NewsNation, the cable news network long marketed as “unbiased,” is facing backlash as current and former employees have accused it of lurching right to appease the Trump administration.
The network’s parent company, Nexstar, is seeking to acquire Tegna, which owns 64 television stations in the U.S., in a deal valued at $6.2 billion if approved by the Federal Communications Commission.
President Donald Trump has voiced approval for the merger, posting on his Truth Social platform that there needs to be “more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks.”
“Letting Good Deals get done like Nexstar—Tegna will help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level,” the president posted earlier this month.
“A lot of people within the network believe that the network has gone hard right to appeal to Trump and Brendan Carr,” one former employee told Status.
In recent months, the network has made several high-profile hiring decisions that appear to make the network more Trump-friendly.
The channel recently hired former Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich as a primetime anchor. Her show is described by the network as “a conservative take on the day’s events while welcoming all viewpoints. The goal: cutting through left-right bias in pursuit of plain facts and honest analysis.”
Some employees told Status they viewed her hiring as a sign that the network was moving toward a Fox News knockoff, especially as Nexstar and Tenga seek approval from Trump’s FCC for the merger.
FCC chairman Brendan Carr congratulated Pavlich on social media shortly after NewsNation announced it would give her a primetime show.
Pavlich came under particular fire from employees for using Trump talking points related to the ICE detention of five-year-old Liam Ramos in Minnesota. She claimed the boy had not been detained by ICE, a lie the Trump administration had repeatedly said.
One current employee described Pavlich’s remarks to Status as “predictable,” noting that she often promotes “pro-Trump garbage.”
In addition to Palvich, the network has hired other pro-Trump commentators, including Batya Ungar-Sargon, who hosts a weekend talk show on the network, and several Fox News veterans such as Laura Ingle, Chris Stirewalt, and Connell McShane.
Employees said the rightward lurch feels calculated and executives have expressed interest in avoiding any reporting that would antagonize Trump.
One former NewsNation employee said, “Trump obviously needs the media to express fealty and help him tell his narrative, or get behind it, and they seem willing to do that.”
Still, the network has just a fraction of the viewers that other cable news networks get each day. Between January 19 and February 11, Katie Pavlich Tonight averaged 107,000 total viewers, compared to that same timeframe when Fox News averaged 2.6 million viewers and the right-wing network Newsmax saw an average of 183,000 viewers, suggesting that the right-wing cable sphere is already crowded as NewsNation attempts to carve out its own portion of viewers.
The Daily Beast reached out to a NewsNation representative for comment.
Nexstar came under fire last year and was accused of attempting to cozy up to the Trump administration to secure approval of its merger with Tenga. Nexstar preempted Jimmy Kimmel Live! on its ABC-affiliated stations due to a monologue Kimmel delivered after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
At the time, Carr had threatened punitive action, including revoking the broadcasting licenses of ABC stations that kept Kimmel on the air, all while the multi-billion-dollar merger sat before him.
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