Entertainment

Ailes slams Fox critics, defends press freedom at Ohio forum

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Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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ATHENS, Ohio — Fox News Channel’s chairman and CEO Roger Ailes lambasted his critics, praised his competitors and preached his principles Monday evening at Ohio University.

Ailes, the head of the top-rated cable news network a decade running, spoke to students as part of the George Washington Forum. His visit to the college town drew fire before he even showed up.

In the days and hours ahead of the event, left-leaning writers including Eric Boehlert at Media Matters for America and Robert Greenwald, the liberal filmmaker behind an anti-Fox News documentary, bashed the university, the forum speaker program, its donors and the faculty member who organized the program.

Ailes joked about the furor over his visit as soon as he took the stage. The top dog at Fox News graduated from the southern Ohio school decades ago, and early in his speech he described for the packed room the scene when noted socialist Norman Thomas came to town in the 1960s.

“Norman Thomas came to the campus and there was a lot of buzz,” Ailes said. “Now, I’m not sure if he was here making a presentation or whether he was here for a meeting or what. But, as you know, he was the premiere socialist, probably, of the 20th century. That was pretty frightening to people 50 years ago that a real open socialist would show up on campus — sort of the same reaction you get when a conservative shows up today.”

“He came, and OU lived through it,” Ailes observed.

“I have one wish for OU, that it continues to be a place for open debate where people from different points of view with various opinions can meet and discuss these things openly. Because there will be no progress, and America will not survive, if we don’t allow that open debate.”

Ailes walked students from his alma mater through how he built the nation’s number-one news network from nothing. In 1996, he said, he was racing against the clock and his competitors.

CNN “had a 17-year head start, was fully funded and was a worldwide brand” and General Electric and Microsoft, “the number one and number two companies in America” with “unlimited resources” were set to soon launch MSNBC, he said.

“It was my belief that we couldn’t wait until 1997 to launch Fox, so I had to work with what I had. What I had were no studios, no talent, no programs, no newsgathering, no offices and no control rooms. Nothing. I had an empty room. Today, that asset of that empty room is $13 billion.

“So, in 15 years, we transformed that situation. It was difficult. It took us six years to pass the competition, to build up to the point where, for the last 10 years, we’ve been the number one cable news network in America.”

Despite his detractors’ public criticisms, Ailes said the secret to success in the news business is creating a product that the American people overwhelmingly choose to watch. It’s “not because of some trick or political ideology or anything else,” he insisted.

“It goes out to people in their homes and they have a right to choose it or not choose it. We just don’t have enough staff to go around putting guns to people’s heads,” Ailes joked.

He also expounded on the differences between news broadcasts and opinion programming.

“There are two parts to all news channels,” Ailes said. “One is the news — that’s Shep Smith, Bret Baier, what we do during the daytime. Every channel also does talk shows, opinion shows. You have to separate those in your mind because they are different.”

“Rachel Maddow has a talk show, Sean Hannity has a talk show. They have different points of view,” Ailes explained. “The only difference between Fox and the shows on CNN and MSNBC is we invite liberals to participate constantly.”

“Geraldine Ferraro was a contributor to Fox News for 10 years. [We have] Bob Beckel, Juan Williams. Dennis Kucinich is a frequent guest on Fox News.”

Ailes described a programming philosophy that distinguishes his network from its competitors — one that revolves aroud news judgment, not with whether something is news or not.

“When Abu Ghraib happened during the Bush administration, we carried that — full pictures, full board — 17 times,” he said. “Now, The New York Times had it, I believe, 44 times, on their front page. When I went to an editorial meeting one morning and said to the head of our news division, ‘Why aren’t we doing Abu Ghraib today?’ He said, ‘there’s no news.’

“I said, ‘well the Times has got it on their front page,’ and he said, ‘that’s because it’s a political agenda for the Times. For us, we’re waiting for more news. Every time there’s news, we put it up full screen and lead the news shows with it.’ It’s just a different philosophy. Don’t cover it up, but don’t push it if there’s no news.”

Ailes focused extensively on the importance of free speech and an independent press are to the future of the United States.

“The Constitution actually only protects one profession: the press,” Ailes told his student audience. “Why does it do that? It does that because they [the founders] all came from countries where the government actually took over the press. We have free press so we have a responsibility to do the right thing with it.”

Even so, Ailes warned that widespread complacency, a lack of tenacious digging and chumminess with politicians may make the press its own worst enemy — and ultimately weaken the nation. And he pointedly invited his audience to make the same criticisms of his news network that they might level at any other.

“You have to be careful of the press,” Ailes said. “Be careful of Fox, criticize whatever you want, write in, raise hell, it doesn’t matter. It’s important because the one thing that has never been anticipated — they [America’s founders] always thought the government might try to take over the press — the worst thing that could happen is the press surrendering to a government, to a party, to a group of people in Washington.”

Ailes also said he views “diversity” as more than merely a variety of “just skin color, language, culture, economic status, geography or religion,” especially in newsrooms.

“I believe it’s diversity of thought,” Ailes said. “Any newsroom that doesn’t have diverse thought is in danger.”

Ailes said he thinks “CNN actually tries” to be fair in its coverage.

“I joust with them because we’re in competition — we’re beating the hell out of them — but I don’t dislike them,” Ailes said. “They tend to hire only liberals because mostly liberals work in the news business. But they try to [be fair]. They’ve got some very good people. Candy Crowley, great journalist. Wolf Blitzer, excellent journalist.”

But he had harsh words for MSNBC, which he claimed “has gotten out of the news business” entirely.

“Even some of their own news people at NBC won’t go on MSNBC. Brian Williams doesn’t want to be caught dead over there because it’s all opinion and it’s all far left.”

Williams “is a Democrat and worked for Jimmy Carter,” Ailes observed. but he called the NBC News anchor “a fair, sincere newsman.”

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