Per reports in Adweek, Variety, and AdAge, Fox News made a presentation to advertisers on May 11 that was as dishonest as anything you'll find on Fox News. Let’s go through some reasons why.

1. Nothing in any of these reports suggests the presentation mentioned Fox News prime time, which boasts the network's largest audience and would be the biggest draw for advertisers if Fox were a normal network. The exclusion is for good reason: Those dishonest and bigoted shows have become advertising wastelands, and it’s easier to pretend that they don’t exist.

2. Fox executives portrayed the network as center-right. Notably, the network did this without ever mentioning Fox prime-time programming, which is a hotbed of nativist, antisemitic, and simply deranged conspiracy theories. And while executives claim to be center-right, the network’s personalities have played a key role in purging Trump critics from power.

3. Fox executive Jeff Collins claimed that “new personalities” like Peter Doocy and Kayleigh McEnany will help attract “next-gen” viewers under age 49. McEnany, a garden-variety Trumpist pundit both before and after her stint as Trump’s press secretary, is most well-known for how easily she lies. Peter Doocy, by contrast, is a Fox News legacy who bumbles his way through supercharging right-wing lies.

4. Fox News is pitching advertisers on the idea of a Fox Weather product. The network has a long history of explicitly lying about climate change. And make no mistake, it’s still telling those lies today. Fox even mocks the term “extreme weather.”

5. Fox executives portrayed Fox Nation as a haven of “feature documentaries, travel series and other lifestyle programming.” This is misleading. Data show that extremist and political programming led by former President Donald Trump and Fox host Tucker Carlson is actually driving growth of the platform. (And for the record, this “lifestyle” programming also includes things like extremist Fox host Jeanine Pirro visiting castles and Tomi Lahren offering daily political rantings; one attempt to start a lifestyle show on the platform had a QAnon conspiracy theorist as a host; and Fox parted ways with other Fox Nation hosts after they pushed deranged conspiracy theories about the pandemic.) By any measure, Fox Nation offers the same misinformation that you see on Fox News.

6. Fox executive Collins hilariously claimed that “lighter fare” from Fox News is found in “feel-good reporting throughout its daytime news lineup.” This is quite simply a lie. Media Matters has watched Fox News’ daytime programming for years, and it’s as full of grievance-mongering as ever. But even beyond all the individual examples from the last four months, data show Fox’s daytime programming has ramped up clips from Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham (but especially Carlson). This move came specifically in reaction to Newsmax’s success in siphoning away viewers with even more over-the-top lies than Fox spun about the election. Fox’s daytime programming is the same as the rest of Fox -- despite the network’s broken promise to advertisers about the day-side shows.

7. Fox executives are all-in on Greg Gutfeld, and they want his show to be a draw for advertisers. Gutfeld is a former magazine editor turned right-wing pundit, best known for his presence as a contrarian co-host on The Five and his penchant for lying about former President Donald Trump’s praise for neo-Nazis. Gutfeld! features a panel of extremists and pundits including a Fox Nation host reported for sexual harassment, who riff on the news of the day. Aside from the bad jokes, it’s hard to tell it apart from the rest of pro-Trump Fox.

8. Fox is now selling its audience. In what comes across as a tacit admission that the network cannot sell its programming, Fox’s Collins claimed that Fox’s audience will “buy a lot of products from our advertisers.” Given Fox’s proclivity to spin up product-related “cancel culture” events, from Goya to MyPillow to Mr. Potato Head, this can be read as both a promise and a threat. But perhaps Fox’s audience members would appreciate being told that they are now the product.

Fox News receives more funding from cable subscriber fees than it does from advertisers -- but the advertiser money only serves to add to the bottom line of a company fundamentally built around extremist lies. After the Trump years, people know that the network is about, so executives are trying to reposition their offering as a lifestyle brand. There’s no reason anyone has to underwrite that. There are other ways to reach that audience that don’t involve funding this hate and deceit.