Ex-Murdoch Lieutenant: Murdoch “Not Happy” With Fox News
Written by Sarah Pavlus
Published
One of Rupert Murdoch's former top editors -- Andrew Neil -- said in a BBC Radio interview yesterday that according to “sources,” Murdoch is “not happy with a lot that appears” on Fox News and that he believes “Murdoch's lost control” over the network.
In October, Murdoch defended increasingly controversial Fox News host Glenn Beck to News Corp. shareholders and the following month he praised Beck as a “very genuine, extremely well-read libertarian.”
Neil, a broadcaster and media consultant who served as Murdoch's Sunday Times editor for more than a decade, testified before a House of Lords committee in 2008 on Murdoch's editorial practices, saying that Murdoch essentially serves as the “editor-in-chief” of many of the newspapers he owns.
From Neil's BBC Radio interview with Richard Bacon (you can listen to it here):
BACON: That's what he cares about first and foremost.
NEIL: -- and, at a time when other parts are -- I think he's lost -- of the Glenn Becks and the O'Reillys. Well, you know it's a strange station when Bill O'Reilly is the moderate voice on the station.
[...]
BACON: You say that you know from sources that Rupert Murdoch is unhappy. That he -- Rupert Murdoch has lost control --
NEIL: Yes.
BACON: -- of Fox News.
NEIL: Yes.
BACON: What does that mean?
NEIL: Well, it means he's 82. And it means he's got his eye on other things. And that Roger Ailes, who is the real, sort of -- the liberal media regard as the “evil genius” behind Fox News -- he's the one that's really in charge.