Rupert Murdoch could, of course, have founded a respectable center-right news channel, but what would have been the fun in that? Nobody would have watched it. Instead, he created a house organ for the Reactionary faction of the GOP, with just enough real news to be taken seriously. It mirrored his populist newspapers, but with a vastly larger and more right-wing audience. The results speak for themselves.
It is in the financial interests of Fox to constantly stoke outrage in the base, all the way up to the line of provoking an insurrection, but not crossing that line. The events of January 6 show what a dangerous game that was.
The radicalization of parts of the right has several causes, but the emergence of Fox leads the pack. The Trump presidency was Fox made flesh. Murdoch has a lot to answer for.