Fox News personalities have not been without their controversies in recent years, and Justice With Judge Jeanine host Jeanine Pirro is the center of the latest storm. Pirro, a favorite of President Donald Trump, regularly hosts an opinion show on Saturday nights for Fox News, but she was pulled from the lineup last week. Pirro will be off the air for at least one more of her regular time slots. Justice With Judge Jeanine will be left off the schedule for the second week in a row.
In the place of an episode of Justice With Judge Jeanine in the 9 p.m. ET time slot on March 23, Fox News will re-air the documentary series Scandalous. Fox News hasn't commented on the decision to keep Jeanine Pirro off the air for another week, and Variety reports that the network has declined to elaborate on the recent "scheduling changes." No announcement has been made regarding the next scheduled air date for a new episode, which would air March 30 unless Fox News shuffles the lineup again.
Although Fox News hasn't directly commented on the storm of controversy surrounding Jeanine Pirro as a motivator for pulling her episodes from the air, she certainly has made headlines for her comments on the March 9 broadcast of Justice With Judge Jeanine. She spoke about Minnesota U.S. representative Ilhan Omar in critical terms related to her religion as a Muslim.
Fox News did release a statement regarding Jeanine Pirro's comments on Ilhan Omar, and the network didn't mince words. In the statement, Fox News said that they "strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro's comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar," they do not reflect the views at the network, and "we have addressed the matter with her directly."
There was a subsequent backlash on social media from many following the comments, and some advertisers reportedly are considering pulling their ads from running during Justice With Judge Jeanine. This isn't the first instance of advertisers pulling or considering pulling back from Fox News shows after controversies.
The same thing happened with Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, both of whom remain on the air. A bunch of companies did pull their commercials from Bill O'Reilly's show, which has since been cancelled and O'Reilly ousted. Only time will tell if Justice With Judge Jeanine continues a la The Ingraham Angle or gets the axe like The O'Reilly Factor.
Despite the variety of controversies over the years, Fox News has remained easily on top of the cable news game in the ratings. Its closest competitors -- usually MSNBC and CNN -- generally don't come close to rivaling it. In fact, Fox News has a long streak on top of the competition. Will 2019 be the year that another network gives Fox News a run for its money, or will it be another year of Fox News dominance? MSNBC is inching forward, after all!
We'll have to wait and see. There are still three quarters left in the year, and more developments may still come on the Jeanine Pirro front. There are plenty of other options on the small screen this midseason and streaming on Netflix if Fox News isn't your thing.
