Fox News anchor Sean Hannity (Image: AP/Julie Jacobson)

“Democracy prevails” screamed the page one banner headline in the The Australian this morning. “Joe’s In The House” yelled The New York Post. The Wall Street Journal’s main headline was, “Biden Calls for Unity”. All representative of the tone of Biden’s inauguration speech. All Murdoch owned.

But at Fox News, the Murdoch clan’s collection of rightwing ratbags, there was a different story. To start with the Biden inauguration concert was carried on all networks except, yep, you guessed it, Fox News.

Lachlan Murdoch and his courtiers preferred not to adulterate the right-wing rubbish spewed nightly by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity to a dying audience.

Instead, they used their prime time shows to rage against the new president.

Hannity called Biden “weak” and “cognitively struggling” — themes that Trump’s allies have pursued in the lead-up to last year’s election. He described the speech as “truly unremarkable”, saying it “sounded like an uninspired student council speech”.

Ever tasteful, he said news coverage of the inauguration made him feel like he had to “puke”.

In the previous house, Carlson went after Biden for denouncing white supremacy and domestic terrorism.

The Fox News stars give us a good idea of the tack we can expect from the after dark barkers on Sky News Australia. With Murdoch lackey Col Allan back in Australia and looking over his shoulder, Sky boss Paul “Boris” Whittaker will have his riding orders from the man who dragged the New York Post into the gutter in support of Trump.

So when the Bolter, Gloria Jones, ‘Tony’ Credlin and Rowan Dean recover from the shock of Trump’s defeat and role in the January 6 assault on the US Congress, and return to the airwaves on Sky in the next fortnight, stand by for more of the bile we heard in 2020.

Sky’s crew of barkers don’t think for themselves, Fox News does it for them.