Late last week, there was talk among the usual Washington chattering class that big-name conservatives--or should I say, "conservatives"-- were whining to Fox News chief Roger Ailes about Glenn Beck and his recent musings on the Egypt crisis. In fact, one report from Time's Joe Klein said that “prominent Republicans” have approached Ailes and News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch to voice their concerns. That's interesting, because Klein is a liberal, and a regular Fox-basher. So we might ask: What sort of conservative or Republican would vent his or her concerns to the likes of Klein? Two possible kinds: Either fake conservatives and Republicans, as in, poseurs; that is, those Establishment operators who like to pretend to be on the right, even as they busily suck up to the liberals and the left, so that they can get invited to the right parties. Or else, as the second possibility, non-existent conservatives and Republicans--that is, Klein just concocted the rumor out of his own bile.
Needless to say, these anonymous whisperings from "Republicans" were picked up by Media Matters --which is, of course, another outfit that no self-respecting righty would ever speak to.
Curious about all these rumors flying around, The Cable Gamer got in touch with a good source at Fox, who said this in response to the chatter: "As anyone who’s spent five minutes with Roger can tell you–telling him what to do is the worst way to get him to do something." Chuckle. That sounds about right. Undoubtedly Ailes is used to everyone having an opinion about Fox News and voicing it to him--or to anyone who will listen. No surprise there. Fox is, after all, the most powerful name in news, and so everyone is talking about it, pro and con.
And the FNC source added some more strong words, “Roger created Fox News from scratch and there’s not even another network with a precedent for the track record he achieved--do you really think he’s going to listen to a bunch of Beltway hacks telling him what works on television, much less how Beck is affecting the Fox News brand?” Nope, speaking for myself, I don't think so, not at all, no way, not hardly.
Ailes is the Frank Sinatra of The Cable Game: He did it his way. And he always will do it his way.
So a word of advice to all those droning GOPers or anyone else who wants to impart programming advice to Roger: Back Off!
