Fox News' Ailes Speaks Out
Broadcasting & Cable magazine has named Fox News Channel
chairman Roger Ailes its first Television Journalist of the Year because under
his leadership, "Fox News is kicking tail."
FNC’s policy of being fair and balanced has other news executives "squirming
or screaming," the magazine noted.
Highlights of an interview with Ailes in this week’s issue:
On Iraq: "It's easy, in hindsight, to say this was oversold or that the
media over-covered it. It seems to me that, if 15 countries in the United
Nations declare that the weapons of mass destruction exist and are some sort of
imminent threat, not to cover that would have been irresponsible. It was, I
believe, national policy, under Clinton, to remove Saddam Hussein and go to war,
if necessary."
On journalists’ claims of neutrality: "The concept that the journalists are
totally objective is crazy. They have friends. They have an education. They've
gone to some school where some professor spun their brain out. They've got a
view of life. They've got history. They've got parents. They've got people they
like and socialize with. They have a view based on their experience. And they
bring all that to journalism. Their job is to try to sort through that and get
to as much truth as they can get to, which is what we do, every day."
On taxpayer-subsidized media bias: "I know the misconceptions at NPR. I know
the agenda. There are no conservatives on NPR. None. You can't get one."
On the media’s pack mentality: "At times, there's a little bit too much
group-think in journalism. And I am constantly trying to find out what the facts
are, and present the facts."
On journalistic blunders: "We asked him [Geraldo Rivera] to apologize for a
rookie mistake. He got off the helicopter, had one source; it was a Northern
Alliance source. He said this was a friendly-fire incident or something. He went
to air with it, immediately. He should have checked it with another source. ...
But we haven’t had a Tailwind, where you have 200 journalists for two years do a
report and have to retract it and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in
fines."
'No Pro-life Women Working in Newsrooms'
On slanted coverage of abortion: "If somebody asks you to do a story on
abortion, it's very hard, because there are no pro-life women working in
newsrooms anywhere in New York. ... I’ve been told by many women they'll never
acknowledge that [anti-abortion] position in a job interview; they’d never get
hired in a news organization."
On the leftist bias of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times: "Well,
they've become advocacy journalism. You either do it, or you don’t. And they do
it. [Ousted New York Times Editor Howell] Raines clearly was driving an agenda."
On critics who claim FNC is conservative: "The more they call us that, the
more viewers watch us, because the American people think the rest of the media
[are] too liberal."
Who's Really Pro-choice
On FNC’s patriotism: "I was at an event at the Museum of Television and
Radio, and I was the only journalist in the room who happened to have an
American-flag pin on. A bunch of other guys started kidding me and said, ‘Oh,
he's from Fox; he makes everybody wear the flag.’ I said, "No, I'm just not like
ABC; I don't insist they not wear it. You all disagree with my wearing it, and
nobody here is defending my right to wear it.’ Morley Safer said, ‘Anybody who
wears it on the air is pandering to the audience. Would you let a guy wear a
peace symbol?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it's not my business.’
"There are things I'm a little iffy on: taking babies’ lives. But I’m really
pro-choice on flag pins. I’m pro-choice on Haagen-Dazs ice cream. I’m pro-choice
on steaks. I said, ‘I’m pro-choice on a lot of stuff.’ I said, ‘I thought maybe
you guys could understand this better if I just gave it to you as pro-choice. I
want to wear a damn flag pin, here or on the air, tough luck. And if you don’t,
it’s none of my business.’ It got real quiet after that."
Chris Wallace: Fox News Is Fair
Meanwhile, some Fox fans are upset that the network has hired Chris Wallace
from the unabashedly leftist ABC to be anchorman of "Fox News Sunday," but he’s
already defending his new employer’s fair and balanced coverage.
Hampered by the nattering nabobs' groupthink, he didn’t always feel that way,
he admitted to the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz.
"I had the same conception a lot of people did about Fox News, that they have
a right-wing agenda,” said the son of CBS left-winger Mike Wallace. "I'm a
straight-newsman - I plead guilty.”
But months of watching Fox convinced him: "Its reporting is serious,
thoughtful and evenhanded. ... If they wanted someone to push a political
agenda, they wouldn’t have hired me.”
"Do I have political opinions? Absolutely. But I vote for the person, and
I’ve voted for Republicans and Democrats and independents over the course of my
life. I feel very strongly that you try not to let that affect the way you
report the news. I’m taking Fox up on its slogan."
Ailes called Wallace "one of the best interviewers in the business. ... I
have no idea what he thinks personally, but he asks tough questions of
everybody.”
Wallace said the only remotely political question Ailes asked him was, "Can
you wake up in the morning without assuming the U.S. is in the wrong?"
That's a question the rest of the media establishment ought to ask
themselves.
________________________________
Changes to your subscription (unsubs, nomail, digest) can be made by going to
http://sandboxmail.net/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
