The Rise of Fox News | 2. A Network for Normal People

Summary

Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News | Episode 2: A Network for Normal People

Release Date: September 25, 2024
Host: Josh Levine
Guest: Bill McCutty

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Introduction

In the second episode of Slow Burn's 10th season, host Josh Levine delves into the formative years of Fox News, tracing its origins from the precursor network "America's Talking." This episode, titled "A Network for Normal People," explores Roger Ailes' vision, the challenges faced during the network's inception, and the intricate dynamics that set the foundation for what would become a dominant force in American media.

Contest and Early Days of America's Talking

[00:30 - 04:47]
The episode opens with the story of Bill McCutty, who, in the spring of 1994, participated in a nationwide competition sponsored by NBC's new cable channel, America's Talking. Despite originating from an advertising background and pursuing stand-up comedy, Bill was selected as one of the twenty finalists out of over 10,000 entries.

Notable Quote:

"Can I help you? Do you think I'd make a good talk show host? If that's how you feel, I'm sure you could do anything you wanted to." – Bill McCutty [01:20]

Bill's journey culminated during a special TV event where participants showcased their hosting talents live, with none other than Ed McMahon serving as the master of ceremonies. Amid the streaming O.J. Simpson chase coverage, Bill was announced as the contest winner, thrusting him into the early days of America's Talking under the mentorship of Roger Ailes.

Roger Ailes' Vision and Leadership

[05:02 - 12:10]
Roger Ailes, a seasoned television producer with a history in political advertising, was appointed to spearhead America's Talking. Despite the network's whimsical show titles and non-political facade, Ailes harbored ambitions for a more impactful media presence. His previous ventures, including producing the Mike Douglas Show and advising Republican candidates, positioned him uniquely to reshape cable television.

Notable Quote:

"I think that my primary qualification for running a news channel is that I don't have a degree in journalism." – Bill McCutty [06:07]

Ailes aimed to create content that resonated with everyday Americans, emphasizing relatability through talk shows that addressed common concerns and interests.

Building America's Talking

[13:02 - 21:02]
Under Ailes' leadership, America's Talking launched on July 4, 1994, with a lineup of diverse talk shows such as "Bugged," "What's New?," and "Am I Nuts?" These programs, though seemingly random, were strategically designed to engage viewers by tapping into everyday questions and topics.

Notable Quote:

"It's America's Talking. The first all talk network dedicated to what America is talking about. The first ever daily national conversation." – Bill McCutty [17:36]

The network's approachability was further exemplified by hosts like Terry Anzer, who navigated the fine line between informative journalism and the performative aspects dictated by Ailes' directives.

Transition to Fox News

[21:20 - 35:07]
Despite initial enthusiasm, America's Talking struggled with low ratings and lacked a clear identity. In 1995, a pivotal shift occurred when NBC's cable division, under pressure, struck a deal with Microsoft to rebrand the network as MSNBC. This move infuriated Ailes, fueling his desire for a stronger, more assertive media outlet.

Ailes found an ally in Rupert Murdoch, whose acquisition of significant media assets provided the necessary backing to realize the Fox News Channel. On January 30, 1996, Fox News was officially announced, promising "fair and balanced" journalism—a mantra that would later be scrutinized.

Notable Quote:

"I think he felt a real kinship with Murdoch. They're both kind of pirates, they're both buccaneers. And he knew he and Murdoch were really politically aligned." – Bill McCutty [29:55]

Early Challenges and Internal Conflicts

[35:07 - 54:30]
Fox News' inaugural moments were marred by missteps, notably the infamous Super Bowl halftime show incident in 1997, where fake news alerts confused viewers by interrupting the festivities. This blunder highlighted the network's struggle to establish credibility amidst ambitious but flawed attempts at innovation.

Moreover, internal tensions surfaced as journalistic integrity clashed with business imperatives. Don Daler, Fox's investigative correspondent, faced significant pushback when his story on affirmative action was excessively edited to align with perceived viewer preferences. This conflict underscored the prioritization of audience appeasement over objective reporting.

Notable Quotes:

"Roger Ailes was tearing Tom down... You have to let me out of my contract or this is going to the New York Times tomorrow." – Don Daler [50:41]

"We're a brand new news operation; we have not even begun to establish our credibility." – Josh Levine [35:38]

The Culture of Fox News

The episode delves into the culture fostered by Ailes within Fox News, emphasizing loyalty and a business-centric approach over traditional journalistic values. Female reporters like Terri Anser and Edie Donahey navigated demanding roles that often required them to conform to specific aesthetic standards, reflecting broader issues of gender dynamics within the network.

Notable Quote:

"Zero women went from America's talking to on air roles at Fox News. Not one. All the men had a shelf life and the women were as disposable as tissue paper." – Bill McCutty [34:29]

Conclusion

"A Network for Normal People" provides a comprehensive look into the strategic decisions, personal ambitions, and cultural shifts that shaped Fox News in its early years. Through firsthand accounts and insightful analysis, the episode paints a vivid picture of how Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch's collaboration transformed a struggling cable channel into a powerhouse with a lasting impact on American media and politics.

Notable Quote:

"If you aren't already a Slate Plus member, please consider joining. You'll be supporting Slate's independent journalism..." – Josh Levine [54:30]

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Key Takeaways

• Roger Ailes' Influence: Ailes' background in political advertising and media shaped Fox News' approach to blending entertainment with news, prioritizing viewer engagement and loyalty.

• Cultural Dynamics: The network's internal culture emphasized business objectives and audience appeasement, often at the expense of journalistic integrity and gender equality.

• Strategic Partnerships: Collaborations with media moguls like Rupert Murdoch were instrumental in securing Fox News' position in the competitive landscape of American cable news.

• Early Missteps: Initial controversies, such as the fake Super Bowl news alert, highlighted the challenges Fox News faced in establishing credibility and balancing innovation with reliability.

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Additional Resources

• Books and Documentaries: For a deeper understanding of Roger Ailes' role and Fox News' evolution, refer to Gabriel Sherman's biography "The Loudest Voice in the Room," the documentary "Dark Genius," and the series "Divide and Conquer."

• Slate Plus: Subscribers can access exclusive content, including behind-the-scenes insights and bonus episodes that expand on the themes discussed in this episode.

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Production Credits:
Written and reported by Josh Levine, executive produced by Lizzie Jacobs, with contributions from Sophie Summergrad, Joel Meyer, Rosie Belson, and others. Special thanks to Rachel Strom, Patti Smith, and additional Slate team members for their support.

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Join us next week as Slow Burn continues to unravel the intricate history and influence of Fox News in shaping contemporary American discourse.

Transcript

[Bill McCutty]

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[Josh Levine]

In the spring of 1994, Bill McCutty was working at an ad agency, counting down the hours until the weekend.

[Bill McCutty]

We just cracked beers at three in the afternoon because the martini buzz from lunch was starting to wear off and the intern walked in and said, I was going to try out for this contest, but I think you'd be better.

[Josh Levine]

That contest was a nationwide Competition sponsored by NBC's new cable channel, America's Talking.

[Bill McCutty]

One show on America's Talking Network is a brand new talk show with a brand new host. And it could be you.

[Josh Levine]

Talking was Bill's specialty. He was in his mid-30s and along with his day job in advertising, he was trying to make it in standup comedy. Getting his own TV show seemed worth a shot. So he put together an audition tape.

[Bill McCutty]

I went out all day Saturday and just held up a sign that said honk if I should have a talk show and and drove through McDonald's and asked the drive through woman if I would make a good talk show host. Can I help you? Do you think I'd make a good talk show host? If that's how you feel, I'm sure you could do anything you wanted to.

[Josh Levine]

When the contest cut down more than 10,000 entries to a final 20, Bill was still in the running.

[Bill McCutty]

Tonight we'll meet the one who will join our family of talk show hosts as America's Talking presents. Guess who's Talking.

[Josh Levine]

Bill and the 19 other hopefuls would show their stuff in a two hour TV special filmed in the same studio as Saturday Night Live. The master of ceremonies was Johnny Carson's old sidekick, the man behind the TV talent show Star Search, our special guest host, Ed McMahon.

[Bill McCutty]

Thank you.

[Josh Levine]

Two thirds of the way through the show, Bill got his big test. A conversation with a randomly chosen celebrity.

[Bill McCutty]

And I drew out of a hat, Maury Povich. How do you keep your dignity in the talk show wars? I go to sleep with my wife. That's good to know. By the way, you were on there's an exclusive. You were on Current Affair. Yeah, I saw that. Remember that? When that pyramid came in and made that noise that was actually saying Connie Chung, wasn't it? Yeah, Connie Chung. Yeah. It was a Kachung. It was Connie Chung. It was Kachung. That's what we named it. Very good, Bill.

[Josh Levine]

Bill and the rest of the finalists would find out who won right then on June 15, 1994, the rest of the country would see the special two days later on NBC's business channel, CNBC.

[Bill McCutty]

My then girlfriend threw a big party for me. We had like 30 or 40 people there. And that was the same day that O.J. simpson decided to go for that drive in the white Bronco. He's been on the run now for almost eight hours.

[Josh Levine]

Pretty much every network in America switched over to O.J. nBC's Tom Brokaw even broke into the NBA finals. But the guy in charge of CNBC demanded that they keep on rolling the Guess who's Talking special.

[Bill McCutty]

And we're watching it and it's fun and like, cool. But we kept flipping back and forth and finally one of my friends stands up and goes, turn that OJ Thing back on. We are witnessing tonight a modern tragedy and drama of Shakespearean proportion being played out live on television.

[Josh Levine]

Bill didn't have to see the end of his big TV special. He lived it.

[Bill McCutty]

Roger, you got the mic. Obviously, it was a very tough competition. We'd like this mic to be in the hands of Bill McCutty. And I was thrilled. I mean, this was like how it started.

[Josh Levine]

On stage, Bill got his first command from his new boss, the guy who dreamed up the whole competition and handed him the mic. Roger Ailes, report to work at 9:00 tomorrow morning.

[Bill McCutty]

We got a lot of work to do.

[Josh Levine]

This is slow burn, season 10, the rise of Fox News. I'm your host, Josh Levine. America's Talking was Roger Ailes vision of the future of television. And it was deeply, deeply strange.

[Bill McCutty]

We are going to hurl young Mr. McCutty about 170ft straight up into space. If you're just tuning in, this is not, not not the Dating Game. We'll have more coming up in just a minute. Beam me out of here.

[Josh Levine]

America's Talking preceded Fox News. And on the surface, the two channels have very little in common. Roger Ailes first cable venture looked totally homemade. Its shows had some of the most bonkers titles in the history of television. And it mostly didn't bother with politics. The channel's similarities are less obvious, but they're crucial to understanding where Fox News came from. Showmanship, rule breaking, forging a bond with the audience. They're all part of the two network's shared DNA. But Fox's origin story is also about Ailes dream getting killed. The demise of America's talking filled him with rage and inspired a new vision for cable TV dominance. Soon Rupert Murdoch would help him bring that dream to life. And at the heart of it all was a mission for revenge.

[Bill McCutty]

I think that my primary qualification for running a news channel is that I don't have a degree in journalism.

[Josh Levine]

This is episode two, A network for normal People.

[Bill McCutty]

This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply blinds.com is kicking off the savings early with Black Friday megadeals all month long. A blinds.com design expert can help you make the perfect selection on your schedule. We can even handle everything from measure to your whole home install installed for just one low cost. With over 25 million windows covered, Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. Get up to 45% off site wide and a free professional measure. Right [e-mail] rules and restrictions may apply.

[Josh Levine]

Roger Ailes got his start in television in the 1960s, almost 30 years before America's talking existed. Back then, he executive produced a daytime talk show that was the TV equivalent of a glass of milk.

[Bill McCutty]

And now here's Mike.

[Josh Levine]

Mike Douglas was genial and wholesome, an audience surrogate who asked simple questions and crooned old fashioned songs.

[Bill McCutty]

I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad.

[Josh Levine]

Ailes could be friendly too, so long as there was something in it for him. Backstage at the Douglas show, he managed to charm a very important guest. In 1968, Richard Nixon was running for president and needed to spiff up his TV image. Ailes sold himself as the man for the job.

[Bill McCutty]

I don't believe anyone will ever be elected to a major public office again without the skillful use of television.

[Josh Levine]

Nixon's win in 68 made Ailes a coveted Republican advisor. By the 1980s, he'd become known as the dark prince of political advertising, a consultant for hire who found and exploited Democratic candidates weak spots and played to voters prejudices and fears.

[Bill McCutty]

As Governor Michael Dukakis vetoed mandatory sentences for drug dealers. He vetoed the death penalty. His revolving door prison policy gave weekend furloughs to first degree murderers not eligible for parole.

[Josh Levine]

There's a lot more to say about Roger Ailes, and a lot has been said in books and documentaries and TV miniseries, but that pretty much sums the guy up. He was a producer of mass market entertainment and a ferocious partisan. Ailes was always on the attack and one big American institution was in his crosshairs. The insight of Roger Ailes was this idea that part of the identity of being a Republican was to be adversarial with the mainstream media. Jonah Goldberg is the editor in chief of the conservative website the Dispatch. He says that to understand how Ailes saw the press, you need to know about a stunt he pulled in 1988. George H.W. bush is gearing up to run for president to succeed Ronald Reagan. And they have this long negotiation and he agrees to do a live interview with Dan Rather. Bush's two big liabilities were his ties to the Iran Contra scandal. And his reputation is kind of a wimp. Ailes believed this live interview on the CBS Evening News would help his candidate solve both problems.

[Bill McCutty]

Mr. Vice President, thank you for being with us tonight.

[Josh Levine]

Rather has these perfectly legitimate but tough questions about Iran Contra, what he knew and all that kind of stuff.

[Bill McCutty]

He was deeply involved in running arms to the Contras and he didn't inform you. Why is Mr. Gregg still inside? The White House is still a trusted advisor.

[Josh Levine]

Bush was doing the interview remotely from his office in Washington D.C. off camera, holding cue cards. Was Roger Ailes, one of those cards said walked off the air. That was a reference to the most childish moment of Dan Rather's CBS career. The time he'd stormed off the set to protest his newscast getting delayed by a tennis match. Now Ailes was waving around that cue card. He was also mouthing the words, just kick his ass.

[Bill McCutty]

It's not fair to judge my whole career by a rehash on Iran. How would you like it if I judge your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York? And would you like that, Mr. Vice President, for you, But I don't have respect for what you're doing here tonight.

[Josh Levine]

CBS got flooded with complaints about Dan Rather. What came out of this was a bumper sticker, annoy the media, Vote for Bush. Ailes had won the interview and his client would win the presidency. But in the years that followed, the most notorious attack dog in American politics would publicly declare that he had lost the taste for blood.

[Bill McCutty]

I got up one day and hated it. I thought it was getting mean spirited. It wasn't about strategy and tactics. I didn't want to do it anymore.

[Josh Levine]

The truth was that Ailes continued to advise candidates and the Republican Party. Now he was just doing it quietly to avoid the reputational hits he'd taken during his dark Prince era. Aile started trumpeting his renewed focus on television as an advisor on the syndicated tabloid show Hard Copy and the executive producer of a new TV venture from conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh.

[Bill McCutty]

I think these liberals are getting so predictable, it's not even fun anymore. Used to be fun to try to.

[Josh Levine]

Prove that's where Roger Ailes was in the early 90s, kind of, but not really moving on from partisan politics. It was at this moment, when Ailes was trying to change his image, that he got a very big break.

[Bill McCutty]

Roger knew how to spin anybody.

[Josh Levine]

Tom Rogers was one of NBC's top executives, the president of the network's cable division. He met with Ailes in 1993 to see if he'd be interested in revamping NBC's struggling, boring cable business channel, CNBC. Ailes answer was meh.

[Bill McCutty]

And then I could have kind of let the conversations drop and said, okay, we're moving on in our search here.

[Josh Levine]

But Tom didn't let the conversation drop. Instead, he mentioned another channel that NBC's cable division was hoping to launch.

[Bill McCutty]

I characterized it as a talk news service and to amplify that, called it America's Talking. Hi, please excuse the mess. We're about to launch cable's newest network. The more I described America's talking to him in this new channel, that could be a wide open canvas for him to paint, the more interested he got in the position. He talked about what we could do.

[Josh Levine]

Together, what we could build together, how.

[Bill McCutty]

We could turn this into something great.

[Josh Levine]

Ailes got a three year contract to run CNBC and America's Talking. That wide open canvas was all his now. He just needed a crew to help him paint it.

[Bill McCutty]

It was a startup, so this was something that had never been done before.

[Josh Levine]

Renata Joy had been a producer for NBC News in North Carolina. She was in her late 20s when she moved over to America's Talking.

[Bill McCutty]

All of us were young producers. We wanted to come to the New York market. We wanted to take that chance.

[Josh Levine]

For Renata and her colleagues, the New York market would actually be Fort Lee, New Jersey, where NBC had set up its cable division to keep down costs and be able to use non union labor. When the America's Talking crew showed up, In Jersey, they didn't know what their jobs would be. They'd find out. In May 1994, when Roger Ailes called them into a conference room, There were.

[Bill McCutty]

Like, I think 12 producers. They come in, they hand us an envelope and start playing the Mission Impossible music. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. So we all opened the envelope, and that's when we saw what America's Talking was actually gonna be about.

[Josh Levine]

Inside those envelopes were the names of individual programs. The America's Talking daily lineup.

[Bill McCutty]

Hi, I'm Terry Anzer, and I was the co anchor of a show called America's Talking in Depth. Our show was the only one that was pretty much a straight up news show. The other shows had specific angles.

[Josh Levine]

Pretty much all of those shows and their specific angles emerged from the mind of Roger Ailes. I'll confess that when I first heard the titles, I thought they were a joke, because this list sounds like it got jotted down in maybe 15 seconds.

[Bill McCutty]

A show called Bugged, where a guy came on and talked about what bugged him. You know what bugs me about people? A, people that say A and B because B is so unbelievably annoying. A show called what's New? Where it was about all products that were new.

[Josh Levine]

Super Nintendos.

[Bill McCutty]

Oh, what was that? Super Nintendo. Super Nintendos. And I'm sure they're out there. Oh. We had a show called Am I Nuts? And people would call in and find out if they were nuts or not.

[Josh Levine]

They've had a thought, a fantasy, a reaction, a dream, a behavior. Something that they've done in their life where they themselves thought it as so.

[Bill McCutty]

Strange that they've said, am I nuts?

[Josh Levine]

Renata Joy's assignment, which she did choose to accept, wasn't all that wacky conceptually. She got asked to develop a show with Elle magazine's advice columnist. Her name was E. Jean Carroll.

[Bill McCutty]

Yes, my darling flopsy pudding. The biggest man handling trick of all.

[Josh Levine]

Is to know that there is no trick.

[Bill McCutty]

Jean was kind of out there, and she didn't have that filter that a lot of talk show hosts have. I hate that music more than any that bubbly, burpee little trumpet, very flamboyant, very loud. And she was like, honey, you're going to be my producer. I was like, oh, wow.

[Josh Levine]

E. Jean and Renata were paired up only a few months before launch day, and they just had to figure it out.

[Bill McCutty]

What do we need? How do we find guests? Everything was by the seat of our pants.

[Josh Levine]

Everything about America's Talking felt slapdash. But all those shows with seemingly random titles weren't really random. Roger Ailes believed that what's bugging you? What's new? And am I nuts? Were the kinds of questions that ordinary TV viewers ask themselves every day. Back in the 1960s, Ailes had made the milquetoast Mike Douglas into a talk show star. Now he was building an entire network for average Americans. Ailes told a reporter, I figure there are 18 shows for Freaks. If there's one network for normal people, it'll balance out.

[Bill McCutty]

It's America's Talking. The first all talk network dedicated to what America is talking about. The first ever daily national conversation.

[Josh Levine]

When America's talking debuted on July 4, 1994, Roger Ailes contest winner Bill McCutty would be a big part of that conversation. His show, Break a Leg spotlighted emerging comedians like Susie Essman, up and coming bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, and a brand new talk show host.

[Bill McCutty]

I was this thing that could have been a huge laughing stock if it had fallen flat on its face. And Ailes wanted to make sure that he hadn't made a mistake.

[Josh Levine]

Bill got a lot of one on one time with the boss and he watched Roger Ailes coach the entire America's Talking team.

[Bill McCutty]

Roger would stand on a soapbox and he would just start going, this is what we're doing right, this is what we're doing wrong. They were real pep talks that didn't seem like bullshit. They seemed like he's giving us our marching orders and we want to do it right for this guy.

[Josh Levine]

On launch day, America's Talking wasn't in that many households, just 10 million compared to more than 60 million for a more established cable channel like CNN. But everyone who found it got the chance to be a part of the show.

[Bill McCutty]

What do you think? Give us a call at 1-800-988-TALK. You just wanted to keep it in this friendly conversation where everybody could just sit down in the common living room and talk to each other.

[Josh Levine]

Terri Anzer had worked as a correspondent and anchor at some of the country's biggest local TV stations. At America's Talking, she was doing hard news, hosting an hour long show on the AIDS crisis and interviewing Henry Kissinger about airstrikes in Bosnia. But early on, she got the message that keeping the audience informed wasn't her most important role. That lesson came from an executive who'd worked with Roger Ailes on the Mike Douglas Show.

[Bill McCutty]

There was a man named Chet Collier who was a longtime mentor of Rogers and his right hand guy at America's Talking and I'll never forget, he said, you are a woman on television. Your only job is to be likable. My assignment was to wear dresses or suits with very short skirts. I had a cut through desk and they put a light on my legs and on the occasional times when I would wear a pantsuit, that was not appreciated.

[Josh Levine]

Terri says she got along well with Roger Ailes. According to her, it was the vice president of programming, Ailes future wife Beth Tilson, who lectured the on air talent about their clothing choices and the color of their lipstick. Terry would sometimes be in tears just before she went on the air, but she came to accept the anxiety and the wardrobe as the cost of doing what she loved.

[Bill McCutty]

I just feel that I've been privileged in my life to be in front of a television camera informing people about the world. And you know what if I have to wear a short skirt and, you know, show my legs, it's actually, I don't mind.

[Josh Levine]

America's talking was messy and ramshackle and weird and Terry was incredibly proud of it.

[Bill McCutty]

It was like one of those old movies with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney where they'd say, my father has a barn. Let's do a show.

[Josh Levine]

Roger Ailes hosts and producers were building a network, but they weren't the only ones trying to create something new.

[Bill McCutty]

As you know, Fox has had a phenomenal growth in the last few years. And now we have to move to making ourselves the best in news programming.

[Josh Levine]

We'll be back in a minute. This episode is brought to you by Amazon.

[Bill McCutty]

The holidays are here and you know what that means.

[Josh Levine]

It's time to get your friends and family the gifts they deserve.

[Bill McCutty]

Take the stress out of shopping.

[Josh Levine]

With Amazon's great deals and low prices on a huge range of items from toys to tech and much more.

[Bill McCutty]

Whoever you're gifting for, Amazon has great.

[Josh Levine]

Prices on everything you need this holiday season. Shop Black Friday week starting November 21st. I'm James McComb reporting live from home in my bathrobe in slippers.

[Bill McCutty]

Tonight we're talking Dunkin Poehler, peppermint coffee. Gene's here with the latest. Gene, do you copy? The home with Dunkin is where you.

[Josh Levine]

Want to be going. Back to the mid-1950s, ABC, CBS and NBC owned American television. The big three were an unbreakable block. And the idea that a real competitor might emerge seemed like an impossible dream. But then, in 1986, that mythical fourth network actually sprung to life.

[Bill McCutty]

Good evening and welcome to Fox.

[Josh Levine]

The Fox Broadcasting Company was an Insurgent TV force. Young and flashy and openly flouting worn out conventions, Fox made Joan Rivers the first woman ever to host a network late night show.

[Bill McCutty]

So much has been said and so much has been written and I am just so, so happy to be here and I thank you all so much.

[Josh Levine]

Fox also courted black audiences with Martin and Living Single, while the raunchy Married With Children pushed the boundaries of acceptable primetime taste. Those disruptions didn't always pan out. Joan Rivers got fired after less than a year. But the larger Fox experiment was working in living color. The Simpsons, Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place all became cultural obsessions. And then in 1993, Fox made a colossal move, outmaneuvering CBS to snag away the most coveted property in American tv. It's the NFL. On Fox, it's more than a game. The guy shaking up the stale television industry came from an ocean away.

[Bill McCutty]

I'm an Australian by birth. I believe in equality and I want to give everybody a good choice of programs.

[Josh Levine]

Rupert Murdoch was born into moguldom, taking over his father's Aussie newspaper holdings in the 1950s. He then expanded into the UK and the US and into television, book publishing and film production. He used that press empire to push his conservative views and to grab and consolidate economic power in the American market. Fox's big NFL breakthrough made the fourth network a genuine peer to abc, CBS and NBC. Now it needed just one more thing to become a bona fide TV grown, a real national news operation. Something to rival what the big three networks had spent decades building.

[Bill McCutty]

From CBS News headquarters in Washington, this is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. We called him Walter, but it was like working for God.

[Josh Levine]

That's Joe Perrinin. He started at CBS News in the 1970s, in the heyday of the Voice of God TV anchorman.

[Bill McCutty]

Since Monday, when President Nixon released the new tape, events have been rushing toward one seemingly inevitable conclusion. Removal from office. When the evening news completed and Walter.

[Josh Levine]

Said that's the way it is, we'd.

[Bill McCutty]

Clean up and we'd go out and.

[Josh Levine]

Get dinner or have a beer or.

[Bill McCutty]

Something and we'd start over the next day. Pretty good gig.

[Josh Levine]

Joe worked at CBS for decades, rising to become the number two executive in the news division. But by 1995, he was on the way out and casting around for a landing spot. Fox was looking for a president. So they decided to hire me with the idea that they were going to.

[Bill McCutty]

Create a news organization.

[Josh Levine]

When you get to Fox, what is in place. There's nothing.

[Bill McCutty]

Nothing really there.

[Josh Levine]

CBS News had well over a thousand employees. Joe wasn't going to recreate that kind of news colossus all at once, or maybe ever. News was expensive and Murdaugh wanted a lean operation. So Joe got to work slowly putting building blocks in place, trying to construct a Fox News operation that the nation would respect. Over at NBC, Roger Ailes wasn't doing anything slowly. When he'd gotten Hired in 1993, Ailes first job was to fix up CNBC. On his watch, the flailing business network got brasher and more inventive and its revenues zoomed up. But Ailes second job was the one he really cared about. Welcome back to America's talking for Thursday, October 27th.

[Bill McCutty]

Steve Doocy, along with K. Kim and.

[Josh Levine]

Tony Ailes, designed and built America's Talking largely on his own and got it cranking out hours of original television. He even had his own talk show, Straightforward, where he interviewed Joan Baez, Donald Trump, and Al Franken.

[Bill McCutty]

Al wanted water and coffee, so we had to get me water and coffee so that we'd be in symmetrical. So it's your move. Symmetry. My night to your glass of water. How are you? Good.

[Josh Levine]

The good thing about being in charge is that no one's going to cancel your terrible vanity project. And Roger Ailes was definitely swaggering around like he owned the place. He actually wanted to run all of NBC.

[Bill McCutty]

This was very much a guy who wanted to be a player with people who were loyal to him.

[Josh Levine]

Tom Rogers helped bring in Ailes to oversee CNBC and America's Talking. How long did it take for you to think that you'd made a really bad mistake?

[Bill McCutty]

That was clear very quickly.

[Josh Levine]

When Roger Ailes wanted to get hired at NBC, he'd told Tom they could build something great together. Once Ailes was in the building, he got to work tearing Tom down.

[Bill McCutty]

He would say things to the press that you just don't see one executive of company talking about another.

[Josh Levine]

To take one example, Ailes told a trade publication that Toms had a little trouble letting go because he basically used to run CNBC privately. Ailes went further. Is it accurate that he told you to stay out of his team's way or quote, I'm going to rip your fucking heart out?

[Bill McCutty]

You know what? I don't remember specific words, but those were the kind of things he would say.

[Josh Levine]

Tom was done with Ailes and with America's Talking. The channel Ailes had created for normal people wasn't appealing to much of anyone. After a year on the air, its ratings were too tiny for Nielsen to even register.

[Bill McCutty]

Well, it never caught fire. He spent a lot of time on it, but it just didn't catch.

[Josh Levine]

In 1995, Tom and some NBC colleagues found a way to solve all of their Roger Ailes problems.

[Bill McCutty]

If you look at this partnership between NBC and Microsoft, there'll be something there for you. Msnbc.

[Josh Levine]

It's gonna be incredible. NBC struck a deal with Microsoft to rebrand America's talking as msnbc. Ailes fiefdom had gotten snatched away, and he told a reporter that he was rip shit angry about how he'd been treated.

[Bill McCutty]

I think that Roger wanted to get even. I think revenge was a big motivator.

[Josh Levine]

That's J. Max Robbins in the mid-90s. He was the TV editor of the entertainment bible, Variety.

[Bill McCutty]

I was the first person to report that Roger Ailes was going to Fox. And I can tell you this now. Roger was my source.

[Josh Levine]

Ailes separation agreement with NBC barred him from going to a whole bunch of competitors. But it didn't say anything about teaming up with Rupert Murdoch.

[Bill McCutty]

I think he felt a real kinship with Murdoch. They're both kind of pirates, they're both buccaneers. And he knew he and Murdoch were really politically aligned. We've been very lucky in being able to obtain the services of Mr. Roger Ailes, who has had such a fantastic success in building CNBC.

[Josh Levine]

On January 30, 1996, Murdoch and Ailes took their plan public.

[Bill McCutty]

I'd just like to say how delighted I am that we can firmly announce the starting of a Fox News Channel. And a.

[Josh Levine]

At that press conference, Ailes spoke grandly about journalistic values, and he said his days as a Republican operative were well behind him background.

[Bill McCutty]

But I left politics a number of years ago and have run into whose organization for the last two years. I do believe that if we had not given him that credential, he would not have been chosen by Rupert Murdoch to be the creator of Fox News.

[Josh Levine]

Tom Rogers is probably right. If NBC hadn't helped launder Ailes image, Fox News might never have gotten off the ground.

[Bill McCutty]

Our job is to be objective, to do fine journalism. We like to be premier journalists.

[Josh Levine]

There was one awkward thing about this new Ailes Murdoch partnership. Fox already had a news division, and Walter Cronkite's disciple, Joe Perrinin, was running it.

[Bill McCutty]

I brought a booklet of standards and.

[Josh Levine]

Practices, which I wrote and gave to everybody.

[Bill McCutty]

Everybody.

[Josh Levine]

Oh, what the hell is this? You know, Joe had come to Fox from CBS to build a broadcast news operation on the cheap and he'd hired about 40 people. What he didn't realize is that Rupert Murdoch had a secret plan for a 24 hour cable news channel. And Joe was about to get demoted.

[Bill McCutty]

Roger calls me and tells me that.

[Josh Levine]

He'S looking forward to meeting with me. He'd like to take me to lunch at a seafood place in Manhattan. Ailes shared his vision for Fox News and offered a critique of Joe's former network. He said, look, you worked for CBS News, the communist broadcasting system.

[Bill McCutty]

He said, they're all liberal and we.

[Josh Levine]

Need a different channel out there that.

[Bill McCutty]

I believe will speak to millions of Americans.

[Josh Levine]

And he described it as an alternative news channel. In his press conference with Rupert Murdoch, Ailes had said that Fox News would do fine, objective journalism. Now he told Joe something very different. I went back to see Roger Ailes the next morning and I walked in and I said, I don't do alternatives. I'm not Stan, I'm residing. And he said, I'm sorry to hear.

[Bill McCutty]

That, thank you very much. And I left.

[Josh Levine]

The small team that Joe had put together wouldn't be enough to build out an entire cable network. That man Ailes needed to staff up. One potential hire got asked if he was a Democrat. When he said that was an inappropriate question, the negotiations ended. Ailes reportedly told another journalist, you're Jewish, so I assume you're liberal. He didn't get a job either, but Ailes was hiring from NBC.

[Bill McCutty]

Some people were like, wherever that man goes, I'll march behind him. And Steve Doocy and I were certainly two of those people.

[Josh Levine]

It was all thanks to Roger ailes that Bill McCutty had gotten the chance to host his own talk show. Now Bill was showing his loyalty, and Ailes was getting some revenge on his former employer. Bill was one of 82 NBC employees who had marched behind Ailes to Fox, including his colleague Steve Ducey and CNBC's Neil Cavuto. The news anchor, Terri Anser, thought she would join them.

[Bill McCutty]

Everybody came up and patted me on the back and said, oh, Terry, you'll be going there for sure.

[Josh Levine]

Terry says her work at America's Talking was the best of her career. She also did whatever was asked of her, even when it meant wearing short skirts with the light shining on her legs. The whole time she worked for Roger Ailes, she thought they had a good relationship, but she didn't get an invitation to follow him to Fox.

[Bill McCutty]

My agent told me that when he called to discuss who might make the move to Fox News, he was told, oh, Terry, oh no, we can't work with her. I was hurt and I was shocked.

[Josh Levine]

Terry says she never got a real explanation for why Fox rejected her. But she did notice a pattern.

[Bill McCutty]

Zero women went from America's talking to on air rolls at Fox News. Not one. All the men had a shelf life and the women were as disposable as tissue paper.

[Josh Levine]

Let's take a quick break.

[Bill McCutty]

This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes brought to you by the fda.

[Josh Levine]

Good morning.

[Bill McCutty]

Welcome to FOX News Channel. This is FOX News now. All the news you need in 15 minutes. Good morning, everyone.

[Josh Levine]

On the morning of October 7, 1996, Fox News went from an idea to a real life TV network. In its first few years, Fox would have all kinds of trouble getting picked up by cable systems. A problem that Rupert Murdoch's money and power would eventually solve. The more interesting long term questions were about identity. What kind of journalism would Fox do and what kinds of people would want to watch? One potential answer was that Fox News would be another America's talking because in 1996, there were a bunch of Fox shows that felt like they'd been teleported over from Roger Ailes old channel.

[Bill McCutty]

Good morning and welcome to Pet News. The number is 1-888-tell-FOX and we have sadly.

[Josh Levine]

Call in. Pet advice wouldn't become a staple on the Fox schedule. A couple of primetime talk shows would, including one hosted by Bill O'Reilly.

[Bill McCutty]

Few broadcasts take any chances these days and most are very politically correct. Well, we're going to try to be different.

[Josh Levine]

I'm going to talk more about primetime Fox later in this series. But for now I want to focus on the FOX News morning show.

[Bill McCutty]

Good morning. I'm Edie Donahey. The tax man gets a facelift, and that's good news for you. They were still in their infancy and so they had me come in and just fill in on some of those shows. And so that's how I ended up on Fox Express.

[Josh Levine]

That's Ed Hill. She went by Ed Donahey back in 1998 when she was in her mid-30s and filling in on the morning show that was then called Fox Express.

[Bill McCutty]

It wasn't a big opportunity. I mean, I'd been at CBS Morning News, but what I liked about Fox were the people. Most network level places are not happy, fun places. People are fairly miserable and they're all out to get each other. And it was the opposite At Fox.

[Josh Levine]

Ed quickly became a permanent co host on Fox Express alongside the former America's Talking Morning guy Steve Doocy and sportscaster Brian Kilmeade.

[Bill McCutty]

Baseball Brian. Okay, as soon as you find the camera, you can get the toss. When it started out, it was very traditional. Brian did the sports, Steve did the weather, and I did the news.

[Josh Levine]

That traditional format got a major overhaul in the summer of 98, making it.

[Bill McCutty]

Much less behind a desk and more of a talk news show. We ran a contest and viewers came up with the name for it.

[Josh Levine]

Roger Ailes. That guy loves a contest.

[Bill McCutty]

Yeah. Woo. Wow. Hi. Welcome to the program. We've got a new name, folks. It's no longer Fox Express. No, it's Fox. Fox and Friends.

[Josh Levine]

I always thought the Fox in Fox and Friends referred to Fox News. Or I guess I'd be more honest to say I never thought about it. It just seemed obvious. But then I found an interview with the contest winner. The guy who named the show.

[Bill McCutty]

Well, it has one of those double meanings.

[Josh Levine]

At the time, you had a very.

[Bill McCutty]

Nice looking lady in the middle surrounded by you guys. So I figured Fox along with the Friends on the outside. How did you feel about that?

[Josh Levine]

Ed was the original Fox in Fox and Friends. She was blonde and read the news just like Terry Anser from America's Talking. Also like Terry, her bosses told her to wear skirts and dresses even though she preferred pants. And people were taking notice.

[Bill McCutty]

At Fox, they've got Edie Donahey's nice legs as their leading attraction.

[Josh Levine]

But where Terry was expected to be likable in a shy and retiring kind of way, Edie and Fox and Friends had a very different vibe. I was over at Ed's house last.

[Bill McCutty]

Night for that kegger.

[Josh Levine]

Yeah.

[Bill McCutty]

Try to take the gin out of your hands and you go crazy. Who took those flamingos out of the front yard? I don't know.

[Josh Levine]

Ed's relationship with the Fox News audience could be wholesome.

[Bill McCutty]

When you watched Fox and Friends, I believe that you understood that we liked our viewers.

[Josh Levine]

How you doing, Edie?

[Bill McCutty]

Good. How are you doing? Not too bad. I love the program, by the way. Excellent. Thank you very much. It opened up a relationship instead of a lecture. This is Edie. I wake up every morning with Edie. You know, I know what she likes in her coffee. She's got the things with the peppermint mocha cream. You know, they know that.

[Josh Levine]

But the calls into Fox and Friends weren't always so respectable.

[Bill McCutty]

I love feet. Do you? What is it about feet? Some people just, I mean, really get off on feet. I have a woman's foot fetish. I love women's feet.

[Josh Levine]

In fact, you wouldn't mind taking off.

[Bill McCutty]

Your shoe and showed it to the camera, would you?

[Josh Levine]

Ed did show her barefoot, which is probably why that moment has been preserved on YouTube. I asked her if she found that kind of attention creepy.

[Bill McCutty]

Yeah, that is. It's really creepy. But I don't care. I don't care why you watch the news, why you watch the program I'm on, whatever it was. Hopefully, you know, you take something away with you that makes your life better or more informed. That's really the object.

[Josh Levine]

Fox and Friends was crass and neighborly. It covered the news, and the hosts didn't keep their views to themselves.

[Bill McCutty]

It shifts the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the irs. Woo. That's about time.

[Josh Levine]

Compared to the Today show, Fox and Friends was both more fun and more overtly political. One fan from Kentucky told a reporter he liked Ed and her co hosts because they don't have a liberal slant like the other morning shows do. I was looking back, actually, at some message boards and stuff. People were talking about the show back then. I think every message that I read about you and other hosts said that based on what you were saying, they identified you as conservative. Does that seem fair to you? No.

[Bill McCutty]

I would not peg myself as a conservative. I pegged myself as a radical traditionalist.

[Josh Levine]

I told Ed that it wasn't just critics who identified her as conservative. It was her fans, the people who watched her on Fox News every day.

[Bill McCutty]

Yeah, no, no, no, I get it. I believe that at the beginning of Fox and Friends, we were very in tune with mainstream America.

[Josh Levine]

Invoking mainstream America reminded me of Roger Aile saying America's talking was for normal people, not freaks. It was television as tribalism, building a connection with cultural signifiers.

[Bill McCutty]

There's certain terms that you can use, and if people aren't from outside an urban area, they don't get it. The term double wide. She has got the most beautiful double.

[Josh Levine]

Wide I've ever seen.

[Bill McCutty]

That looks like permanent skirting around it. It is. It's permanent woven siding. Very nice. Well, the tires are flat. It might as well be permanent. I think that being able to understand people from all walks of life, I think it comes across.

[Josh Levine]

At Fox News, the most important signifier was a catchphrase. Roger Ailes invented one that became the network's mantra on day one.

[Bill McCutty]

Fair and balanced. The way we report, the way we cover it, the way you get it. Fair and balanced. Fox News Channel. We all Hated that line. But we had to say that and we understood that we had to say that.

[Josh Levine]

Bill McCutty came with Ailes from America's Talking. He worked as an entertainment report in Fox News New York bureau and he says he showed up at Fox with his eyes wide open.

[Bill McCutty]

You had to know that this place was going to try and address something that Rupert and Roger felt was missing, which was we get the left side of the news, now let's do the right side.

[Josh Levine]

Why not just say that it's conservative though?

[Bill McCutty]

It couldn't declare what it was. It had to let people decide what it was.

[Josh Levine]

People on the news side of Fox News thought about fair and balance differently. They understood it was a corporate slogan, but it aligned with how they saw themselves. We've spoken to dozens of Fox News reporters and producers on the record and on background. Based on those interviews, I believe the vast majority who came to Fox in the early years wanted to do objective journalism. And most of them, especially the ones in Washington, D.C. believed that's what they were doing. But we did speak to a couple of people who got disillusioned very quickly. Both of them worked in New York and both had a close up view of the men who ran Fox News Channel. Roger had touted me as being the face of Fox News. That's Mike Schneider. He hosted Fox's main nightly newscast, the Schneider Report. In our first episode, you heard about his 1996 election night debacle when he tore a phone off the wall and Fox News coverage got trampled by the dog movie Beethoven. After that, things went more smoothly for a few months. But that all changed on January 26, 1997 during the Fox Broadcast Network's first ever Super Bowl.

[Bill McCutty]

Welcome to the Oscar MAYER Super Bowl 31 halftime show.

[Josh Levine]

And as halftime comes, all of a.

[Bill McCutty]

Sudden we interrupt this program for a FOX News Channel special report.

[Josh Levine]

I snap too. That's our bumper music. That's our set. And I look at my wife and I said, what the hell is going on?

[Bill McCutty]

We have just received a report.

[Josh Levine]

They cut to Kathryn Cryer, who was one of the other anchors, and she.

[Bill McCutty]

Starts to deliver something about a prison break from the Illinois State Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois.

[Josh Levine]

And what it turns out to be was not a breaking news story. It was using the Fox News facilities. The Fox News graphics. A FOX News anchor to provide the introduction to the Blues Brothers.

[Bill McCutty]

New Orleans, all in the area, please beware. Now back to our regular programming. Welcome to Super Bowl 31, Blues Brothers Bash.

[Josh Levine]

We're a brand new news operation we have not even begun to establish our credibility. This is probably the first time that 99% of the viewers even know that Fox News exists and they're seeing this goofball stunt. When I first heard about all this, I thought Mike was probably being a little sensitive. But in his defense, media critics also hated the fake super bowl news alert. One said that the concept of credibility continues to befuddle the alleged geniuses who oversee Fox News. Mike told another columnist that he'd been fooled by the fake alert and that Roger Ailes had admitted to him that the joke fell totally flat. I just felt it was a horrible way to introduce us to America because we were trying to be a legitimate news organization. Mike's word carried a lot of weight at Fox.

[Bill McCutty]

It meant everything to me that Mike Schneider was at Fox News to this day. I have so much respect for him.

[Josh Levine]

Don Daler had been toiling behind the scenes as a producer at CBS when he learned about an opportunity to get in front of the camera at Fox.

[Bill McCutty]

I remember thinking that they were not going to be this old stodgy news network, that they were going to do some things that were fun and exciting.

[Josh Levine]

Don became Fox's investigative correspondent. And at first, everything was going amazingly well.

[Bill McCutty]

I was very focused on trying to tell stories that weren't being told. You know, here's a hungry network that has all kinds of time to fill. And in the beginning, they took pretty much any idea I had.

[Josh Levine]

Not long after the Super Bowl, Don pitched a series of stories he was.

[Bill McCutty]

Really excited about on affirmative action, whether or not it had been successful in achieving its stated goals.

[Josh Levine]

Tell me what you've got there.

[Bill McCutty]

I have a copy of the first script I submitted in this series. The suggested lead is, does it seem like the very fabric of our society is coming apart every day we hear about crime on the increase, drug use skyrocketing, the dismal education system, the widening gap between the races. Just how bad are things in this country? And why don't we hear more about the things that are good?

[Josh Levine]

Don's reporting found that despite those negative storylines, affirmative action was working, that government policies had helped black Americans make progress economically and politically.

[Bill McCutty]

My suggested on camera at the end was, but for every rosy statistic eyesight, you could come back with five depressing ones. The point is, for some reason, we're more likely to hear about doom and gloom. Like Benjamin Disraeli once said, they're lies, damn lies and statistics and maybe sometimes news reports. Don Daler, FOX News Don scripts would.

[Josh Levine]

Get approved by A Fox News vp, John Moody. Moody had come over from Time magazine to run Fox's editorial operation. He'd oversee Fox's decision desk during the 2000 election. And in 1997, he weighed in on Don's affirmative action story. Don found Moody's notes so staggering that he's held onto them for almost 30 years.

[Bill McCutty]

I'll just read part of it here, he said. Don, you started with a good idea that I supported, but it veers off into an uplifting account of African American achievement. The story needs to be broadened with far more attention on the question you pose in the intro. Why do so many of us feel less happy, secure and optimistic than we once did or think we did?

[Josh Levine]

Don revised his script and resubmitted it. Moody sent it back again with a lot of red ink.

[Bill McCutty]

Most of what he struck through were stats that were favorable to the African American condition in this country. And then he scribbled at the bottom, this is not what our constituents want to hear. I took constituents to mean the people who viewed Fox News who were somewhat right wing leaning. The word constituents is not something anybody in news ever uses. That's a political term. And that to me was beyond the pale.

[Josh Levine]

Moody didn't respond to our request for comment, but he said previously that his edits on Don's story were legitimate news decisions and did not reflect any political agenda. Don disagreed strongly. He grabbed his marked up script and headed up to Roger Ailes office. When he found that Ailes wasn't there, he marched over to the next highest executive he could, Chet Collier. Ailes longtime right hand man Collyer, who died in 2007, was the guy who told America's Talking's Terry Anser that women on TV just needed to be likable. Now Don had something he needed to tell Collyer.

[Bill McCutty]

I said, you have to let me out of my contract or this is going to the New York Times tomorrow. And what followed was one of the more unpleasant moments of my life with a man that I liked and respected just screaming at me at the top of his lungs, calling me an idiot, saying, you just don't get it. This is not about journalism. This is about business. We are focused on supplying a part of society that has not gotten what they want.

[Josh Levine]

Don kept saying that it was about journalism and he wanted out.

[Bill McCutty]

He called security. Two gentlemen came up and they escorted me out of Chet's office. Chet followed us down the hall and at one point yelled, I've been in this business a long, long time. I'm a great judge of talent, and mark my words, you're going to end up selling shoes for a living.

[Josh Levine]

A while later, Don got a job offer from another media outlet.

[Bill McCutty]

They were doing their responsible due diligence and they were calling up all my references and former employers and all. And when they contacted Fox News, Fox denied that I'd ever even worked there.

[Josh Levine]

For what it's worth, a Fox News spokesperson told us, no one that was here during that era has any recollection of this. But Don remembers exactly what he did when he signed a contract with ABC's Good Morning America. He bought a box of shoes.

[Bill McCutty]

And I wrote a little note to Chet Collier saying, dear Chet, thanks for the advice, Don Daler. And I sent that off. I have no idea what his reaction was, but it sure felt good to do that.

[Josh Levine]

Back in 1997, Don's departure from Fox got mentioned in a single sentence in New York magazine, but he's never told this story until now.

[Bill McCutty]

I don't think you want Roger Ailes as an enemy, and I don't think you want Fox News as an enemy. So I didn't want to pick a fight with them. I wanted only to go do the kind of journalism that I believed in.

[Josh Levine]

I get why Don didn't say anything publicly. But that silence meant that almost no one knew what Fox's editorial leaders had told him less than a year after the channel launched, that Fox News was about business, not journalism, and that appeasing its constituents, the viewers at home, was sometimes more important than telling the truth. One person who Don did confide in was his colleague, Mike Schneider. It was like a hammer hitting me.

[Bill McCutty]

In the head because it basically reinforced.

[Josh Levine]

The concerns that I was having over the things that I was seeing. Mike had been appalled by Fox's fake Super bowl news alert. But after that, he started getting into more serious journalistic conflicts over a directive to make his primetime newscast more tabloidy and what he felt was a ginned up story on Fox's rival CNN, going easy, Cuba. Mike would leave Fox News in 1997, the same year as Don Daler. But before he did, he went to Roger Ailes office and asked to talk. And he's mumbling and grumbling about a bunch of stuff. And he says to me, you gotta be loyal. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, you never should have said anything publicly about the super bowl thing. He said, you shouldn't be talking to the enemy. I said, what do you mean talking to the enemy? He said, the press is the enemy. I said no, Roger, the press is us. Next time on slow burn. After September 11, American journalists struggled to find their way, and Fox News marched confidently forward.

[Bill McCutty]

I don't really like the feeling that I should show my patriotism on my sleeve. I'm okay with wearing an American flag, and I'm okay with putting it in my graphic. And if you're not, I think you need to examine who you are, not us.

[Josh Levine]

If you aren't already a Slate plus member, please consider joining. You'll be supporting Slate's independent journalism, including the creation of this season and future seasons of Slow Burn. And by joining, you'll unlock full full ad free access to Slow Burn and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. Last week, members received an exclusive episode of the Rise of Fox News, featuring NPR media correspondent David Fogenflick and his fascinating stories from the 2000 election. We'll be back next week with another exclusive episode for our members. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts by clicking Try Free at the top of the Slow Burn show page or visit slate.com slowburn to get access wherever you listen. This season of Slow Burn was written and reported by me, Josh Levine, an executive produced by Lizzie Jacobs. Slow Burn is produced by Sophie Summergrad, Joel Meyer and Rosie Belson, with help from Patrick Fort, Jacob Finston and Julia Russo. Derek John is Slow Burn's executive producer. This season was edited by Susan Matthews and Hilary Fry. Merritt Jacob, senior technical Director mix and sound design by Joe Plord. Our theme music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. Derek Johnson created the artwork for the season. We had production help from Jared Downing and Lucy Wong. Gabriel Sherman's biography of Roger Ailes, the Loudest Voice in the Room, was a valuable resource in the making of this episode and series. So were Kerwin's Swin sales back, Dark Genius and the documentary Divide and the story of Roger Ailes. Special thanks to Rachel Strom, Patti Smith, Barrett Carol Martin, Nicole Himmer, John Cook and Lauren Levine. And to Slate's Evan Chung, Madeline Ducharme, Forest Wickman, Christina Coterucci, Greg Lavallee, Ben Richmond, Seth Brown, Katie Rayford, Caitlin Schneider, Alexandra Cole, Emily Hodgkins, Ivy Lee Simon, Joshua Metcalf, Heidi Strom Moon, and Alicia Montgomery, Slate's VP of Audio. Thanks for listening. See you next week.

[Bill McCutty]

Former President Donald Trump rewrote the rules of how the American justice system treats our nation's most powerful people. Hello, it's Andrea Bernstein. I'm the host of the Law According to Trump, a special series from Slate Plus. Long before the Supreme Court granted presidential immunity Donald Trump created a blueprint for shielding himself from legal accountability on everything from taxes to fraud to discrimination. Listen as we explore Trump's history of bending the law to his will. Check out the Law According to Trump wherever you get your podcasts.