Fox News

by Bernard McCormick Monday, March 31, 2025 2 Comment(s)

Even within the bizarre circumstances of today's propaganda-laden media, there has been a notable development in mainstream (or almost mainstream) coverage of major stories. Stations refer to each other all the time, citing sources of breaking news. But what is happening with Fox is different. In recent weeks, and several instances just today, one of the featured stories on various TV channels has been a story about another organization's version of the same story. Fox News has been the subject of reports of its own reporters criticizing the Trump administration. How strange that a network deviating from its usual company line should be considered important enough to make primetime news.

The author interviewed Roger Ailes in 1969.

As we have written before, we think Fox News is awful and responsible for much of our country's unfortunate polarizations. Our perspective on that organization is unusual, for it goes back 60 years when Fox was just a dream in the mind of Roger Ailes. Ailes had just become nationally known, thanks to Joe McGinniss' best-selling book, "Selling of the President - 1968". Ailes had been a producer of the popular Mike Douglas Show out of Philadelphia. He met Presidential candidate Richard Nixon on the show and talked himself into the job of running Nixon's TV campaign. Joe McGinniss quit his job as a featured newspaper columnist to follow the campaign. McGinniss had a rich dose of con in him and managed to get Ailes to open up to a remarkable extent. His book included a lot of Ailes' cynical and amusing comments about his own client. He likened Nixon to a schoolboy who always had his homework done and wouldn't let you copy. Nixon won the election and Ailes was given a lot of credit, especially by McGinniss. Ailes loved the recognition and became friends with McGinniss whom he later advised on McGinniss' own TV appearances.

The author interviewed Roger Ailes in 1969. The bestseller shot Ailes to importance. 

Part of that recognition was a little story we did for Philadelphia magazine. We spent a few hours with Ailes in his office, discussing his methods to make the stiff Richard Nixon seem real enough to vote for.  Ailes had stacked interviews in major markets with Nixon supporters who asked softball questions. That afternoon he justified that manipulation by arguing that the media was dominated by Democratic-leaning reporters, and the Republicans needed to control coverage in whatever way they could. He actually mentioned organizing a TV channel that would carry the Republican slant on news. 

Ailes, after increasing his prominence in several presidential campaigns, eventually established Fox and built it until he resigned under sexual harassment changes. He died in 2017 in Palm Beach. He barely made it to see Donald Trump becoming the success of his unprincipled concepts. Given what we know about Ailes' tendency to ridicule his clients, wouldn't it be a trip to hear what he really feels about Trump.