Salon.com > Roger Ailes

Tea Partyers boycott Fox News for being too “left”

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:48:00 +0000

A group of Tea Partyers organized a three-day boycott of Fox News in protest of its coverage of Benghazi, tepid opposition immigration reform, and in general "turning to the left" since the election.

David Freedlander of the Daily Beast reports:

The three-day boycott lasted Thursday morning through Sunday morning, and is the second time this group of activists have gone Fox-free in an effort to steer the coverage. Organizers say a two-day boycott earlier this month knocked 20 percent off of the network’s regular viewership. (A Daily Beast analysis of the same data showed that the boycott had little effect.)

A spokeswoman for Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.

A leader of the boycott, Kathy Amidon, of Nashville, declined an interview, instead directing The Daily Beast to a website, Benghazi-Truth. The website, a single-page, 23,000-word manifesto complete with multicolored fonts, supposedly incriminating videos of Fox News’s complicity in a coverup, and communist propaganda photographs, is kept by someone who identifies himself online as “Proe Graphique,” and who other members of boycott described as someone who works “in New York media.”

Is Roger Ailes the GOP’s worst enemy?

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:49:00 +0000

A question for Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who this week unveiled a nearly 100-page "autopsy" report on the GOP's recent electoral failings that urged the party to soften its image and become more inclusive: Do you think Roger Ailes is more concerned with his new biography hitting the top ten on the best-seller list, or with the Republican Party successfully appealing to more minority voters?

The answer to that question might go a long way in determining whether the GOP has any luck rebranding itself in the coming years. Early indications are Ailes and Fox News have no interest in moderating their form of attack programming, the bare-knuckle brand celebrated in Zev Chafets' new bio of the Fox News president, Roger Ailes: Off Camera.

Dubbed the "Growth & Opportunity Project," the RNC's laundry list of campaign failures urges the party to become more inclusive, tolerant and able to engage and persuade non-believers. Or to at least be able to not turn them off entirely with angry, absolutist rhetoric. "On messaging, we must change our tone," the report concluded.

Roger Ailes calls Obama “lazy” in new book

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:24:00 +0000

Vanity Fair released an excerpt from a new book about Roger Ailes by Zev Chafets, Rush Limbaugh's biographer, called "Roger Ailes: Off Camera," which includes some candid quotes from Ailes about everyone from President Obama to MSNBC to Newt Gingrich.

Here are the highlights:

On MSNBC:

“M.S. is a damn disease”

On Rupert Murdoch:

“Does Rupert like me? I think so, but it doesn’t matter. When I go up to the magic room in the sky every three months, if my numbers are right, I get to live. If not, I’m killed. Our relationship isn’t about love—it’s about arithmetic. Survival means hitting your numbers. I’ve met or exceeded mine in 56 straight quarters. The reason is: I treat Rupert’s money like it is mine.”

On Newt Gingrich:

Brian Lewis, his spokesman, asked Ailes for guidance on how to respond to Newt. “Brush him back,” Ailes said. “He’s a sore loser and if he had won he would have been a sore winner.” Lewis nodded.

Ailes was silent for a moment and then added, “Newt’s a prick.”

On Obama:

Dennis Kucinich joining Fox News

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Throughout his career in Congress, Dennis Kucinich has marked himself as somewhat more than a mouthpiece for left-leaning liberal counterpoints. But in his new job as a contributing Fox News analyst, that's pretty much what he'll be.

“I’ve always been impressed with Rep. Kucinich’s fearlessness and thoughtfulness about important issues,” said Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes in a statement announcing that Kucinich will join the network as a regular paid contributor. “His willingness to take a stand from his point of view makes him a valuable voice in our country’s debate.”

Glenn Greenwald noted via Twitter that "ironically, only Fox would dare hire him," highlighting that the former Ohio congressman is no Democrat apologist and has fiercely challenged the president, his 2008 elections rival, on civil liberties issues and foreign interventionism. But as the Nation blogger and Citizen Radio host Allison Kilkenny noted, "Kucinich on Fox News will not 'balance' the network. He'll be rolled out as a punching bag."

[embedtweet id="291652481535062016"]

12 most despicable things Fox News did in 2012

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 13:00:00 +0000

2012 was a dismal year for Fox News. The PR arm of the GOP failed to fulfill its prime directive: advancing the interests of Mitt Romney and the Republican Party. It spent much of the year constructing an alternative reality that left millions of its flock in shock when President Obama won an overwhelming reelection. It refused to accept the facts on the ground and denigrated polls (even its own) when the results conflicted with the fictional narrative it was peddling. And perhaps most painful of all, Fox surrendered its ratings lead to MSNBC. Two-thirds of its primetime lineup (Hannity and Van Susteren) dropped to second place behind the competition on MSNBC (Maddow and O’Donnell). However, Fox’s travails did not occur for lack of effort. It was clearly operating at the top of its capacity to distort and deceive. In the process it unleashed some of the most feverishly biased reporting, even for Fox News. What follows are a few of the worst departures from ethical journalism by Fox in the last year.

Report: Fox News producers told to avoid gun policy talk last weekend

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:26:00 +0000

In the wake of the Newtown school shootings on Friday, Fox News producers were reportedly told to stay away from talk of gun control policy during their weekend coverage.

Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine reports that David Clark, an executive producer in charge of the weekend coverage, instructed producers to stay away from the topic -- much to their chagrin. Sherman writes:

"This network is not going there,” Clark wrote one producer on Saturday night, according to a source with knowledge of the exchange. The directive created a rift inside the network. According to a source, one political panelist e-mailed Clark that Bloomberg was booked on Meet the Press to talk about gun control. Clark responded, “We haven't buried the children yet, we're not discussing it.” During the weekend, one frustrated producer went around Clark to lobby Michael Clemente, Fox’s executive vice-president for news editorial, but Clemente upheld the mandate. “We were expressly forbidden from discussing gun control,” the source said. Clark's edict wasn't universal: On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace talked with Democratic Senators Joe Lieberman and Dick Durbin about gun control, and later in the program, panelists Bill Kristol and Fortune editor Nina Easton weighed in on the issue.

Rupert Murdoch, on the other hand, made no secret of his views on gun control policy, tweeting several times about the tragedy in the last few days:

[embedtweet id="279759365328732161"]

[embedtweet id="280114713688416256"]

Karl Rove wasn’t benched from Fox News for long

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:32:00 +0000

For the first time since he refused to accept the Election Night returns from Ohio, Karl Rove made an appearance on Fox News.

Politico counts 27 days since Rove's last appearance on Fox, a brief hiatus that ended with last night's appearance on "Special Report" with Bret Baier.

Gabe Sherman of New York Magazine reported last week that Fox News chief Roger Ailes instructed staffers to keep Rove and Dick Morris off the air, as "a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox’s anti-Obama campaign," as Sherman put it.

When will Ailes rein in O’Reilly?

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:37:00 +0000

I wrote earlier today about Fox boss Roger Ailes' humiliation of longtime "contributor" Karl Rove. After Rove's embarrassing meltdown on election night, when he tried to stop Fox from calling Ohio for President Obama, Ailes told his staff that any booker who wanted to use Rove had to get permission from a higher-up. Ailes apparently woke up and realized that peddling his audience self-soothing falsehoods is probably not the way to build a GOP majority coalition in this country any time soon. And it might even be bad for business, too.

But what about Bill O'Reilly? He had his own meltdown on election night, blaming Obama's reelection on the disappearance of "traditional America" and "the white establishment." A few days later he began an ongoing jihad against "secular progressives" and the "far left" that was as fact-free as it was vicious. I wrote at the time that O'Reilly seemed to be going the way of Glenn Beck, who lost his Fox show after his paranoia and anti-Obama vitriol became too much even for Ailes.

Report: Karl Rove, Dick Morris pushed to sidelines at Fox News

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:01:00 +0000

Gabriel Sherman of New York magazine reports this evening that Karl Rove and Dick Morris sightings are about to become scarce on Fox News.

Fox News sources told Sherman that Rove and Morris -- who, respectively, questioned on air whether Ohio would go for President Obama even after the network's decision desk called the race for the president, and predicted a Romney landslide -- are heading to the sidelines, on orders from Roger Ailes.

Writes Sherman:

Ailes’s orders mean new rules. Ailes’s deputy, Fox News programming chief Bill Shine, has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking Rove or Morris.

In confirming the new rules to New York, a Fox News spokesperson said "the election's over."

Fox News president reportedly tried to get Petraeus to run for president

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:02:00 +0000

The Washington Post reports that Roger Ailes, the founder and current chairman of Fox News, tried and failed to get former CIA Director David Petraeus to run for president.

The Post obtained audio of a 90-minute conversation from the spring of 2011 between Petraeus, then commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, and Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former Pentagon aide.

During the course of the conversation, McFarland says that she's there on behalf of Ailes, who suggests that Petraeus should not accept a position as CIA director, which President Obama was expected to offer him soon after. McFarland said: The “advice to you from Roger Ailes is ... He says that if you’re offered [JCS] chairman, take it. If you’re offered anything else, don’t take it; resign in six months and run for president.”

The Post summarizes the conversation:

Ailes: Karl Rove was wrong

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:20:00 +0000

Roger Ailes told TVNewser that he was shocked by Karl Rove on election night. Famously, Rove refused to accept that President Obama had won Ohio and challenged the Fox News analysts on air for calling the decision, prompting host Megyn Kelly to bring the decision desk team on air.

Ailes recalled watching the footage: "I turn on the TV and the first thing I see is Rove saying something like, ‘you called Ohio too early.’ And I thought, ‘What the? What is this?’”

Ailes told TVNewser that he gave the command to keep the cameras running throughout the awkward interchange: "So I quickly called [EVP of News] Michael Clemente and I said, ‘Michael, whatever you do, don’t go to commercial. Don’t leave the screen.'"

“As it turned out, Rove was wrong. He backed down. Our guys were right," said Ailes.

How Fox News created a new culture of idiots

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Assholes largely share a thick sense of moral entitlement. Just as hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, late 19th and early 20th century businessmen like Cecil Rhodes, Albert Beveridge and John D. Rockefeller all felt a need to invoke entitlement on a cosmic scale, in effect sensing that something might be majorly amiss. In stark contrast with the grandiose reasoning of the era of colonialism, the asshole in more recent modern life often requires little or no pretext of larger cause for the special privileges he feels entitled to enjoy. He will usually have some sort of rationalization ready at hand — he is not the psychopath who rejects moral concepts altogether — but the rationalizations are becoming ever thinner, ever more difficult to identify. This newer, purer style of asshole often just presumes he should enjoy special privileges in social life as a matter of course and so requires little by way of reason for taking them as the opportunity arises.

Fox News’ war on Muslims

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:41:00 +0000

As is the case with any industry, advertising is paramount to the success of a product. One need look no further than the Super Bowl to understand the advertising industry’s sheer obsession with reaching a massive number of people; each year, the highest bidders are offered short slots to disseminate catchy clips of their goods, be they Coca-Cola, Nike shoes, or other high-rolling, multi-million-dollar enterprises.

The Islamophobia industry also goes to great lengths to sell its message to the public. The difference, though, is that in many cases the very networks that spread their product are themselves participants in the ruse to whip up public fear of Muslims. This is not a relationship of buyer and seller, where various characters that peddle panic purchase slots on major television networks to plug their merchandise. Rather, it is a relationship of mutual benefit, where ideologies and political proclivities converge to advance the same agenda.

Who’s winning the Fox primary?

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:45:00 +0000

The Republican primary campaign has become a two-man race, with unloved ostensible front-runner Mitt Romney currently suffering the indignity of trailing in the polls to self-satisfied serial adulterer Newt Gingrich. Where does the unofficial communications arm of the conservative movement stand on the race? They're noncommittal, thus far.

We all know the basic facts: A lot of conservatives see Romney as completely unacceptable. The more pragmatic ones see Gingrich as wholly unelectable. Fox News is run by consummate conservative elite Roger Ailes. Ailes has two objectives: Generate ratings and elect Republicans. The Gingriches of the world excite Fox viewers, because of their shamelessness. Romney excites no one, but he'll need Fox's support if he ends up the beneficiary of a Gingrich collapse.

Fox has indulged its audience's brief surges of affection for unelectable fringe candidates, from Trump through Cain, but the channel's always been careful to remind the base that they may eventually have to hold their noses and vote for Romney. Karl Rove, who's already running a shadow campaign against Obama, has made this point explicitly during his Fox appearances.