NPR Examines Roger Ailes’ Paranoia At Fox News
David Folkenflik: “Several Fox News Staffers Told Me They Feared Their Phones Were Being Tapped”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the September 2 edition of NPR’s All Things Considered:
ARI SHAPIRO (HOST): Now a look at what drove former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. After a former anchor filed a lawsuit against him this summer, other revelations came fast -- accusations of sexual harassment, women paid to walk away, and critics intimidated. Finally, Ailes was forced out in July. Here's NPR's David Folkenflik.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: For years, Fox News has had towering posters at its headquarters bearing a slogan that's also a common refrain on the air.
[BEGIN CLIP]
UNIDENTIFIED NEWSCASTER: You're watching the most powerful name in news, Fox News.
[END CLIP]
FOLKENFLIK: I promise you've never heard The Washington Post or ABC News describe itself that way. Many people talk a lot about Fox's conservative ideology, and many think that the harassment scandal is all about sex. But to understand how the place operated under Ailes, you cannot overlook the projection of power.
[BEGIN CLIP]
GABRIEL SHERMAN: He saw himself as literally saving the country, that he was the only force standing up to the liberals and President Obama.
[END CLIP]
FOLKENFLIK: This is Ailes biographer, Gabriel Sherman.
[BEGIN CLIP]
SHERMAN: And this is the way he spoke about himself. And so when you talk about that, you see your news network as the tool or the mechanism to exert that power.
[END CLIP]
[…]
FOLKENFLIK: In lawsuits filed against Ailes, the Fox News hosts Gretchen Carlson and Andrea Tantaros said that Ailes would ask them to twirl around, to dress suggestively, essentially to perform for him. Fox News' female bookers, producers, and on-air personalities have told NPR that many women were urged to select their outfits from those provided by Fox -- always short dresses or skirts, never pants, necklines that plunge, hair extensions and false eyelashes. Television is a visual medium that prizes looks. Jane Hall says this is different. She has studied depictions of women in media.
[BEGIN CLIP]
JANE HALL: I know that if you have a fully clothed man and a woman less clothed, that's a power situation and you're communicating that the man has the power, the man has the authority.
[END CLIP]
[…]
FOLKENFLIK: Fox staffers sifted through employees' phone records, texts, and emails on company equipment to see what was being said about Ailes and to whom. Several Fox News staffers told me they feared their phones were being tapped, too. Ailes had cameras installed to monitor news rooms and corridors, and he set up a war room to discredit Gabriel Sherman, too.
[BEGIN CLIP]
SHERMAN: He had reason to be paranoid. We now know that he was a man who was bent on keeping his history of sexual harassment secret from the world.
[END CLIP]
FOLKENFLIK: Fox News' top lawyer, Dianne Brandi, is denying the latest allegation that she had a private investigator acquire the phone records for a reporter for a liberal press watchdog called Media Matters. That, too, would have legal implications.
Previously:
Report: Roger Ailes Used Fox News’ Budget To Target Journalists In Smear Campaigns