Fox News is still fighting the last war. Busy arguing that it truly is fair and balanced, Fox News execs haven't noticed that, thanks to the Nevada showdown, the real question now on the table is not about Fox News' fairness. It's about whether or not Fox News is a legitimate news organization. That's precisely where Ailes does not want this media branding debate to go. And that's why the Fox News team has exerted so much energy in recent years trying to bully any doubters.It's the reason a Fox News flack swung back wildly in October 2003, when a former producer there, Charlie Reina, wrote publicly about the daily internal Fox News memo that instructs staffers how to spin new stories, often in a partisan manner. Rather than address Reina's factual points, in what must have been a corporate media first, Fox News VP-news operations Sharri Berg issued a public statement in which she quoted an anonymous Fox News employee who belittled Reina as being a nobody and worse, he "NEVER had a job in the newsroom," which was supposed to raise doubts about Reina's credibility. (Reina tells me Berg had to resort to using an anonymous quote because Berg herself knew the statement about Reina never working in the newsroom was false.)
It's why when Ben Smith, blogging for the New York Daily News, observed that Fox News projects an "unmissable, insistent slant," Fox News responded with an oddly personal, schoolyard-quality taunt: "Ben has struggled to regain relevance since leaving the New York Observer, which is why you need a blood hound to find his column. We're happy he's making more than the $29,000 he made at the Observer ... then again, you get what you pay for."
Thanks to Digby for the heads up.
No comments:
Post a Comment