I’ve had the honor and the pleasure of sitting down and talking with Mr. Ailes on numerous occasions over the years and my admiration for him continues to grow. He is the reason I’m proud to be associated with Fox News and thank God this man has the vision and commitment to make sure the American people are fully informed while also keeping us entertained.
You’ll notice a number of headlines out there today about a new book which accuses Mr. Ailes of something that never happened. Here are a variety of links for you breaking down the coverage, including a snippet from a Q&A from the man himself. Please do click through and read the whole thing.
Fox’s news czar tells THR about his goal to launch a new network with Bill O’Reilly, the real reason Alec Baldwin was fired and why Jeff Zucker’s strategy is no cause for concern: “I guess he’s going to do whales a lot. If I were Discovery, I’d be worried.”
At 73, the Ohio native shows no interest in retiring. Outside his day-to-day running of FNC, sister channel Fox Business Network and the Fox Television Stations Group, he has a weekend residence in Garrison, N.Y., with wife Elizabeth and 14-year-old son Zachary. A fervent newshound, he bought local paper Putnam County News and Recorder in 2009. Ailes remained characteristically silent throughout months of rumors leading up to the FNC revamp but agreed to a sit-down with THR in December, speaking in his modestly attired office on the second floor of the News Corp. building.
Though he declined to comment on the split from longtime PR exec Brian Lewis, he did briefly explain why he opted to not participate in an unauthorized biography by Gabriel Sherman. Warm and droll for a man often vilified by Hollywood liberals, he also opened up about his competition, recent talent acquisitions (Maria Bartiromo, Elisabeth Hasselbeck), the staying power of the Tea Party and his desire to launch a new history channel with O’Reilly.
Q: Megyn Kelly, a ratings boon to primetime, has been a lightning rod since moving to 9 p.m. What do you think of the attention she got for saying, “For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white”?
I don’t like [the uproar]. She was joking. She’s talking about Santa Claus, for Christ’s sake. But the people who are jealous of her, who want to bring down or hurt Fox News, see an opportunity. If they have to beat up somebody as talented as Megyn Kelly on Santa Claus, they’re pathetic…
Fox News always has made a distinction between the news and more opinionated programming. Does Megyn’s move change the way those are defined?
I think our [viewers] are adults. They know the difference between news and programming. I grew up in the era when Dan Rather hated Richard Nixon. He was a newsman, but you knew what his opinion was. Walter Cronkite came back from Vietnam and offered his opinion on the war. I know what the news shows are, and I know what the programming shows are, and there’s a difference.
When you wake up first thing in the morning, what do you read?
I look at four New York newspapers: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the [New York] Post and the Daily News. On my cellphone, I look at Drudge [Report] because he’s the best aggregator going on.
Why do you have TVs running every network in your office?
Look at those six screens. I always bring my producers in and say: “Turn away from there. Now look back and tell me where your eye goes.” They tell me. If it doesn’t go to my screen, that’s how you’re going to get fired.
Why bring back Sarah Palin just a few months after not renewing her contract?
The only two people I knew who got worse press than her were Richard Nixon and George W. Bush — some of it unfairly, much of it unfair to her family. She’s recognizable, she’s attractive, and she still has the message of stop raising taxes. The Tea Party started as a group that [the government] could make go home to bake meatloaf at any point in the last three years by simply doing two things: Stop raising taxes and stop stealing their money. Congress can’t stop spending money. I’m not a defender of everything she says. I don’t hear everything she says. But I know she represents a certain group of people who rose up against their own party, which you rarely see. I probably hired her back, if you really want to get to the bottom of it, to give her a chance to say her piece and piss off the people that wanted her dead.
You’re the subject of an unauthorized book, for which you declined to participate. Are you doing anything to counteract any negative elements?
Bette Davis said — I think it was Bette Davis — “What other people think of me is none of my business.” Attacking me and Fox News is nothing new — it’s a cottage industry. What’s new is that Random House refused to fact check the content with me or Fox News; that tells you everything you need to know about this book and its agenda.
Additional Links:
Breitbart: War on Ailes: Random House Prints Slanderous Attack After Two Major CEOs Deny Incident
I’m thankful for these few good people in our fraudulent culture doing their duty with heads held high.