Obama Fox News Showdown A Murdoch 'Set Up': Wolff

Back in September, then Presidential hopeful Barack Obama had a "secret meeting" with Fox News executives in an effort to hash out "concern[s] about the way Fox was covering him." At the time, Obama wondered if Fox was ever going to give him "a fair shake," leading Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes to complain about Obama's imposed "boycott." In the end, the talk "eased tensions" and paved the way for Obama to make an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor. The whole thing was sort of treated as a win for all sides, with Rupert Murdoch continuing his practice of working to ally himself with brands he judges to be winners.

Over the weekend, however, Michael Wolff, whose book, The Man Who Owns The News is already garnering blockbuster attention for its fly-on-the-wall take on Murdoch's empire, threw a new wrinkle at the historical record of this meeting. He told a skeptical Howard Kurtz that the whole sit-down was staged as a way of getting Obama to level criticisms at Ailes that Murdoch himself didn't dare mention:

KURTZ: Well, you say that Murdoch has kind of a crush on Roger Ailes, but you also depict him as being sort of slightly embarrassed by Fox News. Evidence?

WOLFF: Well, sitting with him -- and he -- actually, "embarrassment" is exactly the word. He turns away from it. He sort of says -- he says, "Well, we're going to talk about that."

When he arranged for the summit between Murdoch and Obama, the first time that they met, he brought in -- he brought Ailes to this exactly so that he could let Obama take on Ailes. Murdoch himself didn't want to say, you know, change your coverage, you're unfair here. He specifically brought Ailes into the room so that Obama could say, what are you doing?

KURTZ: Wait. You're saying that not only did Rupert Murdoch obviously want to meet Barack Obama himself because he looked like he was going to be the next president of the United States, but he wanted Barack Obama to complain about the coverage of his own Fox News?

WOLFF: Absolutely. This was a whole setup so that Obama could say to Ailes, what are you doing here? And Obama did. They sat knee to knee, and Obama said, I don't have any time for you. Why should I sit here and do this? You treat me like a terrorist. What's going on here?

Kurtz was naturally a bit gobsmacked by this disclosure. "So why doesn't he do something, if, in fact, it's true that he has problems with Fox News?" he asked.

WOLFF: Rupert Murdoch is shy, fundamentally a man that is conflict-averse. That's number one. Number two, Roger Ailes -- remember, Murdoch is a newspaper guy. He's not a television news guy. Roger Ailes runs this place. Actually, Roger Ailes told me -- and there's some dispute; the Murdoch people said that's not exactly true -- but he told me that in his contract it says that Murdoch cannot interfere, that he has final say. He can be fired ultimately, but, otherwise, he has final say and that Murdoch can't talk to his people.

KURTZ: I can think of a lot of other executives in the Murdoch empire who would like that contract if that's true.

WOLFF: No, no. Totally.

However, most of the executives in need of those contracts work for one of Rupe's newspapers, and no, they are not getting one, not ever.

Comments

[SailFree]

Regarding fairness to presidents:

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/US_President_And_White_House_Advisers/Bush_Interview.html

[SailFree]

How about, doggonit, we just have Obama give a CONCRETE EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING THAT WASN't ACCURATE and then we could have a reasonable discussion. Personally;, I find "fairness" such a squishy, squirrelly, malleable, inconstant, imprecise concept that it is USELESS in formulating discussions or political policy.

[SailFree]

Fox WAS fair to Obama. They were also fair to Hillary! What they were not was fawning sycophants toward Obama as was the rest of the media. This apparently convinced Obama that Fox was unfair.

It was simply that Obama's view of fairness was distorted by the unfair pro-Obama bias of the rest of the media. This sort of distorted viewpoint occurs all the time, as the left-wing folks are so far left that the center looks right to them. They don't recognize that Fox is generally, other than Hannity and Colmes, each biased in opposite ways, pretty darn fair and impartial.

[microcosm]

The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.

"But in my heart I do believe that democracy was harmed by my network and others on November 7, 2000. I do believe that the great profession of journalism took many steps backward."
- �Roger Ailes, President of Fox News Channel and Chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group
Committee on Energy & Commerce Oversight Hearing: Election Night 2000 February 14, 2001

looks like they left you no wiggle room - they lie and they admit it! enjoy

[rudiy]

FOX is an organization that it talking heads complain that the Daily Show, Colbert, and other like shows. They also complain Maddow and Olberman are not fair and balanced but O'Reilly and Hannity are. The reason for their complaining is obvious, they do not know the difference between satire, commentary and news.

[08politicaljunkie]

Ok, when was the last time FOX ever reported anything that you did not hear on another channel or read in another publication: digital or paper?

They're not NEWS! Sensationalizing is not news reporting; it's entertaining -- for some. And I'd gamble that not one on air personality on that station is a real journalist.
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

[microcosm]

CeaseSPIN.org has a proposal to turn the SPJ ethics code into a consumer advisory labeling solution for news reports.

http://FixNewsNow.org

sign the FCC News Quality Rating System petition
http://ceasespin.org/fcc_petition/fcc_petition.php

[SailFree]

You watch what you want and I'll watch what I want! That's fair and balanced.

Fox covers the news as well as anybody. There is seldom any scoop by any of the major news outlets. One does note that bloggers frequently come up with stories or insights that the major news folks miss. One also notes that bloggers are frequently delusional to the point of being psychotic frequently. Al Gore may have named the internet "The Information Highway." I have named it "The Misinformation Highway."

[microcosm]

The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.

[Whinger]

Well now, there's a suprise, who would have guessed that.

[Rickens]

As much as Fox tried to put Mccain in offfice it goes to show that they don't have the power they thought they had. Faux news treatment of Obama was unfair and unbalanced. Rupert should be ashamed.

[SailFree]

Actually, Fox did NOT try to put McCain in office. Hannity was assuredly pro-McCain Alan Colmes was rather virulently pro-Obama. Juan Williams was definitely Pro-Hillary at first, then Pro-Obama. But as for the rest, no one else was obviously biased for anybody.

[SEQUOIABISON]

Sounds like Blackmail to me, in essence Fox is saying if you do not give time to our reporters, than we will continue to spread lies about you.

The world is falling apart at the seams and all Hannity can talk about is the Reverend Wright, hello, Sean the election is over, time for you guys to assume the role of loyal opposition, not disloyal liars.

[SailFree]

They aren't saying that at all, either blatantly or in essence or hinting. How could you real that biased viewpoint?

[missnina]

ready to boycott? THERE IS ALREADY A WEBSITE SETUP! It lists all of FOX sponsors:
http://www.debone.com/boycottFoxNewsSponsors.html

[naeldwyck]

anybody knows why skinthefox.com halted in '06?

[timewarp23]

Thank you for the link.
Everyone should get on board...

[08politicaljunkie]

Great idea. Easier to accomplish now since everyone is losing money.

[missnina]

A boycott sounds like an excellent idea! How do we get a list of their sponsors without actually tuning in to FOX?

[CheneysACoward]

It's absurd to use "Fox" and news in the same sentence....

[Exit]

I would have no problem with FOX if they removed the "News" from their name. Nothing about them is "News". They can call it FOX "Distortions" or FOX "Lies" or FOX "Character Assassination" or FOX
"The Rev. Wright Channel".

[Pegi]

With the news coverage today being 24/7 and all the options for getting the news, Fixed news is becoming more and more irrelevant. Mr. Obama should spend zero time concerning himself with them!!

[naeldwyck]

Honestly, I hope president Obama will not ever seek reconciliation with Murdoch - New Labour in the UK sold out to him to win their first election, and they've been bound ever since.

[ohioan73]

I wonder if Fakes News is going to continue to negatively cover the president elect when he's inagurated so they can be called out for practically treason the same way anti-Bush people spoke out against him a few years back. The Dixie Chicks had more moxie than the people who didn't speak out against he-who-must-not-be-scorned-during-wartime-Mr.Bush.

[naeldwyck]

Of course they will continue the way they did, and of course they won't be called out for treason - they're coming at him from the right, and there's never treason on the right, you silly! ;-)

[RobinSeattle]

Right. Rupert is so conflict averse that he, in effect, attempted to stage a hostile takeover of the Australian Rugby League and he broke the newspaper workers union in Britain. Uh huh.

Talk about disingenuous. Murdoch is no shrinking violet (well, other than his never ending kowtowing to the Communist Chinese) and he is not going to allow Fox News to become a state within a state in his company unless he ultimately approved of what they are doing.

Certainly, Murdoch could pull mass firings at Fox under the mealy mouthed media rubric of "repositioning our news product" if he wanted to. I'm not holding my breath.