Fox News' longstanding policy for responding to criticism has been to use its considerable media presence to wage scorched-earth campaigns against the network's critics -- to include photoshopping publicity photos of competing journalists to make them look grotesquely ugly.

The obvious point of this tactic is to dissuade outside observers from criticizing the Fox News brand, lest they find themselves to be targets. After all, no one wants O'Reilly Factor producer Jesse Watters stalking and ambushing them as they're on vacation. And that climate of fear they've engendered appears to be working.

The New York Times' Brian Stelter reported this morning on Fox News' stable of would-be Republican presidential candidates serving as on-air “contributors,” and noted that other media outlets have been aghast at the ethically dubious manner in which the network has comported itself. Stelter noted the criticism of an outside media executive, and that's where things got interesting [emphasis added]:

Fox News is run by Roger E. Ailes, a former Republican strategist, who was personally involved in the contracts for Mr. Gingrich, Ms. Palin and others. Although there are no federal prohibitions against people being on the payroll of a television or radio station while running for office -- or contemplating such a run -- executives at competing networks have watched Fox's handling of the could-be candidates with some astonishment.

One such executive on Tuesday called it unethical to have a presidential candidate on a network payroll.

If a candidate is thinking about running, as Mr. Huckabee and Ms. Palin have said they are, they should be treated as de facto candidates, this executive said. He requested anonymity for fear of retribution by Fox.

Writing on Twitter this morning, Stelter said that the executive in question “was citing personal experience” when requesting anonymity.

That's an astonishing report. Fox News has become so aggressive in demonizing its critics that people who question the network's practices are afraid to do so publicly, lest they become the focus of Bill O'Reilly's “Talking Points Memo” that evening.

This is not how a responsible media outlet behaves.