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Go Home THIS Is What Ailes Is 'Fair and Balanced' About?

TIMOTHY NOAH SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

THIS Is What Ailes Is 'Fair and Balanced' About?

BY TIMOTHY NOAH

A Roger Ailes profile by Howie Kurtz in the Daily Beast has him offering advice to Mitt Romney ("You ought to be looser on the air") and warning Shepherd Smith not to say nice things about President Barack Obama ("Every once in a while [he] gets out there where the buses don't run and we have a friendly talk"). Kurtz reports that Ailes "has pulled back a bit on the throttle," but the evidence for that is scant.

Meanwhile, Ailes' latest criticism of the lamestream media is that (am I reading this correctly?) it's biased against suicide bombers:

The talk turns to terrorism. Ailes is angry about an Associated Press report that 29 worshipers were killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad’s largest Sunni mosque during prayers. 'How do we know they were worshiping?' he demands. 'I think the AP is so far over the hill, they’ve become left wing, antiwar. Gotta watch their copy.'

How do we know they were worshiping? What the hell does Ailes think Sunni Muslims do when they go to the mosque? Brush their teeth? And the phrase "during prayers" doesn't leave much room for ambiguity. I applaud Ailes' impulse to be judicious, but he should deploy it more constructively.

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19 comments

Exactly. It's like when they talk about the unemployed. What a load of baloney! These so-called "unemployed" have no shortage of work to do: getting out of bed, making coffee, turning on the TV or the computer, scanning the ad sites for the job vacancies. They aren't "unemployed"! That's just another sneaky way the liberal media can broadcast its subversive Obama administration propaganda.

- ironyroad

September 26, 2011 at 10:30am

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Is he really so far gone that he can't conceive that Muslims can be and are victims of terrorism? Does he believe that they're all in cahoots and so it doesn't make sense that they'd be targetted? Does he think they were making bombs instead of worshipping? I honestly can't find a plausible rationale for that statement that isn't way, way off the reservation, even by current right-wing standards.

- tealeaves

September 26, 2011 at 10:37am

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They were secret secularists, but only Roger knows.

- liberalref

September 26, 2011 at 10:40am

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Kurtz's tv show, Reliable Sources, is often difficult to watch when the host bends everything backward in order to accommodate his right wing guests, such as Jennifer Rubin (ack!) yesterday. Kurtz is very guilty of forcing & facilitating the false equivalency with which TNR today charges his old boss, The Washington Post, in the story about Cantor & government shutdown. He'll ask the tough questions, but then he'll back off and smile and accept any answer as equally valid. I'm not too familiar with his Daily Beast work, so perhaps I should be grateful if his style on his tv show is what allows him access to someone like Roger Ailes.

- Konstantin

September 26, 2011 at 10:45am

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Ailes clearly was trying to shoehorn a smear, any smear, against the AP, one of the most trusted international news outlets ever. Ailes anticipates having FNC and other Murdoch outlets challenged by the likes of AP, and he'd prefer it if his right wing audience came to believe [if they don't already] that *all* the media is somehow against his honest, tragically victimized slate of endorsed Republican candidates & policy positions. Ailes, like Romney nonsensically taking on Harvard and Perry nonsensically taking on knowledge/science/good grades and Bachmann & her mouthpieces taking on invisible socialists and Santorum taking on invisible gay devils, is spreading doubt about trusted hard news sources and laying the groundwork for a campaign, and possibly an entire future political-journalistic landscape, in which his side is no longer expected to deal with any media outlets but his own.

- Konstantin

September 26, 2011 at 10:57am

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It is great to see you so early, Timothy.

- liberalref

September 26, 2011 at 11:05am

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Ailes has been financially successful as a result of his gauging what his market wants; so have been tobacco, fast food, and porn companies. Similarly, his opinion about things is as important as theirs.

- Nusholtz

September 26, 2011 at 11:08am

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I still think Ailes looks like he should be sitting with a monocle in one eye and stroking a long haired persian and mutting something about mr Bond dying a slow death

- Tristan

September 26, 2011 at 11:19am

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ummm... that should be "long-haired persian CAT". Sorry for that image, everyone.

- Tristan

September 26, 2011 at 11:20am

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Not that there's anything wrong with that.

- Tristan

September 26, 2011 at 11:22am

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I think what he's trying to say is that we have to careful and remember that, in general, Muslims don't worship, they plot and those aren't mosques, they're legitimate targets. On a more serious note. Anyone who watches FOX News hates themselves and should be put on a suicide watch or at the very least captured and deprogrammed.

- IggyPop

September 26, 2011 at 11:32am

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My sister's friend was diagnosed with alzheimers several years ago, and since spends countless hours "watching" Fox News. When she last visited my sister she wouldn't let my sister turn off the television. What's truly odd is that she was never much interested in the news before, and definitely not of the Fox variety; indeed, her son is a well-known journalist considered left-leaning. I'd be interested in knowing whether others have witnessed similar behavoir by relatives and friends with alzheimers.

- rayward

September 26, 2011 at 12:52pm

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Rayward Are you speculating that there is evidence that watching Fox News is associated with mental disease?

- Nusholtz

September 26, 2011 at 1:56pm

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What Konstantin said about the Republican candidates and journalism. Combine this with the religious stuff, oy. Things really get scary when you have competing magical belief systems, because we're already way beyond the rational world to begin with. Example, the world was created in six days, and the al Aqsa Mosque was created at the same time of the dinosaurs; I have read both, written with complete sincerity.

- Sophia

September 26, 2011 at 2:07pm

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It's called "bigotry."

- WandreyCer

September 26, 2011 at 2:29pm

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Actually, I am curious whether those suffering dementia , or some types of dementia, are drawn to Fox News. I understand that many are drawn to television, but my sister's friend's new-found obsession seems so odd I was curious whether others had made the same observation. No, I'm not suggesting that everybody who watches Fox News suffers dimentia, but I'm curious if Fox does something (lighting, music, pace, whatever), intentional or not, that has special appeal to those who do suffer dementia.

- rayward

September 26, 2011 at 4:04pm

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Sooooo . . . um . . . Timothy -- are you going to start ramping up the frequency a little? Or is nothing much happening on the political scene these days? Not that you shouldn't have time to find your feet. But I think the point of this kind of blog is to just keep 'em coming.

- ironyroad

September 26, 2011 at 4:35pm

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You're preaching to the choir, Mr. Noah.

- polcereal

September 26, 2011 at 4:40pm

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FNC has been correctly accused of building, fitting things into, & adhering to a narrative, which occasionally transcends, usually dovetails, and almost always ultimately reinforces a certain ideology. But surely not every viewer is aware of this narrative, or of the heavy-handedness & cross-promotional saturation of its presentation, and surely not everyone watches enough hours of the stuff to be able to piece it together as such. And most of them would deny being so easily pigeonholed into one ideology. ("I'm not a Republican! I am an independent! Or Libertarian! Or "real American!" Yeah, that's the ticket.) Thus, in a similar vein but decoupled from the narrative-ideology theory, I might argue that the slow-witted are attracted to the cable channel that calls itself "Fox News" because it often presents a sharp, direct cause-&-effect in its reporting & analysis. Less gray area means the viewer feels as though he/she participates in determining a clear right & wrong, and meanwhile the pretense of challenging something or appearing victimized by some perceived slight is a clever way to seemingly empower the thoughts of viewers, who see things so clearly once they buy into the message and who refuse to believe they are actually being manipulated.

- Konstantin

September 26, 2011 at 5:00pm

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