Here Comes the Ailes Haters
One part of the liberal media's Obama re-election effort is well under
way: trying to destroy the reputation of Fox News and its president,
Roger Ailes. Two long new magazine "exposes" have attempted to demonize
Ailes and his allegedly brain-dead minions as the antithesis of good
journalism.
The funnier one came from Rolling Stone magazine, which ran the title
"How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory." How little does this
rag understand good journalism? It took only a few lines before staff
writer/fantasist Tim Dickinson fell on his face. After painting a
picture of employees loyally cheering the boss at a holiday party,
Dickinson entertained comparisons to...Mao Zedong.
"It was as though we were looking at Mao," said disgruntled ex-employee
Charlie Reina. "It's like the Soviet Union or China: People are always
looking over their shoulders," added "a former executive" with News
Corporation. Dickinson also said Ailes runs "the most formidable
propaganda machine ever seen outside the communist bloc."
Put aside that Ailes isn't responsible for 70 million deaths and mass
cannibalism, and that his politics are essentially the philosophical
opposite of communism - and OK, he's Mao.
More
journalistic idiocy: Rolling Stone vaguely reported this Chairman Roger
holiday party took place the year Fox overtook CNN in the cable
ratings. That would be...2002. A nine-year-old useless anecdote isn't
"news" - unless you're Rolling Stone and need to discuss journalism.
Like every other leftist rag, Rolling Stone asserted Ailes wasn't
running a news network, but a permanent campaign. "The network, at its
core, is a giant soundstage created to mimic the look and feel of a news
operation, cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent
journalism."
It's amusing to see a magazine express tender concern about the state
of journalism while its cover story is "Monster Goddess: A Wild Week
with Lady Gaga," with Gaga in a black lace bra on the cover.
So let's ask if Rolling Stone has the sense of fairness and balance
that allows it to denounce Fox News as too political. This is the same
magazine that ran two worshipful Obama covers last time, one without any
words and the other with a worshipful, glowing aura around Barack
(could we reverse the Mao analogies, anyone?).
In the summer of 2008, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner ended an
interview with Obama - whose campaign he financially supported - by
saying, "Good luck. We are following you daily with great hope and
admiration."
Fox News being criticized by Rolling Stone is a little like being mocked as unserious journalists by Tiger Beat.
The other anti-Ailes story came from New York magazine. The cover read
"Fox News made a circus out of the Republican Party. And boy, does Roger
Ailes regret it now."
Reporter Gabriel Sherman blamed Fox for ruining the GOP primary field.
"So it must have been disturbing to Ailes when the wheels started to
come off Fox's presidential-circus caravan. All he had to do was watch
Fox's May 5 debate in South Carolina to see what a mess the field was - a
mess partly created by the loudmouths he'd given airtime to and a tea
party he'd nurtured."
So
in two sentences it's established as empirical truth that a) the GOP
will not capture the White House in 2012 because b) its candidates are
disasters because c) Fox created them because d) Ailes wants to control
the world (or something like that). Two sentences.
The hot quote in the Sherman story was someone claiming Ailes thought
Sarah Palin is an "idiot." Here we go with those anonymous sources
again. Ailes is trashed by "a person close to Ailes," "another
Republican close to Ailes," "a GOPer who knows Ailes well," "a person
familiar with his thinking" and "a former Fox executive." These sources
could all be the same individual, for all the reader knows. Or the
author. Or nobody. (Ask Jayson Blair or Janet Cooke how this works.)
Roger Ailes is not the "head of the Republican Party," as these writers
claim. One can question Ailes for hiring a pile of potential
presidential candidates as on-air analysts. But it's downright bizarre
that liberal reporters would pretend that Fox is glaringly unique with
Clinton press secretary George Stephanopoulos anchoring at ABC, and
Eliot Spitzer anchoring at CNN, and Jay Carney moving effortlessly from
Time magazine to the Obama-Biden press operation.
Since when has there not been a transparently partisan liberal
media elite much larger and more numerous than Fox, "cleverly
camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism"? Did we
just imagine all the "historic" promotional hot air and leg-thrill
orations that inflated Obama's balloon in 2008?
The major named sources in Sherman's story were Obama spinners David
Axelrod and Anita Dunn. She insisted Ailes is "great at making the
mainstream press feel guilty about their liberal bias." Okay, so they
got one thing right.
