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Posted on 10/29/2003 2:30:14 AM PST by jmcclain19
Here are some excerpts from a lengthy interview with Fox News Chief Roger Ailes
So are you in the news business, or are you in the programming and packaging business? And are those mutually exclusive?
Most people get their news from television. Look, there's a certain element of the melding with show business or entertainment—line blurring, as Don Hewitt says. Entertainment and news should always be separate, but you should walk right up to the line and get your toe on it. But just not get over it. Too much of what's going on today gets over it. So I don't have any problem with this that a lot of print people do.
What I'm asking you to do is get here, tell a story, and reach out to a point of view you don't agree with, and be sure that it's fair in that particular piece. 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. So if a woman gets on that story, you're going to have trouble getting that story.
No pro-life women at all?
None. Well, there probably are, but they're undercover. They will never acknowledge it. I've been told by many women they'll never acknowledge that position in a job interview; they'd never get hired in a news organization.
So that particular story is a very difficult story to do for journalists because there are sincere people, from both sides, who have views on that. It's very hard to get that story done with the fairness that recognizes what many people believe to be a life and other people believe to be a woman's right to choose. That's a particularly tough story to do.
What do you think Fox News' contributions and innovations have been?
We've proved that we get larger audiences to cable news than anybody in American history, for one thing. We cover a broader spectrum than most people. We say it's fair and balanced. The American people don't actually believe we present more points of view. Everybody knows that Ralph Nader got more airtime here than any place else when he ran for president.
And we present broad views. We don't eliminate it. Bias has to do with the elimination of points of view, not presenting a point of view. So we don't. That's somewhat stunning to some of the people in the business. We treat all points of view with respect. I saw the guy from the Green Party on last night. He had 15 minutes to sell the Green Party.
We've changed fewer shows than any network in history. This is our seventh anniversary. And no brand in cable has ever come in and taken down a frontrunner from behind. MTV created a great brand. History created a great brand. CNN created a great brand. Nobody ever came on the scene in a genre and overtook the first position. Fox was the first one to do that.
We also have a very high morale and a very low turnover here. That is very helpful in running a news organization. When I left NBC, 82 people left the NBC system—either CNBC, NBC or America's Talking. Eighty-two people in something like four months left to come here, and there was no network here.
So if Fox News is fair and balanced, then why do so many other people not believe it?
Because they're getting their ass beaten.
It's not just CNN. It's not just competition.
Look, we're doing something that is forcing them—including the New York Times and the LA Times—to examine how their journalism's being presented.
When the editor of the LA Times sends a memo to his desk [about an abortion story], which basically says, 'I know we're all liberals, but shouldn't we be a little more fair and balanced about this issue', that memo gets leaked. Well, in 50 years of journalism, they never thought to be fair and balanced before we get on the scene.
Now, suddenly, they're putting it in their internal memos? You never heard the words "fair and balanced" in 50 years of television journalism? Because they thought they were fair and balanced but the American people didn't. And now, somehow, we're being criticized for bringing it up? Sorry. We're making a major contribution.
Well, no. People don't criticize you because they think you are actually fair and balanced. It's because they think that you're not.
We're saying "fair and balanced" when, in fact, [other journalists] still believe they're right. They still think that not presenting two points of view is a good idea. If they could point to one story, one news story, where we've eliminated a second point of view, I would listen to them. They can't.
So you think the New York Times and the LA Times are comfortable being liberal?
Well, they've become advocacy journalism. You either do it, or you don't. And they do it. [Former New York Times Editor Howell] Raines clearly was driving an agenda. I called Howell. I forget the story. It was their Afghanistan coverage. There was some stuff ... that wasn't true. We had guys on the ground, and so I called him up and said, "Howell, You're going to get an award for fiction here." He said, "I'm hanging up." I said, "You don't seem to have a sense of humor, Howell." He said, "I don't have one about journalism." So then, later, when Jayson Blair happened, I sent a note and just said, "Maybe it's time to develop a sense of humor about journalism."
If you think they're comfortable being advocates, why do you get your back up if somebody says you run a right-wing, Republican network?
I don't at all. I don't at all. As a matter of fact, I've been quoted as saying, "Please keep doing that; it's driving viewers to us every day." The more they call us that, the more viewers watch us, because the American people think the rest of the media is too liberal.
If we were doing something fraudulent, the American people would turn us off. They'd just turn us off. They're not stupid. Most injuries in journalism are caused by journalists falling off their egos onto their IQs. The concept that journalism knows and the public knows nothing and they're idiots is wrong.
Now, those people who believe that they were appointed to journalism to help these stupid masses get through life have a right to do that. And the public gets a right to decide whether they buy that paper or watch that show.
What is Fox News not doing enough of?
We keep looking at trying to figure out how to do more long-form, which is very expensive. We're working on a special on education; we're working on a special on the environment. I believe there are issues that are longer, broader that television doesn't do very well, because we tend to live for the moment or everybody chases the Laci Peterson case or they move to the next event.
Journalism has a bias for pictures and mistakes and attacks—print and television. If people give you a picture, give you a mistake, or give you an attack, I guarantee you, there will be a lot of real news, during that 24 or 48 hours, that won't get covered. I'm interested in the environment, and nobody covers it well. I frankly think neither party does a very good job at it. The Democrats demagogue it; the Republicans ignore it.
So we don't do a good job of covering that. But it's the budget. I'm living with 25% to 30% of the people CNN has. It's a resource issue. It's a time issue. It's a public-focus issue. It's how to make that interesting. We have an obligation to the form. We tend to follow things, rather than lead. And part of that is just the nature of the business.
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You gotta be kidding, what journalism? LOL.
The concept that journalism knows and the public knows nothing and they're idiots is wrong.
Now, those people who believe that they were appointed to journalism to help these stupid masses get through life have a right to do that. And the public gets a right to decide whether they buy that paper or watch that show.
Ailes Takes Credit for Media 'Correcting Its Bias' But Claim Is Wild Exaggeration, Mitchell Says
By Greg Mitchell
Editor and Publisher* (see below for description)
NEW YORK -- In an article in this week's Broadcasting & Cable magazine, Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News, attempts to take credit for making the elite media see the light on correcting their liberal bias.
"Look," he said in the interview, "we're doing something that is forcing them -- including The New York Times and the LA Times -- to examine how their journalism's being presented."
To illustrate this, Ailes cited a now-famous message sent by Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll to his staff back in May, regarding coverage of the abortion issue. "When the editor of the LA Times sends a memo to his desk, which basically says, 'I know we're all liberals, but shouldn't we be a little more fair and balanced about this issue', that memo gets leaked," Ailes said. "Well, in 50 years of journalism, they never thought to be fair and balanced before we get on the scene."
The problem is -- and this is nothing out of the ordinary for Ailes and Fox News -- this is a wild, politically-driven exaggeration.
Certainly, in his memo, Carroll was concerned about the paper's coverage of that particular issue, but consider his actual words:
"I'm concerned about the perception -- and the occasional reality -- that the Times is a liberal, 'politically correct' newspaper. Generally speaking, this is an inaccurate view, but occasionally we prove our critics right. We did so today with the front-page story on the bill in Texas that would require abortion doctors to counsel patients that they may be risking breast cancer."
Note that Carroll called biased coverage only an "occasional" reality and that the perception of the Times as a liberal paper is generally "inaccurate." Also, he said the paper only "occasionally" proves its critics right. This is hardly reflected in Ailes' view that the paper was clueless about being fair and balanced for the past half-century.
Later in the memo, Carroll wrote: "We may happen to live in a political atmosphere that is suffused with liberal values (and is unreflective of the nation as a whole), but we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times."
Again, note that nowhere does Carroll state or even suggest that "we're all liberals." Living and working in an area or an atmosphere "suffused with liberal values" hardly makes Carroll and his editors "all liberals."
In any event, the chairman of Fox News is hardly in the position to decry the pervasive political values in any other news organization.
The above is the article that a nationwide media internet newsletter chose to include in yesterday's edition. I didn't know who Greg Mitchell is and what Editor and Publisher is, so I Googled and found where he was interviewed by PBS puke Bill Moyers.
BILL MOYERS: We're devoting this entire broadcast to media issues. And we begin with thoughts of journalism and the war. With me is Greg Mitchell, the editor of the weekly national magazine, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER, which many of us consider the Bible of the newspaper business.
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