Fox Mole Joe Muto Takes you Inside Bill O'Reilly's Head

Here's a bit of midweek entertainment for you, gentle reader. Newshounds has followed the story of Joe Muto, the liberal Fox News mole who published anonymously on Gawker until he was found out and sacked. Now Salon.com has published an excerpt from an upcoming book by Muto, dishing up some dirt on Fox News. The book, titled An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal's Eight-Year Odyssey Inside the Heart of the Right-Wing Media", will be released on June 4. (H/t Aunty Em)

The excerpt focuses mainly on Muto's stint on Bill O'Reilly's show. It describes a "typical day" which starts with O'Reilly dictating his speaking points from his chauffeur-driven car (he writes his script himself), with occasional interruptions to yell at his driver. There are also a number of very revealing anecdotes about how things are done at Fox News. These, for example:

Roger Ailes pulling people onto message. "Theoretically, Muto writes, each show could talk about whatever they wanted to talk about, and take any angle they wanted to take, and book any guest they wanted to have on. Realistically, there was tremendous pressure to hew closely to the company line. The Second Floor monitored the content of every show very closely."

He gives the example of the bank bailout in 2008 - which O'Reilly, unlike many conservatives, supported. He took to his radio show to blast Rush Limbaugh and other hosts who opposed it. When word filtered to the Second Floor that O’Reilly planned to repeat some of his radio rant on his TV show, the order came back quickly: Absolutely not. O’Reilly put his foot down at first, but after a phone call from Ailes himself he very reluctantly (i.e. "loudly yelled a string of expletives that could be heard all over the seventeenth floor") removed the Limbaugh reference from the TV show.

Yes, conservative pundits do hate each other. The excerpt also talks about the relationship between O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. O'Reilly had higher ratings but Hannity was more Ailes' ideological soul-mate. "This, Muto writes, has led to no small amount of tension between the parties. O’Reilly and Hannity, the two biggest stars at Fox News Channel, have basically no working relationship.. O’Reilly is convinced that Hannity is trying to sabatoge his show, and vice versa. The two of them fight constantly, almost entirely through intermediaries and over the pettiest of issues — mostly over guests. Both shows like to use Fox News analysts — specifically Karl Rove, Dick Morris, and Bernie Goldberg — and 90 percent of the squabbling is over which show gets which guest on which night."

If it's all as entertaining as this, I've got one of my summer beach books picked out already.

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Showing 8 reactions

commented 2013-05-29 15:52:28 -0400 · Flag

OxyRush Limpdick must take great comfort in knowing that his asshole buddy Jabba the Ailes always will protect his large lardass from criticism.

commented 2013-05-29 15:05:33 -0400 · Flag

Considering how much time Billo’s head is up his ass, I think I’ll decline Muto’s offer.

commented 2013-05-29 14:54:22 -0400 · Flag

@ Janet: You’ll not only need that hot shower, but likely need to use some scouring powder and a steel wool loofah just to make sure that all the nasty is removed. (And, just make sure you’re squeaky clean again, a bath might be needed as well. Get your tub half-filled with hot water from the tap, then add a couple of gallons of stove-boiled water, one or two gallons of vinegar, about a pound of salt, and get that steel wool—or a Brillo pad—ready. If you still feel there’s some icky on you, you might just go get a power sander.)

commented 2013-05-29 12:58:07 -0400 · Flag

I don’t know if Mr. Muto was working at Fox during the time Andrea Mackris was accusing Bill of sexual harassment, but if he was I’m very curious to know what was going behind the scenes during that time.

commented 2013-05-29 12:43:24 -0400 · Flag

Chin up Junior, we enjoy teasing you more than we do Sean Hannocchio.

commented 2013-05-29 12:37:24 -0400 · Flag

Being inside Bill ’O’s head…….must be the roomiest vacant apartment to be had.

commented 2013-05-29 12:14:39 -0400 · Flag

I can’t wait to crawl around the bottom of a cesspool that is Bile’s brain. However, I feel I will probably need a hot shower afterwards.

commented 2013-05-29 11:58:53 -0400 · Flag

Thank you anyway but I have NO interest in being inside Billo the Clown’s head.