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Today’s (1/10/10) NY Times has a profile/puff piece on Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. It’s a somewhat interesting read. It talks about how Ailes confronted Rupert Murdoch when it was rumored that Murdoch was going to endorse Barack Obama for president (Ailes denies that he made any demands but does concede that he did not support Obama). The article even discusses that members of the Murdoch family are embarrassed by Fox News!
However, a second read through shows there are a couple of holes that might have offered some further perspective if the reporters had filled in the information. Ailes is quoted:
“I built this channel from my life experience,” Mr. Ailes, 69, said. “My first qualification is I didn’t go to Columbia Journalism School.
After this quote, the reporters mention how Ailes got his start in politics with Nixon in 1967. They provide a few paragraphs of discussion on his time with Nixon taking him to all of 1969.
Then they cover the next twenty plus years in one sentence:
After serving as a communications consultant for politicians and executives, Mr. Ailes ran CNBC, the business network, in the early 1990s under Bob Wright, then the chief of NBC.
That seems innocuous enough, "… communications consultant for politicians and executives…"
But just who were these politicians and executives? Since this time period includes a whole lot of the life that gave him his experiences, it sure seems as if how Ailes got those experiences would have been a pertinent piece of information for the reader who may not know all that much about Ailes.
A quick check of der Google tells me that Ailes, worked in TV and even produced a musical on Broadway during the ’70s. Then in the ’80s he worked for Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. Worked may be a bit of an understatement, since Ailes is credited with some of the one-liners that both Reagan and Bush I used in their inimitable self-deprecating styles. (That’s snark, OK?)
And the final kicker is in 1991, Ailes helped Rush Limbaugh get a TV show.
It sure would help folks to better understand the perspective and life experiences of the chairman of the "Fair and Balanced" network if the reporters had provided even those tiny snippets of information in covering those twenty plus years of life spent as a "… communications consultant for politicians and executives…" don’t ya think?
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Ailes managed somehow to keep his hands clean when GHWB ran the Willie Horton ad, even though he was always credited as GHWB’s media maven. I guess that’s the reason for ‘independent expenditure committees.’
Swell diary, thanks dakine.
Thanks Teddy. There were just so many holes in that “… consultant for politicians and executives…” that I just hit the high points. It sure makes one wonder what the reporters and/or Ailes thought they had to skim over for those years.
Instead of the usual game, Lying? Or stupid? This game is Lazy? Or deceptive? Particularly in light of the fact that Ailes makes the absurd claim about his “heartland values” from a hundred years ago and that made the cut.
Like all the other crooks and charlatans he’s worked for, Ailes doesn’t believe anything his network says; he and Murdoch know that they exist to propagandize the “heartland” while they empty the cash drawers.
The article, for all its feigned credulity, may as well have been Judith Miller’s work.
Is this another example of “everybody knows about that”, much like the Jonathan Gruber pieces?
I read the “Reader’s Digest” version of this article in my local “news” paper this morning and immediately felt my brain leaking out of my ears. It was so insipid and stupid as to feel like I was in a three Stooges episode with Moe reaching out of the paper and doing the rapid-fire swatting across my face going “woo woo woo!”
This poor “excuse” for “news” reporting was insulting even in these days of down on their heels rightwing “news” papers (as my home town’s paper is). Stupid treacle signifying not much at all.
Wow, Sir Rupert thought briefly about supporting BHO, but then blubberface Ailes spewed out some pearls before the swine & all is now well with the world. And like a recent Glenn Beck show where buffoon Beck lists all the “private bidness” experience of past POTUS’s to show just how lacking Dems are in this regard to Repubs, this demented article then passes wind about all of the Ailes’ purported bidness experience.
Really, is it any wonder that the print “news” media is losing money hand over fist?? If the so-called “liberal” NYT pushes out bullshit like this, what hope is there for this industry?
And yes, members of clan Murdoch ARE embarressed by Fake Noise, but certainly not embarressed enough to not enjoy the filthy lucre made from it. For the record, though, Sir Rupert’s mother is a big advocate of public health care downunder & is not amused at sonny-boy’s antics up here… again, though, not enough annoyed with sonny-boy’s money to exchew the delightful lifestyle of the lady of the manor which she enjoys in the antipodes. But, just saying… but you won’t read about Lady Murdoch’s socialist tendencies in the Grey Lady, I’m sure.
Allow me to repeat what I said in this diary (but beware of the macaquer troll poop in the comments):
And see this link as to why now is the perfect time to strike:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-09/the-fox-murdoch-feud/?cid=bs:archive1
Not sure. It could be, but to do a number of paragraphs on his 2 – 3 years working for Nixon in the ’60s then cover the years spent with Reagan, Bush I, and his support for all the Republican causes with one sentence just seems like they’re trying to gloss over something. Maybe sloppy reporting, maybe Judy Miller style stenography, or maybe the “but everybody knows that.” I lean toward the middle one myself.
Using the “politicians” seems real disingenuous when “worked only for conservative Republicans” might have been more accurate. And that’s what I think was being ducked.
Roger Ailes has ambiguities in his resume? How could that be?
“even produced a musical on Broadway” . . .
I’m not sure that I’d be terribly proud of producing a Broadway show that closed after twelve — count ‘em, 12! — performances.
Of course, this fits in well with his efforts to bolster Rush Limbaugh’s television career.
Maybe this explains why I don’t work for Fox and Rupert Murdoch.
OK, well.. your first graph made me laugh out loud hysterically.
No, not his resume per se. After all, I found what I did with a quick google (though I wish I could have found a complete resume of clients and operations).
I just was finding it “interesting” that the reporters so blithely skipped roughly 22 years of his career with one sentence.
Again, sloppy reporting or skipping at the request of Ailes or playing stenographer? Who knows?
Mine was untagged snark. Your point is substantive but relates to my snark. How could a reporter skip blithely over those years.
full disclosure, last time I regularly read all the thoughts that are fit to think, the rag was obsessed with painting carter as weak so that we could be saved by that fascist lackey Raygun …
why do the pathetic sacks of shit pretending to be ink stained wretches gloss over / ignore the role that Ailes has had in turning the American press into a bunch of fascist sycophants … ???
Gotcha!
do I really need to answer?
rmm.
Hence the diary. Because as far as the reporters are showing, Ailes might as well been sleeping for twenty years.
So we keep asking the Q back & forth to each other. Seems like a tiny circle.
The videoclip of GHWB walking into the WH followed by the lumbering “my man” Ailes and Limbaugh at their heftiest says everything.
Bought and paid for attack dogs.
Not avatars. Just plain ol’ white trash whores.
Maybe with one or two. But maybe we can get three or four or five. Why, we might even be able to start a movement to get real reporters back working for the newspapers and asking questions correctly or reporting ALL the information.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Nearly everything, it sounds like. I’d guess that if there was anything media-like for Ronnie or Bush41, Ailes was involved. (If it stank like a dead fish, even more likely.)
*heh* I’ve been inundated with it in my diaries of late…! ;-)
Ailes gives viewers what they want…they certainly do not want Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Joy Behar, Rusty Rhoades, and the rest of DakineO1′s TV and radio menu. It’s too bad libs, progressives, (what do you call yourselves this year?) don’t watch and hear both left and right arguments. I guess it’s boring watching MSNBC while everyone else is watching Fox.
Why does the New York Times hate common citizens? Why must the New York Times seek to mimic Rupert’s Wall Street Journal.
Boycott the NYT also, too*.
*(Hat Tip – SP)
Too bad there isn’t an accompanying description of the content. Somehow, despite the title, “Mother Earth,” I doubt that it pertained to environmentalism.
Real reporters? Thanks for using the holding my breath metaphor, it’s my favorite. So representative of the futility of it all.
But while we’re at it, let’s give credit where it’s due. In one of the Book Salons that occurred when I was a newbie at FDL, was a LATimes reporter who did the story on Curveball. He published before I knew FDL. If it weren’t for him, I would have thought I’d have disappeared in an alternate universe. I told him so. He was appreciative. I’d guess the LAT didn’t give him the kudos that I did.
MSNBC has Joe Scarborough for 3 hours each weekday morning dutifully dispersing the talking points of the right.
Pray tell, to whom does Fox give 3 hours of left talk each day?
They don’t even bother with the Alan Colmes puppet anymore.
Are u saying it’s rigged? I’m shocked!
Ah. I have a troll. How quaint.
FWIW, of the names you list as my “TV and radio menu” (and where the hell did you come up with that phrase?), there are names that I consider are id10ts.
But the reality is, I do not watch MSNBC anymore than I do Fox. I’m quite willing to watch old movies all day or listen to music. You see, I don’t have to watch TV or listen to the radio to know how to think and how to formulate my opinions.
You need to add a couple of more hours… Andrea Mitchell and the NYT hour with Harwood could not be construed as even leaning left…!
As a kid I hated the show Hee Haw, and everytime I have the displeasure of seeing Fox it looks like the skit where the Hee Haw Honeys would hang in the background while the dudes with moonshine would sing about, “Gloom, Despair,” but Fox puts the dudes in suits and changes the words to, “Boo! Terror!”
Jacklint@24, if Scarborough’s talking points are from right field, give me a break…Joe, years ago was considered a right winger, unfortnately today, the MSNBC watercooler is planted between Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann’s office.
Which arm?
Roger Ailes & Dick Cheney, a fourth branch cancer of the republic.
lol.
I actually enjoyed that show a lot of the time as they usually had some kickin’ music each week but that’s a nice analogy for Fox Noise.
If that’s true, why are you panning a Fox article. Incidently, your review would be a great feature on the Daily Kos. Never hurts to get the facts rather than using your subjective opinions.
Roger is a BIG part of what Ailes me.
Watching the presstitutes regurgitate their vomitus propaganda is akin to peering down my garbage disposal and expecting to find “news”.
(Remember,they call it PROGRAMMING, for a reason.)
Reading comprehension FAIL.
I was not “panning a Fox article.” I was discussing a NY Times article about the Chairman of Fox News.
Just a small difference in the two don’t ya think? You see, I actually still want to demand that the NY Times actually report. I would have no expectation of actual straightforward reporting from a network run by a partisan hack like Ailes.
But I am willing to read stories about him.
If that’s true, what(sic) are you panning a Fox article.
Do you not read…? His first sentence was…
How ironic how ya finish off…
No Shit Sherlock…!
Whatcha drinking, Bra…? ;-)
(I’ll take a cup of Kona coffee if ya got it) :})
Chocolate Mac nut Kona Coffee heading yer way…! *g*
A little Preparation H could Aile your proplem. It might release some of the left wing pressure on your brain.
Mahalo Bra!
Well, I think you have made the case for the long term effects of Fox programming.
Btw, you do know that Ka’u and Puna now grow some killer java… But, they can’t call it Kona Coffee…! ;-)
Was not aware of that but not surprised at it either, the naming thing that is. Think Champagne, Cognac, and various and sundry other products that come attached by name to a place or region.
The Kona growers banded together and, literally, trademarked it, it did screw Ka’u and Puna, because the Bean buyers won’t pay the Kona prices, though, they package it up further down the line as Kona Coffee…! *gah*
IANAL as you know, but sure seems like the bean growers are committing a fraud if they’re calling something Kona that is not Kona by law. But of course, the buyers probably assume their asses are covered on this.
That happened a looong time ago. Propaganda.
I believe that the Willie Horton ad was a brain child of Lee Atwater (look it up). Not sure if Ailes was controlling the entire GHWB media output…