Why Fox News was surprisingly hard on the 2016 GOP candidates

The conservative news network has turned into a drill sergeant

Fox News anchors moderate the first GOP debate
(Image credit: Getty Images)

When the Republicans announced a few months ago that they were going to eschew the "mainstream" media in favor of having their presidential primary debates moderated by people from conservative news outlets, some mocked them for wanting to stay within the right's cozy information bubble. At the time, I thought it was a good idea, not only because those mainstream media figures have done such a miserable job at primary debates in the past, but because conservatives are actually more likely to ask Republican candidates the right questions in a primary debate. They understand what primary voters care about, they appreciate the rifts within the party, and they might actually have an incentive to ask tougher questions.

And that's exactly what we got Thursday night. Judging by what I saw on Twitter while the debate was going on, the aggressive questioning from the Fox News anchors came as a surprise to many. But if you understand what Fox is really about, it shouldn't have been.

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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect magazine and a blogger for The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, and he is the author or co-author of four books on media and politics.