Posted on 06/20/2005 8:05:50 AM PDT by coffee260
I work for Fox News as a commentator. I say whatever I want. I'm the blonde on the left, figuratively and literally – the one who's usually smiling because it's television, not the Supreme Court or Congress, and I find civility more effective in any event.
Besides, why shouldn't I be smiling? Prior to working for Fox, I worked for ABC and NBC, spent a lot of time at CNN and almost ended up at CBS. I worked for a bunch of local stations in Los Angeles and had a talk radio show at KABC for six years. Story Continues Below
In other words, I'm lucky enough to have been around, and Fox News is the best place I've ever worked. I get paid well and treated with respect, and I have job security, which in this business is almost unheard of. More important, the older I get, the more the personal stuff matters. When I got caught at last year's convention in a swirl of missed car connections and painful memories, leaving me on street corners without rides at night when old fears returned, Sean Hannity picked up his own phone and ordered a car for me 24 hours a day on his own dime.
I've come to expect the jabs at Fox News – since, being a liberal, I get more than most. I work there in part because, six or seven years ago, they offered me a better deal than NBC at the time; and because, as a feminist and a Democrat, I think it's particularly important to have a dialogue with people who aren't already members of the same choir I am, since that is the way we will ultimately have to win elections.
I also work there because of my respect for Roger Ailes, the man who created it, and hired me, and to whom I am extremely loyal for reasons having nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with integrity.
The jabs have gotten louder with success. No surprise there. When you get to No. 1 as fast and as impressively as Fox News has, it's a bull's-eye, and Roger would be the last person in the world to expect his competitors to go gently.
But things have taken a personal turn in the last week or so, as the targets have shifted from the institution as a whole to the individuals within it, including some of the most talented people at Fox News. The criticisms have gotten personal, the tone has changed, the volume is up, and the value is down. Neil Cavuto? Brian Wilson? Under attack by a Washington press corps for not probing enough on Iraq (Cavuto) and being too tough on Howard Dean (Wilson)? Give me a break.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not worried about Fox being hurt by this. Quite the contrary. If history is a guide, every time Fox News gets attacked, ratings go up.
More people will watch Cavuto, not fewer.
More people will be looking for Wilson, not fewer.
Neil Cavuto, Fox News' brilliant anchor, sat down to do an interview with George Bush last week on his business show. He didn't discuss Iraq. Neil doesn't cover Iraq. As far as I know, he had nothing new to ask him, nothing new to add and no important new question to pose, and the president had nothing new to say on the topic. There was no news to be made.
So he didn't use the opportunity either to beat up on the president or to let him say something we'd heard a hundred times. Instead, he asked him questions he didn't know the answer to, where he might get an answer he hadn't already heard.
For this, he has been summarily beaten up by the press corps all week – the same press corps that still can't figure out why it got it all wrong about those weapons of mass destruction that justified the war, but would rather have Neil Cavuto ask a pointless question of the president than ask the hard questions of itself.
Then there's Brian Wilson's great sin. In his case, the problem wasn't NOT asking a question, but trying too hard to ask tough ones of the Senate minority leader and the party chairman, who had joined together to make it look as if there was no problem when there very obviously was.
That, and using a swear word in answering a question from a Washington Post reporter – Brian himself later admitted that he wished he'd known it was a Post reporter.
The Dean charge is, of course, the more serious one, particularly since the party chairman has taken to attacking Fox News in recent days. There certainly is disagreement among Democrats as to whether party leaders such as Joe Biden and John Edwards should have gone public with the obvious criticism that Dean had gone too far in calling Republicans a party of white Christians who don't work.
But I'm hard-pressed to think of anybody who will tell you privately that in the midst of debates about such issues as Social Security and the deficits, it's a good idea for the party leader to be turning himself into the issue by engaging in class and religious warfare.
This is precisely what congressional leaders and Dean agreed that Dean would not do when he became the chair of the party. He was supposed to leave the message to them. Having not done so, and having been criticized for it by two possible presidential candidates – neither of whom are even conservatives – Sen. Reid was trying to put the perennial good face on a bad situation, while Brian Wilson was trying to puncture it.
That's what the press is supposed to do, last time I checked. If being obnoxious was a disqualification for being a member of the Washington press corps, it would a lonely crowd.
Former Gov. Dean, asked to respond to Vice President Cheney's comments about him to Fox's Sean Hannity, said, "My view is that Fox News is a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party, and I don't comment on Fox News."
Three times as many people watch Fox every day as watch CNN. There were certainly times during the last campaign where I disagreed with decisions made by young producers working at Fox. But without exception, every time I raised an issue, I won – I saw it as my job to teach off the air, as much as to talk on the air. If anyone disagreed, the joke was that I would tell them to set their stopwatches and transfer me to Roger, so they could time how long it would take me to get their decisions reversed.
It never came to that, but everyone understood the commitment to not make decisions that would even give the appearance that Dean so cavalierly bandies about.
Is Fox News different than the other places I've worked? Sure. It would be silly of me to suggest otherwise. But all of the rest were pretty much alike, which is the larger point that Dean ignores.
:) I should have read your post before linking the Kinsley-Estrich arguments.
She is who she is. Sometimes I think she's funny. During the campaign I couldn't look at her face.
Dean and Reid held an impromptu meeting with Press in Reid's office. 60 reporters were trying to cram into a space that only held 20. Brian Wilson is about 6ft 4, so he managed to get in. He then called out a question to Dean that asked him that as he's stated that he hates Republicans and as he's also stated that the Republican Party is the white Christian party, did Dean also hate all white Christians?
At which point, Dean's mouth dropped open, speechless.
Then a junior reporter from the Post turned to Brian and asked him who he was (it was an impromptu meeting and he hadn't had his tag visible). Brian asked the junior guy who the f he was? Whereupon the junior reporter went to blog what happened and said that Brian has an aptitude of the variations of the f word.
Then Durban came out and called Wilson a Moose as having owned that meeting. Brian responded that no, he was more like a gazelle.
The next day, Brian handled Special Report and commented that use of the f word has been known to happen on the Hill.
I am sure she had the "Dry Hueys" singing into her porcelain microphone the next morning.
I read the piece to say that she picks her battles somewhat carefully, but when push comes to shove, FOX (and those unnamed "young producers") can be persuaded. That's not a bad thing, as long as she picks appropriate battles.
If the producers don't hold sway when they have the correct opinion, they shouldn't be producing. If she can't hold sway (or anyone who holds the correct position, for that matter) as appropriate, then FOX is no better than the rest.
For my money, FIX has the best balance, although I have seen them swinging further left than I'd like from time to time.
Ahhh Ha! So she admits that NBC is full of liberals.
Dang, what an excellent piece.
This is really, really good.
Note to Freepers....don't do like Marty here.
Read the post before you comment.
Susan is sticking up for FNC very strongly in this piece. She is not attacking Fox. The very opposite, in fact.
Well, she does say at the end that Dean's attacks of liberal bias are flat wrong, that they do everything they can to be fair and balanced.
Thanks. Only makes me like him more!
You're welcome! And yes, I like him even more now too. :)
I remember when someone from Fox was asking her about Juanita Brodderick. She just kept saying it was too much time, and he couldn't be prosecuted.
My gut feeling was, "Dang! She believs it, but the Democrat lawyer in her just won't admit it."
It is the nature of a news organization for their to be disagreements on content etc.
The producers make the shows, but the anchors/commentators review scripts for accuracy etc.
At Fox, they also look for balance apparently.
I see that as a good thing. I think Estrich being able to raise an objection if she thinks something is biased is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Conservatives don't have that right at liberal networks. Shouldn't we be fair and truly be balanced by letting liberal concerns be heard at Fox?
If a producer disagrees with her, they can always go to Ailes.
Dang, now that is nice. :)
I like Mr. Wilson.
Estrich is reasonable at times, but she has a "lefty hack" switch she turns on and she becomes insufferable.
She gets awarded some get out of jail free cards for this article. I suppose I'm not the first person to notice her testosterone level is higher than Mikie Kinsley's.
Off the subject - Where in KS is RW from? (I'm in the KC area)
central KS....an hour north of Wichita in McPherson county
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