From Brian Kilmeade to Maria Bartiromo: Meet the Fox News hosts vying for the 7 p.m. timeslot

Slate

As Justin Peters points out, Fox News is using the 7 p.m. for tryouts for a new opinion show -- replacing what has long been a news timeslot -- by focusing on the same issue -- cancel culture. "Fox News has perfected the creation and monetization of moral panics as a means of reinforcing conservative tribal identity," says Peters. "What’s new here, more or less, is the network’s timing. The 7 p.m. slot on Fox News has historically been reserved for programming from the network’s news side. For decades, led by a handful of broadly respectable hosts, this time block offered Fox viewers the sort of interviews, reportage, and commentary that, though conservative-leaning, was meant to compete with other news programs on broadcast and cable stations across America. Since January, though, Fox News has been working to bring 7 p.m. more directly in line with the rest of its opinionated evening programming—and to find a permanent host who cares less about the news than about owning the libs. For the past two months, a rotating cast of guest hosts has taken over the not-quite-prime-time slot previously occupied by The Story With Martha MacCallum, which has moved to afternoons. These hosts have spent a week at a time regurgitating the same sorts of stories seen elsewhere on the network, with each trying to bring some personal flair to set them apart from the competition. The contenders range from old Fox News favorites to relatively new faces, former business reporters to former Real World participants, braying British-accented Canadians to honey-toned South Carolinians. None of the options is great. Kilmeade, said by some to have an inside track on the job, has been on the network for decades and has said approximately three thoughtful things in that time. Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo has pro-Trump bona fides—in a recent stint on Fox News Primetime, Bartiromo scored a live interview with Trump, and also cried on air while reminiscing about his corporate tax cuts—but is also a named defendant in Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News over its feckless amplification of the former president’s stolen-election lies." ALSO: Lara Trump's new Fox News gig will essentially be a campaign ad if she runs for U.S. Senate.