POLITICS - Fox CEO Roger Ailes’s Disregard of Journalistic Standards

"Understatement Of The Year: Sarah Palin Is An Idiot" by Mark, News Corpse 5/23/2011

In an article published in New York Magazine, Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News is reported to have told colleagues that he thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot and unhelpful to the conservative movement.

Really? Gosh, we never knew. But to be fair, there was a lot more of interest in that article than the sensational headline that is getting all the attention. I’ll have an article at Alternet soon (and here at News Corpse in a day or two) about how Fox News has sabotaged the Republican Party, but in the meantime, here is a brief summary of some of the more salient facts in the NYMag article:

• Ailes thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot (a given).


• Ailes threatened to fire Glenn Beck as talks over his departure broke down.
  “…as with everything concerning Glenn Beck, the situation was a mess, simultaneously a negotiation and a therapy session.”


• Ailes was upset that he could not elect a president.
  “the Fox candidates’ poll numbers remain dismally low.”


• Ailes tried to recruit Chris Christie to run for president.
  “…he fell hard for Christie, who nevertheless politely turned down Ailes’s calls to run.”


• Ailes is the GOP kingmaker.
  “You can’t run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger.”


• Ailes threatened to quit in 2008.
  “Ailes confronted Murdoch after he learned Murdoch was thinking of endorsing Obama in the New York Post.”


• Ailes is a true believer in the lunatic theories his network broadcasts.
  “Ailes told Axelrod that he was concerned that Obama wanted to create a national police force.”

Perhaps the most profoundly disturbing item in this list is that Ailes is recruiting candidates for the GOP. How can the head of an alleged news network have that sort of political role? What if he succeeds in persuading Christie, or someone else, to enter the race? How could his network cover the campaign with any impartiality? Not that they would anyway, considering that half of the Republican field is on the Fox payroll, but this would blow any pretense of being “fair and balanced” out of the water. No wonder Rupert Murdoch’s own son-in-law said of Ailes…

“I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to.”

Ouch!