November 26, 2024

Jesse Watters is Fox’s new 8 p.m. host. Advertisers should beware.

Jesse Watters #JesseWatters

Under immense pressure following a record defamation lawsuit, and with ratings down following the departure of Tucker Carlson, Fox News announced a new schedule with host Jesse Watters’ show now airing at 8 p.m. ET. Advertisers should beware, given that the network appears to be lifting up the same extremism that led to its current crisis.

Starting in The O’Reilly Factor days with his “Watters’ World” segments, Jesse Watters honed his frat boy style with smug interviews mocking his subjects alongside blatant racism and sexism. In June 2015, Watters produced a cruel, dehumanizing segment shaming unhoused people in New York City’s Penn Station and stressing that they are breaking the law, juxtaposed against interviews with those who found homeless people to be a nuisance. He made a follow-up segment a month later, agreeing with host Bill O’Reilly at the end that people experiencing homelessness “shouldn’t be allowed to destroy neighborhoods.” (Hosting his own Fox show in September 2022, Watters called homeless people “an invasive species.”)

In May 2016, it was made public that Watters had stalked and harassed journalist Amanda Terkel while she was on vacation seven years earlier, accusing her of “causing ‘pain and suffering’ to rape victims and their families” after she wrote a story that called out O’Reilly’s pattern of victim-blaming rape survivors. (O’Reilly was fired from Fox News in 2017 following years of sexual harassment reports against him, including at least $13 million in settlements.)

In October 2016, Watters produced a widely condemned, racist and stereotype-driven segment in New York City’s Chinatown, asking bystanders questions such as, “Am I supposed to bow to say hello?” “Tell me what’s not made in China?” and, “Do you know karate?” The song Kung Fu Fighting played in the background, and the segment included clips of Watters attempting to do karate.

Here is more of Watters’ despicable commentary on Fox News over the years:

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