25. Ailes and Chet Collier questioned Author interview with a person familiar with the matter.
26. Bob Reichblum See résumé at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bob-reichblum/0/788/880.
27. Collier was a Massachusetts liberal Author interview with a former Fox News staffer. See also Richard Goldstein, “Chester Collier, 80, Dies; Led Westminster Show,” New York Times, Aug. 29, 2007.
28. “Chet’s idea” Author interview with a former CNBC executive.
29. The trade journal Dog News Chester F. Collier (paid obituary), New York Times, Aug. 19, 2007.
30. Throughout the spring and summer Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
31. “I’m not hiring talent” Author interview with a former Fox News executive. See also Brock, “Roger Ailes Is Mad as Hell.” 191 $1 million line item Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
32. “I didn’t understand” Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
33. “Viewers don’t want” Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
34. “He hated anything” Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
35. Collier regularly rebuked Author interview with Emily Rooney. See also Swint, Dark Genius, 164.
36. “Chet told me” Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
37. John Moody Suzan Revah, American Journalism Review, May 1996.
38. He had spent a decade See John Moody résumé at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-moody/10/ba2/729.
39. a Cold War thriller John Moody, Moscow Magician (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991).
40. A “first-class journalist” Author interviews with two former Time staffers who worked with Moody.
41. “There are a lot” Author interview with former Time assistant managing editor Janice Simpson.
42. One of the problems Collins, Crazy Like a Fox, 73.
43. Speaking with a reporter Mifflin, “At the New Fox News Channel, the Buzzword Is Fairness, Separating News from Bias.”
44. As they spoke Sella, “The Red-State Network.”
45. “When he first came in” Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
46. Emily Rooney could not believe Author interview with Emily Rooney.
47. “Collier hated Moody” Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
48. Moody “hated” Collier’s talk show concepts Author interview with a Fox News founding producer.
49. In meetings, Ailes spoke Author interviews with Fox News executives.
50. “He made sure” Author interview with a person close to Ailes.
51. “So much of the success” Author interview with a former senior Fox executive.
52. Murdoch invested Stephen Battaglio, “Long, Busy Day Planned for Fox News Channel,” Hollywood Reporter, Sept. 5, 1996.
53. A stable of twenty John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, Sept. 5, 1996.
54. Louis Aguirre See biographical note at http://www.wsvn.com/newsteam/?id=DBM430.
55. Jon Scott See biographical note at http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/personalities/jon-scott/bio/.
56. Shepard Smith “Entertainment Briefs,” BPI Entertainment News Wire, Aug. 24, 1999.
57. Wendell Goler Carmody, “The TV Column,” Sept. 5, 1996.
58. Camera crews Jon Lafayette, “ ‘Fairness’ Will Set Fox News Apart,” Electronic Media, Sept. 9, 1996.
59. In addition, the network Ibid. See also Warren’s Cable Regulation Monitor, Oct. 7, 1996.
60. Neil Cavuto Carmody, “The TV Column,” Sept. 5, 1996. Many of the details in this paragraph about the prime-time lineup came from Carmody’s article.
61. provisionally titled Ibid.
62. The weeknight slate Gary Levin, “Fox News Channel Sets Slate,” Daily Variety, Sept. 11, 1996.
63. Starting at 10:00 p.m. Ibid.
64. Weekend coverage Battaglio, “Long, Busy Day Planned for Fox News Channel.”
65. “He had been in the business” Marvin Kitman, The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O’Reilly (New York: St. Martin’s, 2007), 163.
66. Schneider, probably the biggest name Author interview with Mike Schneider.
67. At a press conference Lafayette, “ ‘Fairness’ Will Set Fox News Apart.”
68. “There isn’t a shred” Michael Burgi, “Not Banking on Anchors,” Mediaweek, Sept. 16, 1996.
69. “most television people are idiots” Kitman, The Man Who Would Not Shut Up, 6.
70. He knew viewers made Ailes and Kraushar, You Are the Message, 3.
71. “If I have any ability” Collins, Crazy Like a Fox, 140.
72. “None of us were news people” Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
73. Sharri Berg Tom Junod, “Because They Hate Him and Want Him to Fail,” Esquire, March 1, 2009.
74. Janet Alshouse Martin C. Evans, “Exec Switching Channel,” Newsday (New York), Aug. 17, 1996.
75. Bill Shine “Fox News Channel Names Bill Shine Senior Vice President of Programming,” Business Wire, Jan. 13, 2005.
76. “I was not a fan” Author interview with former Fox News staffer Jordan Kurzweil.
77. “This was not the A-team” Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
78. Catherine Crier Author interview with former Fox News anchor Catherine Crier.
79. “We became the enemy” Author interview with Emily Rooney.
80. “It became very clear” Author interview with a former Fox producer.
81. “Joe had an open-door policy” Author interview with former Fox News accountant Jay Ringelstein.
82. “At most organizations” Author interview with a former News Corp executive.
83. Once at a News Corp seminar Neil, “Murdoch and Me.”
84. “If you’re good” David Lieberman, “Ailes Tackles Toughest Assignment: Cable Channel Battles Budget, Clock, Rivals,” USA Today, Sept. 23, 1996.
85. At a September 4 news conference Frazier Moore, “Fox News Channel: More Round-the-Clock News a Month Away,” Associated Press, Sept. 4, 1996. See also Robin Dougherty, “Fox News Chairman: Cable Service Shooting for ‘Balanced’ Coverage,” Miami Herald, Sept. 5, 1996; Gary Levin, “Fox News Channel Sets Slate,” Variety, Sept. 9–Sept. 15, 1996; and Lafayette, “ ‘Fairness’ Will Set Fox News Apart.”
86. It was a play off Auletta, “Vox Fox.”
87. In an interview that fall Verne Gay, “The All-News Wars Heat Up,” Newsday, Oct. 7, 1996.
88. “Journalists are by and large intelligent” Jon Lafayette, “Fox’s Upstart All-News Cable Channel to Take High Ground, Says Chairman,” Crain’s New York Business, Sept. 16, 1996.
89. “I have noticed” Dougherty, “Fox News Chairman: Cable Service Shooting for ‘Balanced’ Coverage.”
90. Fox’s three foreign bureaus Mifflin, “At the New Fox News Channel, the Buzzword Is Fairness, Separating News from Bias.”
91. CNN’s twenty “Galaxy Latin America Announces Agreement with Turner Broadcasting,” PR Newswire, July 9, 1996.
92. The projected staff of five hundred Lafayette, “ ‘Fairness’ Will Set Fox News Apart.”
93. Even O’Reilly was disappointed Kitman, The Man Who Would Not Shut Up, 169–70.
94. In the end, Fox would Peter Johnson, “Fox Treads into 24-Hour Cable News,” USA Today, Oct. 7, 1996.
95. The indoctrination began Collins, Crazy Like a Fox, 79. Author interviews with persons present.
96. “He put it out there” Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
97. He introduced Collins, Crazy Like a Fox, 80.
98. At the orientation Author interview with Jay Ringelstein.
99. “There was almost a sense” Author interview with Mike Schneider.
100. “I don’t expect” Mifflin, “At the New Fox News Channel, the Buzzword Is Fairness, Separating News from Bias.”
101. In one early session Author interview with former Fox News producer Adam S
ank. During his years at Fox, Sank remembered several incidents he experienced as being anti-gay. In the fall of 1998, when the torture and murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard sparked a national uproar, Moody told Fox producers that they should not play into the media narrative. “He was apoplectic about the coverage,” Sank recalled. “He said, ‘this is an insane amount of coverage that this story is getting. If this wasn’t a slow news week, no one would be paying attention.’ ” Sank was upset by Moody’s seeming indifference to the impact of the heinous crime. Months later, Sank was outraged when Bret Baier invoked Matthew Shepard during a report on a grisly Arkansas case, in which two gay men were accused of sexually abusing and murdering a thirteen-year-old boy. “Nobody except for extreme right-wing blogs was comparing it to Matthew Shepard,” Sank said. “I wanted to leave my first day, but when this happened, I knew I had to just get out.” In 2002, senior management criticized him for airing a segment about a gay pride parade in Los Angeles. “I immediately got word that the powers that be were displeased,” he recalled. His boss pulled him into an editing room and told him that Ailes and Moody thought the piece was “not fair and balanced” and that he “should have known better [than] to run a piece like that.” Sank left Fox News several weeks later.
102. Pointing to an article “Gay Zimbabweans Win Fight for Book-Fair Booth,” New York Times, Aug. 2, 1996.
103. “Maybe the words” Gay, “The All-News Wars Heat Up.”
104. Fox News, the memos stated Sella, “Red State Network.”
105. Though credit for the slogan Author interview with advertising executive Tom Messner.
106. To wit Hass, “Embracing the Enemy.”
107. These friends of Roger Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
108. “I was creeped out” Author interview with a former Fox News producer.
109. It was not the mere fact Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
110. What they found Author interview with Jordan Kurzweil and Fox News producers.
111. “These guys were researching people” Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
112. “It was very Nixonian” Author interview with a former Fox News senior producer.
113. One source close to Ailes Author interview with a colleague of Roger Ailes.
114. According to broadcast consultant Author interview with George Case.
115. It was his theory Author interview with a former Fox News executive.
116. In memos to staff Sella, “The Red-State Network.”
117. “Power is best wielded” Author interview with broadcast consultant George Case.
118. Scott Ehrlich confided Author interview with a person familiar with the matter.
119. Fox hosts now routinely See, e.g., John Gibson, The Big Story with John Gibson, Fox News Channel, April 8, 2004; Bill O’Reilly, The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News Channel, Oct. 25, 2010.
120. Early on, Mike Schneider Author interview with Mike Schneider.
121. “I consider myself a freedom fighter” Grove, “The Image Shaker; Roger Ailes, the Bush Team’s Wily Media Man.”
122. According to Dan Cooper Dan Cooper, Naked Launch: Creating Fox News (New York: 4 LLC ebook, 2008). Also available at www.dancooper.tv/NakedLaunch.htm.
123. Rudy Nazath, Author interview with a person familiar with the design of the Fox News studios. Ailes has denied the story. See Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, “Roger Ailes Unplugged,” Politico, June 6, 2013, http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/behind-the-curtain-ailes-unplugged-92386.html.
124. “We hired Alan” Author interview with a former Fox producer.
125. “We thought he looked better” Author interview with a former Fox producer.
126. Bill O’Reilly was also Kitman, The Man Who Would Not Shut Up, 170.
127. With the launch just days away Collins, Crazy Like a Fox, 81–82.
128. That evening, the channel would host Clifford J. Levy, “Lobbying at Murdoch Gala Ignited New York Cable Clash,” New York Times, Oct. 13, 1996.
129. He called a meeting Collins, Crazy Like a Fox, 82. Author interview with George Case.
130. A Time Warner spokesperson Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
131. David Zaslav negotiated Ibid.
132. It was pouring rain Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.” See also Plaintiffs’ Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, Oct. 25, 1996, Time Warner Cable v. City of New York, 96-cv-7736, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
133. He made numerous angry calls Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
134. “Murdoch thought” Ibid.
135. Murdoch insisted Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.” See also deposition of former New York City deputy mayor Fran Reiter, Time Warner Cable v. City of New York.
136. “If these guys want” Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
THIRTEEN: THE RIGHT KIND OF FRIENDS
1. News Corp’s assault Shawcross, Murdoch, 412.
2. “You are immoral” Oral argument by Clifford Thau, an outside attorney representing Fox News. Fox News v. Time Warner, 96-cv-4963, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
3. “He called me a lot of names” Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
4. “What the hell happened?” Ibid.
5. “Chase, calm down” Ibid.
6. The launch of Fox News Elizabeth Sanger, “Uphill Fight for Fox,” Newsday (New York), Nov. 7, 1996.
7. The first intimation Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
8. They directed Dressler Ibid.
9. the FTC announced Martin Crutsinger, “FTC Approves Time Warner’s Acquisition of Turner,” Associated Press, Sept. 12, 1996.
10. On September 12 Martin Crutsinger, “FTC Approves Time Warner’s Acquisition of Turner,” Associated Press, Sept. 12, 1996.
11. Richard Aurelio, the president Author interview with Richard Aurelio, former president of Time Warner New York City Cable Group.
12. In his negotiations Affidavit of former Time Warner executive vice president of cable programming Fred Dressler, Time Warner Cable v. City of New York, 96-cv-7736, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
13. The financial terms Letter from Rupert Murdoch to Gerald Levin, June 4, 1996.
14. Of more immediate concern Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
15. After John Malone’s TCI announced John Dempsey, “Spurned Cable Webs Revile TCI,” Variety, Aug. 19–Aug. 25, 1996. See also Bill Carter, “Plan to Cut TV Channel Angers Women’s Groups,” New York Times, Sept. 14, 1996.
16. During Dressler’s negotiations Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
17. In the mid-1980s Ibid.
18. In the press Louise McElvogue, “After Rupert,” Guardian (London), April 22, 1996. See also Paul Farhi, “Mogul Wrestling; In the War Between Murdoch and Turner, Similarity Breeds Contempt,” Washington Post, Nov. 18, 1996.
19. When Turner agreed Dennis Wharton, “Murdoch Turns Tables on Turner,” Daily Variety, Feb. 27, 1996.
20. Murdoch listened Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
21. George Pataki Kiley Armstrong, “Cuomo’s Defeat Could Mean Trouble for NYC Mayor,” Associated Press, Nov. 9, 1994.
22. Murdoch donated Candace Sutton (editor), Back Page, Sydney (Australia) Sun Herald, Dec. 11, 1994. See also Louise Branson, “TV’s Big Guns Fall Silent,” Scotsman, Jan. 4, 1997.
23. The New York cable franchise Masters and Burrough, “Cable Guys.”
24. The paper had endorsed New York Post (cover), Oct. 29, 1993, and Oct. 28, 1994.
25. Murdoch even employed Elisabeth Bumiller, “Clash of Careers for First Lady; Donna Hanover’s 2 Roles Are Not Always Separate,” New York Times, Dec.1, 1995.
26. It was also Peter Grant, “20 M for Rupe’s Biz but Foes Rip City, State on News Corp. Deal,” New York Daily News, June 20, 1996.
2
7. Though he officially renounced politics Ailes Communications, “Roger Ailes for Governor? Not!” (press release), Dec. 21, 1992.
28. On the evening Author interview with a person who was present at Ailes Communications headquarters on the evening of the 1992 presidential election.
29. A month later Maurice Carroll, “Giuliani’s New Style on Display at Dinner,” New York Newsday, Dec. 3, 1992.
30. When Giuliani took office Author interview with a person familiar with the matter.
31. On Friday, September 20 Brock, “Roger Ailes Is Mad as Hell.”
32. The previous spring Affidavit of former New York City deputy mayor Fran Reiter, Time Warner Cable v. City of New York.
33. “Time Warner informed us” Author interview with Fran Reiter. Much of the following account of Reiter’s involvement in the negotiations comes from this interview.
34. As part of its News America project financing proposal, submitted to the New York City Industrial Development Agency in 1996.
35. Privately, however Author interview with Fran Reiter.
36. In 1993, he had won Beth J. Harpaz, “Giuliani Defeats Dinkins in Tight Race,” Associated Press, Nov. 3, 1993.
37. “Rudy was walking into a snake pit” Ibid.
38. On Thursday, September 26 Clifford J. Levy, “An Old Friend Called Giuliani, and New York’s Cable Clash Was On,” New York Times, Nov. 4, 1996.
39. Meanwhile, uptown David Lieberman, “Time Warner–Murdoch Feud Heats Up,” USA Today, Sept. 27, 1996. See also Arthur Spiegelman, “Murdoch Pledges to Get Even with Turner,” Reuters, published in Toronto Financial Post, Sept. 28, 1996; and Brett Thomas, “Turner Slams Murdoch,” Sydney Sun Herald, Sept. 29, 1996.
40. By Friday afternoon Affidavit of Fran Reiter, Time Warner Cable v. City of New York.
41. Over the weekend Ibid. See also Levy, “An Old Friend Called Giuliani”; and David L. Lewis, Angela G. King, and Dean Chang, “TV Titans in Power Play,” New York Daily News, Oct. 20, 1996.
42. On Monday morning Opinion of U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote, Nov. 6, 1996, Time Warner Cable v. City of New York, http://www.nyls.edu/documents/media_center/the_media_center_library_u_s_cases/timewnyc.pdf.
43. Aurelio left a message Affidavit of Fran Reiter, Time Warner Cable v. City of New York.
The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country Page 62