Like I’ve always said: Sometimes the mask slips and the truth comes out.
A 24-year-old Fox News Channel production assistant was fired this morning for something she said during the red carpet arrivals at the Time 100 Gala last night.
Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, “I voted for you in the primary, you’re going to win.”
McCain was overheard saying to her, “You’re not supposed to reveal that.”
On Fox News, they don’t count on their guests being prepared before they go on-air. When the occasional guest is ready for combat, they hit the alarm bells. Lucky for Hannity he had dingbat blonde “liberal” (liberal in the same way that I am a Republican) Kirsten Powers to take a dive yet again.
Have there been any ties like this between a news organization and a presidential candidate before? I wonder how the other Republican candidates feel to know that the game’s already decided by the party’s pseudo official network?
Judith Regan, the book publisher who was fired by the News Corporation last year, asserts in a lawsuit filed today that a senior executive at the media conglomerate encouraged her to mislead federal investigators about her relationship with Bernard B. Kerik during his bid to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.
The lawsuit asserts that the News Corporation executive wanted to protect the presidential aspirations of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Kerik’s mentor, who had appointed him New York City police commissioner and had recommended him for the federal post.
Ms. Regan makes the charge at the start of a 70-page filing that seeks $100 million in damages for what she says was a campaign to smear and discredit her by her bosses at HarperCollins and its parent company, the News Corporation, after her project to publish a book with O.J. Simpson was abandoned amid a storm of protest.
In the civil complaint filed in state court in Manhattan, Ms. Regan says the company has long sought to promote Mr. Giuliani’s ambitions. But the lawsuit does not elaborate on that charge, or identify the executive who she alleged pressured her to mislead investigators, nor does it offer details or evidence to back up her claim.
In an interview pimping the launch of the Enron-style Fox Business Network, Roger Ailes says this, apparently with a straight face:
And some of the cable networks, such as MSNBC, have their opinion people actually anchor the news. We don’t do that.
Apparently Roger Ailes is unfamiliar with the work of Brit Hume, John Gibson, and Neil Cavuto, just to mention a few of Fox’s allegedly unopinionated anchors who parrot the conservative/Republican line almost every time they open their mouths. Either Roger Ailes doesn’t know what goes on air at his network, or he’s a liar.
Fox News anchor Jon Scott just can’t figure out two things:
a) Why the military is in desperate need of recruits right now
b) Why the military has had to lower their standards to get said recruits
The idea that we’re at war in two countries and that at least one of those wars is going badly simply doesn’t enter his mind. He and his masters at Fox News just couldn’t possibly comprehend the answer to this issue.
I’ve been at Media Matters since the launch in 2003, and I can’t tell you how many times when these conservatives, faced for the first time with having to take account for their words, whine and complain and cry that they were “taken out of context”.
Laura Schwartz is another one of the idiotic “Democratic Strategists” that have been hired by Fox News to work in concert with patsies like Alan Colmes and Kirsten Powers to just lie down and take it from the network’s conservative heavies. In this case, Schwartz kisses Bill O’Reilly’s hindquarters in a rush to “condemn” MoveOn, apparently in the hopes that her master will reward her with a treat and a pat on the head when all is said and done. Is it any wonder that the mostly conservative viewers on Fox are so ill-informed and so shocked when the rare Dem does not roll over for them, because they’re given a steady diet of folks like Laura Schwartz, Kirsten Powers, Bob Beckel and Alan Colmes as the only “liberals” or “Democrats” they know. Paid fools in face paint shucking and jiving on the screen.
Watching Fox News for the first time in a while outside of work, it’s clear that the entire GOP strategy is now down to hiding behind Petraeus. Sean Hannity, when he was done fluffing Rudy Giuliani in an interview that should be registered with the FEC as a campaign donation, simply ignored the entire substance of Bush’s speech and proceeded to whine about Hillary Clinton and the oh-so-evil Democrats having the nerve to disagree with the testimony of the compromised General Petraeus.
They’re like the little kid who can’t hack it on the playground and goes to hide behind Mommy’s skirt. But in this case the skirt is General Petraeus’ uniform. Pathetic.
In the 25-54 demographic on 9/7/07 Countdown with Keith Olbermann had 365,000 viewers. The O’Reilly Factor had 324,000. Bill O still has a huge lead in total audience, but Olbermann isn’t going away (even as MSNBC continues to stuff their schedule with failing conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough).
Tomorrow night, after spending the day telling Congress that President Bush’s Iraq escalation should continue, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will take their PR campaign to a more comfortable setting: Fox News.
Within the 25-54 demographic, Olbermann came within 19k of Bill O’Reilly. Ten years ago Larry King looked untouchable to the upstart Bill O’Reilly. Things change.
