Roger Ailes gave an interview to the ever-credulous TVNewser yesterday. One sentence jumped off the computer screen, as it almost certainly will to almost anyone familiar with Fox News' brand of "fair and balanced." Ailes said, "We have no agenda." Even more startling, he was talking about his network's coverage of President Obama.
TVNewser noted how the Obama administration has a "chilly" relationship with Fox News and asked how the next four years will play out.
“It’s day to day for us,” Ailes tell us. “We don’t — I know no one believes it — we have no agenda. If he runs into a burning building tomorrow and saves four kids, he’s gonna be the biggest goddamn hero Fox News ever saw. But if he leaves four guys behind on the battlefield but can’t explain it, then he’s gonna have a problem with Fox News.”
Well, nobody should believe Fox has no agenda. Because I can assure you that if President Obama were to say, kill America's Number One Enemy, Fox would immediately diminish the accomplishment, attack him for not giving enough credit to George W. Bush and for spiking the football. Or, in Fox's parlance, saying he didn't kill that.
Yesterday's TVNewser puff piece was about the minority apprentice program at Fox. It sounds like a great program. But once those apprentices graduate to a job at Fox, they'll soon discover just how alive and well bigotry is on those airwaves - from some of its most highly paid hosts - and its "objective" news shows, too.
So while Roger Ailes may truly believe he runs a fair and balanced, diversity-friendly operation, honest-to-goodness news consumers can easily see the truth.