An interesting story…. if true.
What I am referring to, is the seven page opus, by a Gabriel Sherman at New York Magazine. It is an interesting read, if it is all remotely true. As an independent “Right of Center” type person, one of my biggest quibbles with these pieces that are done by non-right wing media sites about News Corp/Fox News Channel is that the best information about the inner workings of the Fox News are often given by anonymous people. I fully understand the reasoning for it, to protect jobs and so forth; but my goodness, if you are going to dish on the good stuff; have the guts to at least say your name.
This is one thing that has always annoyed me to no end, is people who gossip and do not have the guts to let people know their identity. I guess what am trying to say is, that if you are going to dish the dirt, be a Man or a Woman and tell people who the heck you are, or just shut the hell up. Because the truth is, you are most likely lying, because you are pissed off, because Roger Ailes did not give you the raise that you wanted or something rather idiotic of that nature.
A sampling of the first two paragraphs:
On Monday afternoon, March 28, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes summoned Glenn Beck to a meeting in his office on the second floor of News Corp.’s midtown headquarters to discuss his future at the network. Ailes had spent the better part of the weekend at his Putnam County estate thinking about how to stage-manage Beck’s departure from Fox, which at that point was all but inevitable. But, as with everything concerning Glenn Beck, the situation was a mess, simultaneously a negotiation and a therapy session. Beck had already indicated he was willing to walk away—“I don’t want to do cable news anymore,” he had told Ailes. But moving him out the door without collateral damage was proving , dandifficult.
Ailes had hired Beck in October 2008 to reenergize Fox’s audience after Obama’s election, and he’d succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest hopes, tapping deep wells of resentment and igniting them into a vast, national conflagration. The problem was that it had almost engulfed Fox itself. Beck was huge and uncontrollable, and some of Fox’s other big names seemed diminished by comparison—and were speaking up about it. Beck seemed to many to be Fox News’s id made visible, saying things—Obama is a racist, Nazi tactics are progressive tactics—dredged from the right-wing subconscious. These were things that weren’t supposed to be said, even at Fox, and they were consuming the brand. Ailes had built his career by artfully tending the emotional undercurrents of both politics and entertainment, using them to power ratings and political careers; now they were out of his control. — Go read the rest here please…
It has the typical Conservative elements of a Conservative story, Image, Wealth, Egos and Power. Typical television stuff. It makes for an interesting read.