The week Fox News got Trumped: Roger Ailes sold out,
Megyn Kelly took off & the Donald won very, very big
You know something weird is going on when Rupert
Murdoch's conservative media
empire gets taken for a ride
Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump (Credit: AP/Andrew
Harnik/Reuters/Jim Young/Photo montage by Salon)
Saturday, Aug 15, 2015 06:30 AM PST
Jack Mirkinson
The past week has been very confusing for anybody trying to
figure out what is going on in the saga of Donald Trump and Fox News.
There was the report
that had Roger Ailes bowing to Trump after his attacks on Megyn Kelly during
and after last week’s GOP debate gained unexpected traction with the Fox News
audience. (And after Kelly started receiving death threats for the crime of
asking Donald Trump about his sexism.) Then there was a different report
that portrayed
Ailes as “livid” over Trump’s behavior, even threatening to go to “war” with
him unless the Kelly situation was resolved. Then Kelly went on a long
vacation, and there was disagreement
about whether she was taking time off in response to the whole mess or not.
All in all, not the easiest thing to decipher, especially
when we’re talking about a news organization whose secrecy and insularity would
make the NSA
jealous.
So what are we to make of this welter of conflicting messages,
leaks and takes? Well, for one thing, everyone who confidently predicted that
Fox News had made headway in its quest to box Trump out of the Republican
presidential race—a group that includes yours
truly—has to admit how wrong they were.
We will likely never know whether Roger Ailes sternly put
Trump in his place or whether he prostrated himself before the (sigh) current
GOP frontrunner, but it’s clear that he has been put on the back foot by
everything that happened after Trump began his campaign of harassment against
Kelly. In Trump, he has met his match, another master of bombastic right-wing
populist rhetoric. Looking back, he should have anticipated that he wouldn’t be
able to control Trump. After all, Fox News has spent years boosting Trump,
especially during his weekly
appearances on “Fox and Friends,” the rabidly partisan morning talk
show that’s always been the clearest reflection of Ailes’ personal politics.
Why was its audience suddenly supposed to turn on him for some pesky thing like
rancid misogyny?
Ailes also had to contend with the fact that, unlike a lot
of the other people in the GOP field, Trump has the entire rest of the media
salivating to book him. They are so desperate to have him, and the ratings he
brings, that they let him lazily
phone in to their programs instead of turning up in person–a luxury
not granted to almost anyone else. (A rare exception to this? “Fox
News Sunday.”) CNN or “Morning Joe” will literally never stop
wanting Donald Trump as a guest, and Trump will never not agree to yammer on
TV. Ailes couldn’t afford to cede all of that turf to the competition; some
solution had to be found.
So it’s clear that, on the whole, Ailes lost this round. But
we shouldn’t expect that this is the end of the story. This is a temporary
ceasefire, not a peace treaty. Ailes must be thoroughly pissed off that Trump
is still directing traffic even after Fox News tried to kneecap him. Trump
never shuts his mouth, so we know that he’s still simmering about Kelly’s
questions. This Sunday, he’s giving an on-camera interview to “Meet the Press,”
not “Fox News Sunday.” (Trump does this so rarely that “MTP” had to emphasize
the “face to face” nature of the interview.) It’s likely that Ailes is now
trying to figure out how to land a blow on Trump without inciting the kind of
insanity that burst forth after the debate. Nothing has been resolved.
Really, though, the person who should be the most incensed
is Megyn Kelly. She did her job, endured the worst kind of thuggish attacks
from Trump and his followers, and in return, watched her boss cut a deal with
her tormentor. Kelly is certainly tough enough to withstand everything that’s
been thrown at her, but she might have expected more from Roger Ailes. She can
only hope that, when her network’s uneasy detente with Trump comes to an end,
Ailes will choose her over the Donald.
Salon
Glenn Greenwald
was a columnist for Salon, contacted
Edward Snowden about NSA programs, and the co-author of
2013-2014 coverage for the National
Security Agency (NSA).
Note: Keith B.
Alexander is a director at the National
Security Agency (NSA), and a friend of Barbara
G. Fast.
Barbara G. Fast
is a friend of Keith B. Alexander,
and was a VP for the Boeing Company.
W. James
McNerney Jr. is the chairman & CEO for the Boeing Company, a co-chair for the Partnership for a New American Economy, and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
K.
Rupert Murdoch is a co-chair for the Partnership
for a New American Economy, the News
Corp, and a papal knighthood knight.
Fox
Broadcasting Company is a subsidiary of News Corp.
Fox
News is a division of the Fox
Broadcasting Company.
Media Matters
monitors Fox News.
Sidney
Blumenthal is a consultant for the Media
Matters, was the Washington bureau chief for the Salon, and a consultant for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for Media Matters, the Sundance
Institute, the People for the
American Way, and the Human Rights
Watch.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, a
benefactor for the Human Rights Watch,
and is the founder & chairman for the Open
Society Foundations.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the Human Rights Watch, and the Atlantic Council of the United States
(think tank).
Salon
is a publication for the Salon Media
Group Inc.
John
E. Warnock is the chairman & investor for the Salon Media Group Inc., and a trustee at the Sundance Institute.
Robert
Redford is founder & president for the Sundance Institute, and a partner with the Sundance Channel.
Hulu,
LLC is a content provider for the Sundance
Channel, and the Fox Broadcasting
Company.
Fox
Broadcasting Company is a subsidiary of News Corp.
Fox
News is a division of the Fox
Broadcasting Company.
Media Matters
monitors Fox News.
Lyn
Davis Lear is a trustee at the Sundance
Institute, and married to Norman Lear.
Norman
Lear is married to Lyn Davis Lear,
and a director at People for the
American Way.
James
C. Hormel is a director at People
for the American Way, and was a donor for Media Matters.
John J.
Studzinski is a director at the Human
Rights Watch, a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States (think tank), and a papal knighthood knight.
papal knighthood
is an honor conferred by pope from the Roman
Catholic Church.
Francis E. George
was a cardinal at the Roman Catholic
Church, and a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
W. James
McNerney Jr. is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, the chairman & CEO for the Boeing Company, a co-chair for the Partnership for a New American Economy.
Barbara G. Fast
was a VP for the Boeing Company, and
is a friend of Keith B. Alexander.
Keith B.
Alexander is a friend of Barbara G.
Fast, and a director at the National
Security Agency (NSA).
Glenn Greenwald
was the co-author of 2013-2014 coverage for the National Security Agency (NSA), contacted Edward Snowden about NSA programs,
and was a columnist for Salon.
K.
Rupert Murdoch is a co-chair for the Partnership
for a New American Economy, the News
Corp, and a papal knighthood knight.
Madelyn Payne
Dunham was an aircraft inspector for the Boeing Company, and Barack
Obama’s maternal grandmother.
Barack
Obama’s maternal grandmother was Madelyn
Payne Dunham, and was an intern at Sidley
Austin LLP.
Michelle
Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin
LLP.
R. Eden Martin is
counsel at Sidley Austin LLP, and
the president of the Commercial Club of
Chicago.
Commercial Club of
Chicago, Members Directory A-Z (Past Research)
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Newton N. Minow
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, and a senior counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP.
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