox chief political correspondent

Cameron, who had spent over two decades at Fox and served as a longtime political correspondent covering campaigns, left the network in 2017. He had a long record of promoting conservative politicians, organizations, and talking points. Cameron: Fox’s “right-wing hosts drowned out straight journalism with partisan misinformation.” In a video promoting his new media venture, Front Page Live, Cameron said: “I was one of Fox’s first hires. The idea of fair and balanced news appealed to me. But over the years, the right-wing hosts drowned out straight journalism with partisan misinformation. I left.” [YouTube, 6/24/19] Cameron: The access Fox hosts have to Trump “is questionable, if not dangerous. It's not normal,” they are “allied.” In an interview with CNN, Cameron said he left Fox because “the opinion hosts in prime time and elsewhere on Fox had become more than I could stand,” suggesting that their commentary is inaccurate and “hurts people in their effort to make a good decision when it comes to our politics.” He later added, “The access that some at Fox have in the entertainment side to the president is questionable, if not dangerous. It's not normal,” suggesting that Fox figures who have such access to Trump “need to be understood as allied.” [CNN, Reliable Sources, 7/7/19] Ralph Peters, former Fox strategic analyst Peters, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel, was a Fox strategic analyst from 2009 to 2018. His history of inflammatory rhetoric at the network included regular denunciations of Islam (“you can’t say it’s a religion of peace”) and then-President Barack Obama, whom he called “the reincarnation of Pontius Pilate” who “romanticizes Islam” and “despises the men who served honorably” in the U.S. military. In 2015, Peters was suspended for calling Obama a “total pussy” on-air. Peters: Fox is “wittingly harming our system of government for profit.” In a blistering March 2018 email to his Fox colleagues, Peters said he was not renewing his contract because the network “is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers” and has become “a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration.” He added: When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as [then-special counsel] Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of ‘deep-state’ machinations--I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit. [BuzzFeed, 3/20/18] Peters: “With the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine.” In an interview with CNN, Peters said, “For years, I was glad to be associated with Fox. It was a legitimate conservative and libertarian outlet, and a necessary one. But with the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine, and I don't do propaganda for anyone.” He also stated that Fox is doing a “great deal of damage” to the country and that the hosts who attack Mueller are “doing it for ratings and profit” and “doing a great grave disservice to our country.” [CNN.com, 6/7/18] Peters: “Trump idolaters and the merrily hypocritical prime-time hosts are destroying the network.” In a Washington Post op-ed, Peters wrote that he left the network because “Fox’s assault on our constitutional order intensified, spearheaded by its after-dinner demagogues.” He claimed to have been blacklisted from appearing on Fox to discuss Trump’s ties to Russia because he disputed “the party line” that Mueller’s probe was a “witch hunt.” He concluded, “Trump idolaters and the merrily hypocritical prime-time hosts are destroying the network — no matter how profitable it may remain.” [The Washington Post, 3/30/18] Bill Kristol, former Fox contributor Kristol, the neoconservative founder of The Weekly Standard and one of the leading promoters of the Iraq War, was a Fox contributor from 2002 to 2012. Kristol: Fox is now mostly “birther-like coverage.” In a 2018 interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Kristol said that “Fox was always of course somewhat conservative,” but that now “75 percent of it seems to be birther-like coverage of different issues.” He added that there’s been “a gradual increasing of recklessness” on Fox, citing as an example host Tucker Carlson, whose commentary Kristol said is “close now to racism, white — I mean, I don’t know if it’s racism exactly — but ethno-nationalism of some kind.” [CNBC.com, 1/25/18] Kristol: “It’s just propaganda.” Kristol told The New Yorker that Fox has “changed a lot. Before, it was conservative, but it wasn’t crazy. Now it’s just propaganda.” [The New Yorker, 3/4/19]