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Fox’s Roger Ailes disses Bill O'Reilly, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck

Reveals Bill O'Reilly 'hates' his conservative rival Sean Hannity

DARA KELLY,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 7:58 AM

Updated Friday, September 30, 2011, 12:22 AM

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Roger Ailes

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Roger Ailes, CEO of the conservative Fox News channel, gave an interview to Newsweek that's making big waves.

The one time media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ailes is now head of the station dubbed by its critics as the most biased name in news. But although he now laments the hyper=partisan tone in national politics he's capable of some zingers of his own, having in previous interviews referred to National Public Radio (NPR) executives as Nazis (he later apologized for the claim).

In his wide ranging chat with Newsweek's Howard Kurtz, Ailes claimed he didn't mind if people thought Glenn Beck had been fired from the news channel.

And in an admission certain to cause controversy Ailes also admitted he would like both Bill and Hillary Clinton to join Fox News as political pundits.

Ailes also let it be known that he had clashed on numerous occasions with Tea Party queen Sarah Palin and he told Beck to reign in his more controversial claims.

Perhaps the most surprising claim the conservative CEO revealed is that has recently made a 'course correction' at Fox News, veering it away from hard-right conspiracy theories like birtherism and the general line it took in the earlier days of the Obama administration.

Some critics have failed to see any evidence of this ‘course correction’ however, citing for example Fox host Eric Bolling’s shocking observation in June that President Obama was inviting too many ‘Hoods in the Hizzy’ (meaning black men to the White House) a complaint that Bolling illustrated with a graphic of a black man with a flashing gold tooth.

But in January, Ailes revealed, he ordered his anchors and pundits to 'tone it down' in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.

Glenn Beck's departure and taking a less obviously supportive stance on the network’s most famous pundit Sarah Palin, have been part of that strategy, Ailes revealed.

Ailes also revealed that jewel in Fox’s crown, pundit Bill O'Reilly, literally 'hates' rival anchor Sean Hannity because he's jealous of his radio success (in the process confirming rumors about years of animosity between the two).

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dave1948 | Oct 13, 2011, 09:15 AM EDT

Glenn Beck is a Mormon, where's his outrage about the cult comment. Very few people with a backbone would stay silent when their Church was attacked, unless your audience is mainly Protestants and you value your paycheck over your faith.

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dave1948 | Oct 13, 2011, 09:04 AM EDT

MSNBC and FOX are not news channels. They are 10% news and 90% commentary, commentary doesn't have to be accurate because it's just opinions, everybody is entitled to one. The top rated program on FOX or MSNBC is O'rielly with 1.5 million viewers. The evening news stations NBC,CBS, ABC draw an audience of over 20 million with NBC leading the pack with 10 million. Most normal well balanced people don't set and watch cable news shows, period.

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milfordmama | Oct 05, 2011, 10:20 AM EDT

I think the liberal lefties have misled people about Fox News, I am 65 and a news junkie. I watch all of them here in the US, CNN, HLN, and yes even MSNBC occasionally (plus the local news once in a while), I really believe Fox has the most concise, fair and yes balanced panels and deliver the straight news with no bias. All of the political discusssions have the left and right posistions represented, and even though I hardly ever watched Glenn Beck (because the show gave me heart palpitations from dire predictions), I believe a lot of what he said is coming true. Bad news for us because no one listened. As far as O'Reilly goes, he probably just wishes he had Hannity's hair. O'Reilly has really mellowed through the years, he is definitely more in the middle than to the right. I love Fox News and those that have not really watched it for at least a few days for more than a few minutes should give it a shot, they would be surprised at how well they do the straight news, plus they are very pleasant and not nasty like the MSNBC folks.

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McNamara31 | Sep 29, 2011, 12:39 PM EDT

carlow98 Sadly America has become a very angry divided society who's politicians find bravado in blocking any hope of an economic recovery all so they can be favor with the tea party who's positions have nothing to do with information or logic. Roger Ailes (and Fox corp) has been the major source of this misinformation and division in America and our economy and its problems not only affect America but Europe and the world as well.

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carlow98 | Sep 29, 2011, 02:49 AM EDT

What's this got to do with Ireland?

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McNamara31 | Sep 28, 2011, 11:45 AM EDT

Roger Ailes is Ruppert’s mastermind behind Fox News and a genius in the world of “negative campaigning” and smearing his opposition. Ailes creates the smoke and mirrors of mistrust and then boldly states they are “fair and balanced.” Ailes has brilliantly created and controlled the narrative coming out of Fox that the other party is un American. Because of Ailes special expertise, polls have continually demonstrated that Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of audiences. Prior to, and during the last elections it was a priority for Ailes for the likes of Beck and Palin to do the “birther” dirty work that the establishment/corporate supporting GOP doesn’t like to "dirty" their hands with. Now like Dr Frankenstein, their tea party monsters are out of the box and may do harm to their “chosen” corporate appeasing candidate Mitt Romney so now it’s time for Ailes to start demeaning his messengers.

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bogsidebunny | Sep 28, 2011, 08:00 AM EDT

I think Megyn Kelly's cute.

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hughaed | Sep 27, 2011, 10:29 PM EDT

One commenter wrote: "Giffords was shot by a certifiable lunatic with diagnosed long-time schizophrenia". If you researched the material reported to be on the killer's reading list you will find that it was mostly right-wing literature. The fact that he read one or two books, that were supposedly liberal, means little when the preponderence of his reading was, on the contrary, right-wing conservative. Trying to re-direct the attention of the public to the killer being a "certifiable lunatic" is merely another way of avoiding responsibility for the rantings of Beck & his ilk as well as the symbolic "cross-hairs" used by Palin on her website. There are always a certain number of people who are easily influenced by right-wing lunacy but to then deny that the vile media rhetoric had no influence over the actions sociopathic killers is an old avoidance syndrome. Why does anyone protect certain media types ( paid millions of dollars per year) who are full of bile, such as the Becks, Savages & Hannitys whose major means of communication is to point fingers at anyone other than themselves. The long pointer of history will curve back, eventually, upon themselves.

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seanomelbourne | Sep 27, 2011, 06:48 PM EDT

Ailes is part of the discredited newscorp/fox anti middle class propaganda machine.Ailes and his minions couldn't ly straight in bed.

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EphraimKibbey | Sep 27, 2011, 06:17 PM EDT

@PiperMac52 - If Fox is all you watch, how do you know that Beck's "facts" were never challenged? Of course they aren't challenged on Fox, just on EVERY OTHER STATION. Most of the time he is laughed at but occasionally he says something that the unbalanced in his audiance could act on to an innocent person's misfortune. If one thinks that the world is flat and everyone else says that it is round (well pear-shaped) maybe, just maybe, one should consider changing one's opinion rather than declare everyone else to be wrong. Ailes and Murdock are capitalists - fine, nothing wrong with that. They are doing what they are doing for the money - that's OK, we all have to eat. But one must always consider a messenger's motivation before accepting his message. Ailes was on "Meet the Press" awhile back and was asked why he allowed so much false information to be propagated on Fox and he replied that Fox was in the business of entertainment so it was his job to give his audiance what it wanted. Remember, Murdock runs (to make money) a tabloid industry - alien babies and tinfoil hats that give normal folks a laugh and only cause a few "certifiable lunatic"s to shoot people. If the world watches Fox and has a good laugh then Ailes and compamy have done all that they were intending to do. In war, a commander who only listens to information that agrees with his preconceived notions is going to be beat.

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FastEddy | Sep 27, 2011, 01:59 PM EDT

This is just "cat fight" stuff ... SnoozeWeak is barely hanging on and lucky to get an interview with the Small Animal Administration or MSNBC pundits, any.

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cillowen | Sep 27, 2011, 01:50 PM EDT

beck and palin in such company with o'reilly - bottom of the barrel stuff, can they go much lower than that.

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Nicomax | Sep 27, 2011, 01:13 PM EDT

Charles Dickens on Twitter this morning said in no way could he ever have conceived of a character the likes of Aisles.

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Springfield9 | Sep 27, 2011, 12:04 PM EDT

Ailes is a windbag. I'm no Beck fan and have a few bones I could pick with O'Reilly. However, listening to this fossil go on about things is ridiculous. He reminds me of the old FEDEX ad that showed the Chairman of the Board as a senile old codger.

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donal1951 | Sep 27, 2011, 10:27 AM EDT

A good story Dara Kelly, although I appreciated the link to the full Newsweek article. As a conservative Democrat, Fox News is my secret vice. However, I despised Glenn Back and enjoy the panel show "The Five" that has taken his old time slot. Bill O'Reilly is, as Rush Limbaugh once said, a clone of Ted Baxter. Hannity is to the right of Attila the Hun but his show is very watchable. Greta Van Susteren plays it closer to the center. As far as their straight news anchors and reporters, I find most no more tilted to the right than other networks' folks are to the left. I like Shep Smith and find Bret Baier reliable. Their main beat reporters, Jennifer Griffin at the Pentagon, Ed Henry at the White House and Catherine Herridge on national security, tell it like it is with no spin.

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