Fox News Seems to Have Removed Its Ticker as the Stock Market Collapsed

Whether you agree with all the economic experts who think that Donald Trump's tariff policy could be a disaster for the global policy or with Trump himself, who says that it won't, the immediate ramifications have been remarkably straightforward. Following Trump's announcement of the tariffs on Wednesday, the stock market has gone into freefall, and it's not clear what will help it recover.

As the stock market collapsed, it of course became major news across TV and online. Fox News, though, was put in a bit of a pickle. The network, which, let's face it, quite likes Donald Trump and wants him to be liked by its viewers, had to decide when and how to cover the story. Here's what we know about what they decided to do and why it caused so much ire online.

After the DOW Index dropped almost 1,700 points on Thursday, several people online noted that Fox appeared to have removed the stock market ticker that it normally has on its broadcasts.

“Dear #MAGA, Did you notice today that for the first time ever I’m told Fox news has removed the stock market ticker from all their shows? They don’t want you to see what is really happening,” one person wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

"The stock market is SO bad that FOX News took the ticker off of its screen for the first time in their 28-year history. Read that again," another person added.

Speaking with TV Insider, a rep for Fox News denied the claim that Fox always has the stock ticker up to begin with.

“These claims on social media that this is the first time in 28 years the ticker has come down are not accurate. The stock ticker has never been deployed on screen on a full-time basis," they said.

The rep also pointed out that the ticker remained up on Fox Business all day, which seems to suggest that they weren't trying to hide the information from all of their viewers. If they did take down the ticker, a cursory look through Fox clips does seem to suggest that the ticker isn't up all the time.

Although the story of Fox taking down its ticker may have been only partially true, what is undeniable is that Fox is attempting to steer its viewers toward a certain framing of the tariffs and their impact on the economy.

At one crucial moment on April 3, as stocks were collapsing, their chyron read, "stocks tumble but this is no time to panic," reinforcing the administration's line about the tariffs being necessary pain.

The stock market collapse is likely to have plenty of people concerned about their retirement funds and their jobs. Those watching Fox, though, will get the rosiest version of the story.