two-month medical leave that âmany allege may have been a stint in rehab.â The Jossip posting utilized every element of Arangoâs past coverage at the Post and Fortune magazine to draw a portrait of a craven reporter in unsuccessful pursuit of on-air reporting jobs at cable channels. It referred to âblowjob pieces about CNBC execsâ written, the blog claimed, when Arango was hustling for a job at the network.
Arango braced for the slam about rehab because he had indeed returned a few days earlier from an extended medical leave to address his substance abuse. Arango kept silent, expecting a wave of disgustfrom his own newsroom. It never materialized.Bill Keller, then the executive editor at the Times , emailed Arango a note of encouragement: We donât take that kind of bullshit seriously. Keep your head up .
A few months later, on June 28, 2008,another Times media reporter, Jacques Steinberg, wrote an article on âan ominous trendâ in ratings for Fox News: its cable news rivals appeared to be closing the ratings gap. On July 2,Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends went after Steinberg and a Times editor, Stephen Reddicliffe, calling the article a âhit piece.â Doocy offered a backstory: âMr. Reddicliffe actually used to work for this companyâhe got fired.â
Reddicliffe had in fact left more than five years earlier as editor in chief of TV Guide , which Murdoch had sold in late 2007. Fox & Friends broadcast distorted photographs of both Reddicliffe and Steinberg that appeared on the screen as Doocy and Kilmeade spoke. Reddicliffeâs forehead was elongated, his teeth yellowed, his eyes blackened; Steinbergâs ears and chin were inflated, his nose greatly enlarged, his hairline lowered to collapse his brow, and his eyes blackened as well. The effect evoked what was done to Flammâs picture. No disclaimer told viewers that the picture had been altered. A number of people, especially colleagues at the Times , regarded the images as anti-Semitic.
In early July 2008, New York Times media columnist David Carr accused Fox News of targeting the reporters, citing the Steinberg episode and alluding vaguely to Arangoâs run-in, though not by name. The episode involving Flamm largely escaped public attention. In the glare of attention,Fox pulled back on some of its most aggressive tactics.
For Arango, there was a coda to the story. He later collaborated with Carr on an extensive profile of Roger Ailes. Fox regained a strong ratings lead. But its brass worried about what their piece might say. Brian Lewis called Bruce Headlam, the media editor of the Times , arguing that Arango should be taken off the story.
There was no cause for anxiety. The resulting front-page story painted Ailes as one of the most dominant media executives in the country, operating from the intersection of television, politics, and commerce. He had done so in part by deploying all of the weapons available to himâincluding his programs and a muscular political operation that happens to work for a cable news channel.
7
THE VOICE OF OPPOSITION
IN 2007, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES HAD refused, one by one, to take part in a planned early primary debate on Fox, complaining of unfair coverage of their party. As Barack Obamaâs bid for the White House picked up momentum, the candidate endured a drubbing from Fox News. In one case, Fox & Friends had cited a report based onunnamed Clinton operatives to assert that Obama had studied at a Wahhabist madrassa while a child in Indonesiaâjust the kind of school at which a young Islamic jihadist would have been indoctrinated. Such segments continued after reporting from CNN and the Associated Press found the school Obama had attended was not Wahhabist nor did it preach violent struggle against the West. A drumbeat of speculation questioned whether Obama had been born in Kenya, the land of his father, and was ineligible for the White
Arango braced for the slam about rehab because he had indeed returned a few days earlier from an extended medical leave to address his substance abuse. Arango kept silent, expecting a wave of disgustfrom his own newsroom. It never materialized.Bill Keller, then the executive editor at the Times , emailed Arango a note of encouragement: We donât take that kind of bullshit seriously. Keep your head up .
A few months later, on June 28, 2008,another Times media reporter, Jacques Steinberg, wrote an article on âan ominous trendâ in ratings for Fox News: its cable news rivals appeared to be closing the ratings gap. On July 2,Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends went after Steinberg and a Times editor, Stephen Reddicliffe, calling the article a âhit piece.â Doocy offered a backstory: âMr. Reddicliffe actually used to work for this companyâhe got fired.â
Reddicliffe had in fact left more than five years earlier as editor in chief of TV Guide , which Murdoch had sold in late 2007. Fox & Friends broadcast distorted photographs of both Reddicliffe and Steinberg that appeared on the screen as Doocy and Kilmeade spoke. Reddicliffeâs forehead was elongated, his teeth yellowed, his eyes blackened; Steinbergâs ears and chin were inflated, his nose greatly enlarged, his hairline lowered to collapse his brow, and his eyes blackened as well. The effect evoked what was done to Flammâs picture. No disclaimer told viewers that the picture had been altered. A number of people, especially colleagues at the Times , regarded the images as anti-Semitic.
In early July 2008, New York Times media columnist David Carr accused Fox News of targeting the reporters, citing the Steinberg episode and alluding vaguely to Arangoâs run-in, though not by name. The episode involving Flamm largely escaped public attention. In the glare of attention,Fox pulled back on some of its most aggressive tactics.
For Arango, there was a coda to the story. He later collaborated with Carr on an extensive profile of Roger Ailes. Fox regained a strong ratings lead. But its brass worried about what their piece might say. Brian Lewis called Bruce Headlam, the media editor of the Times , arguing that Arango should be taken off the story.
There was no cause for anxiety. The resulting front-page story painted Ailes as one of the most dominant media executives in the country, operating from the intersection of television, politics, and commerce. He had done so in part by deploying all of the weapons available to himâincluding his programs and a muscular political operation that happens to work for a cable news channel.
7
THE VOICE OF OPPOSITION
IN 2007, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES HAD refused, one by one, to take part in a planned early primary debate on Fox, complaining of unfair coverage of their party. As Barack Obamaâs bid for the White House picked up momentum, the candidate endured a drubbing from Fox News. In one case, Fox & Friends had cited a report based onunnamed Clinton operatives to assert that Obama had studied at a Wahhabist madrassa while a child in Indonesiaâjust the kind of school at which a young Islamic jihadist would have been indoctrinated. Such segments continued after reporting from CNN and the Associated Press found the school Obama had attended was not Wahhabist nor did it preach violent struggle against the West. A drumbeat of speculation questioned whether Obama had been born in Kenya, the land of his father, and was ineligible for the White
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