The Rise of Fox News | 3. The Other Guy’s Hamburger

Summary

Slow Burn: Season 10, Episode 3 – "The Other Guy’s Hamburger"

Host: Josh Levine
Release Date: October 2, 2024

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Introduction

In the third episode of Season 10, "The Other Guy’s Hamburger," Slow Burn delves into the pivotal rivalry between CNN and the emerging Fox News network during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through firsthand accounts from former CNN executives Tom Johnson and Gail Evans, the episode unpacks the strategic maneuvers, cultural clashes, and significant events that shaped the American cable news landscape.

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CNN's Early Dominance

Gail Evans recounts her early days at CNN, highlighting the network's ambitious vision to revolutionize American television with 24-hour news coverage. She reflects on the challenges faced during the nascent stages, emphasizing the innovative yet uncertain environment:

“At the Cable News Network, we believe that's the way it was. How do you actually have original news going on 12, 14, 18 hours a day when the most anybody had ever done before was maybe occasionally an hour?” ([00:58])

Tom Johnson adds context by describing CNN's foundational efforts to establish continuous news programming, including the creation of essential departments like booking and research. The network's commitment to live, unending news cycles was unprecedented, setting the stage for future successes and challenges.

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The Emergence of Fox News

As CNN solidified its presence, the television news market remained largely untapped by competitors until Fox News entered the scene in July 1996. Gail Evans uses the metaphor of a hamburger restaurant to illustrate CNN's market dominance:

“If the people in town want hamburgers, they gotta go eat at your hamburger restaurant.” ([09:11])

However, the arrival of Fox News introduced a new, aggressive competitor that disrupted CNN's monopoly. Under the leadership of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, Fox News adopted a distinct partisan and bombastic style, diverging from CNN's traditional reporting focus.

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Competitive Strategies and Cultural Clashes

The competitive tension between CNN and Fox News intensified as each network sought to dominate the cable news arena. Gail Evans criticizes Fox's approach, particularly their slogan "Fair and Balanced," suggesting a strategic jab at CNN's perceived liberal bias:

“If there was one thing that CNN always was, as much as we felt we could do it, are we being fair and balanced? When Fox came up with that as the slogan, it just always made me sick.” ([14:55])

Tom Johnson explains that both CNN and Fox News leaders were fiercely competitive, often leading to personal and professional clashes. Roger Ailes of Fox News engaged in a war of words against CNN, attempting to undermine its credibility and appeal.

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Chandra Levy Coverage: A Turning Point

One of the critical moments in the CNN-Fox rivalry was the extensive coverage of the Chandra Levy case in 2001. Tom Johnson describes how CNN's 24-hour news cycle led to an overwhelming focus on the unresolved disappearance and murder of Levy:

“In the spring and summer of 2001, there wasn't much to the Chandra Levy story, but the mystery... CNN ran 22 individual segments and six full shows about Levy and had no real news to report.” ([20:05])

This intense, speculative coverage earned CNN the nickname "the Chandra News Network," signaling a shift towards more sensationalist reporting. Fox News mirrored CNN's approach, capitalizing on the story to boost their ratings despite the lack of substantive developments.

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September 11, 2001: A Defining Moment

The September 11 attacks served as a monumental event that tested both CNN and Fox News. Gail Evans and Tom Johnson provide detailed accounts of how each network handled the crisis. CNN's comprehensive and rapid coverage initially drew massive viewership:

“TV news would never be more powerful than it was on September 11th. 90% of Americans kept up by watching television.” ([29:51])

Conversely, Fox News, though less experienced in handling such a large-scale event, introduced innovations like the scrolling news ticker:

“A block of text scrolling from right to left across the bottom of the screen. That’s how the Fox News crawl started.” ([33:58])

This feature provided continuous updates, a format that would become a standard in television news broadcasting.

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Post-9/11 Competition and Fox News' Ascendancy

Following the attacks, Fox News capitalized on the national mood by deepening its connection with viewers through overt displays of patriotism, such as wearing American flag pins. Gail Evans contrasts this with CNN's more restrained approach:

“I was never asked to, and I never felt a need to. I was an American, and a flag pin didn't make me more of an American.” ([36:45])

Tom Johnson notes that Fox News began to attract a more dedicated and partisan audience, while CNN struggled to inspire the same level of fervor. This divergence in audience engagement strategies led to Fox News surpassing CNN in ratings and profitability by the early 2000s.

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Roger Ailes' Tactics and Personal Vendettas

Roger Ailes intensified the rivalry by personally targeting CNN anchors who left Fox News, such as Paula Zahn. Gail Evans recounts the derogatory treatment Zahn received after her move to CNN:

“When she did that, that really irritated him.” ([48:03])

Ailes orchestrated mockery and humiliation, aiming to undermine CNN's credibility and foster a hostile environment. Similarly, CNN's attempts to recruit Fox News personalities like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh were unsuccessful, leading to further frustration among CNN executives.

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Conclusion: The Irreversible Rise of Fox News

By the mid-2000s, Fox News had firmly established itself as a dominant force in cable news, outpacing CNN in both ratings and viewer loyalty. Gail Evans reflects on the missed opportunities and strategic missteps that allowed Fox News to overtake CNN:

“The only chance we had was at the beginning. It's very hard to take down somebody. You just can't let them get started, man.” ([51:58])

The episode concludes by highlighting the enduring impact of Fox News' strategies on the American media landscape, setting the foundation for the partisan news environment prevalent today.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Gail Evans [00:58]: “At the Cable News Network, we believe that's the way it was. How do you actually have original news going on 12, 14, 18 hours a day when the most anybody had ever done before was maybe occasionally an hour?”

• Gail Evans [14:55]: “If there was one thing that CNN always was, as much as we felt we could do it, are we being fair and balanced? When Fox came up with that as the slogan, it just always made me sick.”

• Gail Evans [36:45]: “I was never asked to, and I never felt a need to. I was an American, and a flag pin didn't make me more of an American.”

• Gail Evans [51:58]: “The only chance we had was at the beginning. It's very hard to take down somebody. You just can't let them get started, man.”

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Key Insights and Conclusions

• Strategic Competition: The rivalry between CNN and Fox News was marked by distinct strategic approaches—CNN’s emphasis on comprehensive news coverage versus Fox News’ partisan, personality-driven format.

• Innovation and Adaptation: Fox News' introduction of features like the news ticker and overt patriotism resonated with viewers, fostering a loyal and engaged audience base.

• Impact of Major Events: Events such as the Gulf War, Chandra Levy case, and September 11th significantly influenced viewer habits and network strategies, accelerating Fox News' rise.

• Cultural and Ideological Clashes: The personal animosities and ideological differences between network leaders contributed to an escalating media war, shaping the polarized news environment.

• Legacy of Fox News: By leveraging strategic innovations and tapping into emerging viewer sentiments, Fox News established a lasting dominance in cable news, altering the competitive dynamics for decades to come.

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"The Other Guy’s Hamburger" offers a compelling exploration of the dynamic interplay between two major cable news networks, providing valuable insights into how Fox News rose to prominence and reshaped the American media landscape.

Transcript

[Gail Evans]

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.

[Tom Johnson]

Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply Gail Evans had a very busy life doing international consulting in the Middle east and raising three young children. She hadn't been looking to change things up until she got an opportunity with a startup in Atlanta.

[Gail Evans]

That was July 30, 1980, within a month of CNN beginning Cable News Network, the news channel. A bold, innovative step taken by Turner Broadcasting exclusively for cable subscription.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN was selling a brand new era of American television. A future filled with round the clock updates when you didn't have to wait for the network evening news. National newsmen may tell you that's the way it is.

[Gail Evans]

At the Cable News Network, we believe that's the way it was. How do you actually have original news going on 12, 14, 18 hours a day when the most anybody had ever done before was maybe occasionally an hour?

[Tom Johnson]

Gail was one of the people trying to figure out where all that news would come from. One of her first jobs was to help create CNN's booking and research departments.

[Gail Evans]

I think everybody believed we'd fail early on. I remember the woman who handled accounting for the area I was in running down the hall on Friday afternoon going, gail, deposit your check fast because there not enough money in the bank to meet the payroll.

[Tom Johnson]

For CNN to work, Gail and her colleagues would need to pull off news gathering feats that hadn't even been attempted.

[Gail Evans]

Everybody was constantly just making it up because nobody had done it before.

[Tom Johnson]

One of the things we're really excited.

[Gail Evans]

About is our ability to use satellite coverage. We really could cover the world in a way in which the world had never been covered before. To Atlanta, where we'll put it on the air as fast as we can.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN wasn't all reporting all the time. Its daily lineup would also feature the left right political debate show, Crossfire and Larry King celebrity interviews. But the network's founding mantra was the news is the star. That the stories were what mattered. Not big name anchors or primetime pundits. CNN allowed anyone anywhere to catch up on the world's most important events. The question was, did TV watchers actually want that?

[Gail Evans]

We decided that we were going to do live programming from Ethiopia to talk about the horrible famine and to show people what famine looked like.

[Tom Johnson]

All these are very hunger, they are very sick.

[Gail Evans]

And I used to say to people you could hear television sets turning off. It was an absolute ratings disaster.

[Tom Johnson]

The news is. The star may have sounded high minded but CNN was a for profit TV network, not a social cause.

[Gail Evans]

How do you get people to listen? I think part of what happens is you have to give them some of the pabulum they want. If you are always talking into a dark hole where nobody's listening, you're not accomplishing anything.

[Tom Johnson]

In October 1987, CNN would find its answer deep inside an actual dark hole.

[Gail Evans]

Baby Jessica in the well the eyes, the hearts, the minds of people around the world have been on Jessica McClure Underground in Midland, Texas.

[Tom Johnson]

Jessica McClure was just 18 months old when she fell into an abandoned well. The effort to save her dragged on for more than two days and CNN was there broadcasting the whole thing live.

[Gail Evans]

When there's a big story that's happening, people are glued to their television. People just turn it on and they leave it on till it's over. You can see the cable coming up. Everyone's eyes are looking down. You can see the enthusiasm, you could.

[Tom Johnson]

Hear the applause as the Baby Jessica's rescue brought CNN its biggest audience ever and proved the value of 24 hour news to millions of Americans.

[Gail Evans]

The viewers, the public knew that CNN would have the news.

[Tom Johnson]

That's Tom Johnson. He took over as CNN's president in 1990. Tom understood that for most people CNN wouldn't be a must watch every day. But as more and more of the country got wired for cable, CNN became the go to source whenever America got caught up in a big story.

[Gail Evans]

We can see some bright orange flashes off in the distance here and on.

[Tom Johnson]

The horizon in Baghdad.

[Gail Evans]

My career was really made possible successfully by Saddam Hussein and O.J. simpson. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. The intensity of the viewing on that was greater than anything I'd ever seen.

[Tom Johnson]

The first Gulf War in 1990 and 1991 and the O.J. trial in 1995 caused CNN's ratings to explode. And thanks to ad money and cable subscriber fees, the network's annual net revenue soared into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Life as the first and only 24 hour cable news network was pretty darn sweet. But in 1996, cable television would get a lot more crowded and CNN would face a new aggressive challenger that it wasn't prepared for at all. This is slow Burn Season 10 the Rise of Fox News. I'm your host, Josh Levine. For a decade and a half, CNN stood alone. It was peerless and ambitious and understood its place in the world. At least it thought it did until Fox News burst onto television screens.

[Gail Evans]

From the news capital of the world.

[Tom Johnson]

This is your news.

[Gail Evans]

Fair and balanced. News with a pulse. News, not boring.

[Tom Johnson]

Fox was a different kind of news channel, partisan and bombastic and not as focused on reporting. Its emergence would send CNN into an existential crisis. At the exact moment when the news was more important than ever. In September 2001, the country would turn to cable TV to understand the world and to feel understood. This was the chance for CNN and Fox News to show who they really were and for the American people to vote with their remotes.

[Gail Evans]

Although I do occasionally flip from channel to channel, I always come back to Fox.

[Tom Johnson]

This is episode three, the Other Guy's Hamburger.

[Gail Evans]

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. 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?

[Tom Johnson]

When Tom Johnson interviewed to become the president of cnn, he had a simple question for his future boss, the cable TV mogul Ted Turner.

[Gail Evans]

I said, ted, what is your policy about news? And he said, two words, be fair. And I said, what else? And he said, that's it, pal. And he said something like, what's yours? And I said, get it right, be accurate.

[Tom Johnson]

Being fair and getting it right were great. But Tom also wanted something else to be very competitive.

[Gail Evans]

I am a fiercely competitive person.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN aspired to be the best news service on the planet, and its reporters fought for scoops with journalists from all over the world. But on cable television, there really was no competition.

[Gail Evans]

I can make an analogy to if the people in town want hamburgers, they gotta go eat at your hamburger restaurant.

[Tom Johnson]

That's Rick Davis. He worked at CNN for more than 40 years, making him the longest serving executive in the history of cable news. Or, going with his analogy, the longest serving executive in the history of hamburger restaurants.

[Gail Evans]

All of a sudden if across the street there are two other hamburger places, if they throw in a special sauce that you don't have on your hamburger, and some of those customers, they realize, you know what, there's something about this hamburger that's even a little bit tastier than the place we've been going to for 15 years.

[Tom Johnson]

The first of those competing burger joints opened for business in July 1996.

[Gail Evans]

From now on, NBC News and Microsoft will revolutionize the way you get news. Ms. NBC. Well, I mean, we weren't happy, we weren't looking for competition. If Microsoft was really behind this, they had the deep financial pockets to do whatever they wanted.

[Tom Johnson]

So you're worried, then you actually turn it on and watch it. What do you think?

[Gail Evans]

There was nothing new, nothing really revolutionary.

[Tom Johnson]

Back in the 90s, MSNBC was very different than it is today. It didn't have any clear political slant and from Gail's perspective, it was just a CNN imitator with no special sauce at all. But then a few Months later, in October 1996, a third burger place opened and their food wasn't bland in the slightest.

[Gail Evans]

News every 15 minutes. News now, right now, Fox News now. I was really worried about the look. I was telling people, look at the graphics, look at that screen. It's fresh, it's new, it's different. I think competition is good for every industry. I don't think there's the self examination as much when you have the audience to yourself than when you find out that some of your folks are going across the street to eat the other guy's hamburger.

[Tom Johnson]

Okay, that's probably enough with the hamburger thing. The point is, the Fox News launch felt like an actual crisis. CNN's leaders were alarmed enough that they created a whole Fox observation team and.

[Gail Evans]

Their job was just seven or eight hours a day to watch Fox and see what they were doing. That was new or that was different, that was controversial.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN still had big profits and an enormous lead in the ratings thanks to its 16 year head start in cable news. But it wasn't clear how much that advantage mattered because the way Gail saw it, CNN and Fox weren't doing the same thing.

[Gail Evans]

CNN was out there doing the news, Fox was talking about the news. They wanted to look sharp and grab your eye. We were out there getting dirty trying to bring you what was happening.

[Tom Johnson]

While Fox did have a bunch of strong journalists, particularly in Washington D.C. it had just a handful of foreign bureaus compared to more than 30 for CNN. For Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, that was by Design. They thought the reporting heavy. CNN was boring, reactive, and too dependent on big stories. At Fox, the news wasn't. The star personalities were. And even at the start, when its viewership was tiny, Fox News inspired the kind of devoted following among its conservative base that CNN never had.

[Gail Evans]

Fox viewers would turn on Fox and put the remote back on the coffee table, and CNN viewers would keep the remote in their hands. CNN had users. Fox had fans.

[Tom Johnson]

Some of the people who ran CNN envied Fox's deep connection with its audience. But mostly they found their new rival extremely irritating. Murdoch said that he wanted Fox News to be objective because he believed CNN was drifting further and further to the left. Ailes took potshots at cnn, too, poking at its alleged liberal bias in politics. Attacking the media had been Ailes go to move as chairman of Fox News, he was still in campaign mode, doing whatever he could to discredit CNN and really all of mainstream journalism.

[Gail Evans]

If you say, well, don't you have too many conservatives on? I say, yes, compared to none on the other channels.

[Tom Johnson]

The truth is, American journalists do tend to be liberal, including the rank and file at Fox News and the channel's early years. Gail Evans and Tom Johnson fit that norm too. They'd actually both worked for Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. But that doesn't mean that CNN's coverage was slanted.

[Gail Evans]

I was happy on a day when 50% of the Democrats hated us and 50% of the Republicans hated us. Then I thought, okay, we did it right.

[Tom Johnson]

Media bias is extremely tough to measure objectively, but a study co authored by a conservative economist found that in the early 2000s, CNN's flagship newscast was almost exactly as centrist as the average American voter. While Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume tilted to the right, another study determined that CNN's main nightly news show had more Republican guests than Democrats. On Fox, those guests were nearly 90% Republican.

[Gail Evans]

If there was one thing that CNN always was, as much as we felt we could do it, are we being fair and balanced? When Fox came up with that as the slogan, it just always made me sick. For coverage that's fair and balanced, trust our powerful primetime lineup. Only on the Fox News Channel, they were not fair and balanced. I said to Roger, I said, the last thing, you are fair and balanced. I mean, that should have been my slogan. And he just loved it. He just loved it.

[Tom Johnson]

Tom Johnson wanted to be competitive. So did Roger Ailes. Maybe that's why the two men were friends, or probably closer to frenemies.

[Gail Evans]

There never was a birthday or holiday that he didn't send me something, unfortunately. It always had a gigantic Fox logo.

[Tom Johnson]

All those gigantic logos, the whole fair and balance thing. Tossing around accusations of liberal bias. Ailes was having a fabulous time trolling cnn, and Tom really, really wanted to shove it back in his face.

[Gail Evans]

I wanted to win at every hour, and so did he. I mean, we were fierce competitors.

[Tom Johnson]

The 2000 election and recounted had given Fox a huge ratings boost. To stay on top, CNN needed to find a way to transform its users into fans.

[Gail Evans]

Sometimes you gotta ask flat out to get the inside scoop.

[Tom Johnson]

Larry King Live represented one potential way forward. While CNN's ratings mostly surged during big news events, the talk show host with a Brooklyn accent and trademark suspenders had always dominated in primetime.

[Gail Evans]

Larry asked the question that the person sitting across from you at dinner wanted to know the answer to. Okay, Hillary, the key question is, what's with the hair? It's different every day. Yeah, we don't know what to expect. What is today's called? What is today's called? It's called spray it and hope it doesn't fall on your face when you're talking to Larry.

[Tom Johnson]

Larry King was really successful, so why not just build a whole lineup of Larry Kings all day long?

[Gail Evans]

Because we were a news network, you know, Come on. I mean, Larry was great, but Larry was not a correspondent or reporter.

[Tom Johnson]

If more Larry Kings wasn't the answer, then maybe CNN needed to take a hint from its rival and just get more conservative.

[Gail Evans]

I know that Roger's strategy was to serve a part of the spectrum that he felt had not been served. He saw an opening, and perhaps he was right.

[Tom Johnson]

Fox's rating spike around the 2000 election showed very clearly that there was a market opportunity in right wing tv.

[Gail Evans]

I'm killing cnn. Killing them. Murdering them. It is a good time to be Bill O'Reilly. His nightly Fox show, the O'Reilly Factor, is gaining in the ratings, up more.

[Tom Johnson]

Than 200% from a year ago.

[Gail Evans]

I'm a threat to the elite media and they don't want to give me publicity.

[Tom Johnson]

Thanks in part to Fox News pushing the line that CNN was liberal, Tom had started getting loads of criticism for not appealing to Republican viewers. Plus, with Fox on CNN's heels, sticking it to them now felt essential. Tom wasn't about to watch his network get run over by Roger Ailes. So he did something that nobody would have expected. He made a play for Fox News biggest star.

[Gail Evans]

Well, I felt I should talk with Bill, particularly if I could steal him away. It would be a twofer. I mean, I'd take him away from Fox and bring him over. It could have been a hit.

[Tom Johnson]

And Bill O'Reilly wasn't the only big name from conservative media he tried to recruit.

[Gail Evans]

I am, it's not even close, the most listened to radio talk show host in America.

[Tom Johnson]

Can you tell me about your conversation with Rush Limbaugh?

[Gail Evans]

So few people know that. It's just amazing.

[Tom Johnson]

Why did you want to do that in secret?

[Gail Evans]

Cause I knew that I might have a revolt on my hands at cnn.

[Tom Johnson]

Tom's colleague Gail Evans says that's probably true.

[Gail Evans]

I don't know if I could have worked the same place as Rush Limbaugh.

[Tom Johnson]

Neither of Tom's approaches ended with a deal. And by 2001, he and Gale were on the back end of their careers in television. They both separately chose to leave CNN and bow out of the cable news wars for good. It was clear to Tom that he was getting out just in time.

[Gail Evans]

When I went out the door, we were still ahead. But the trajectory of Fox was such that if I stayed around much longer, they would have gone past me like a rocket ship.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN was never really going to out conservative Fox News. But the original cable news network did have one more move it could make. CNN could compete with Fox by going tabloid.

[Gail Evans]

Here in Washington, meanwhile, the attorney for the parents of missing intern Chandra Levy is calling on police to step up their investigation and calling on friends of the young woman to come forward.

[Tom Johnson]

Chandra Levy was a 24 year old intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. After she went missing in May 2001, her relatives told the police they believed she'd been having an affair with a politician, Democratic Representative Gary Condit.

[Gail Evans]

Something that's always worked on cable news is mystery.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN's Rick Davis.

[Gail Evans]

Again, Chandra Levy was true crime mystery and it involved an American congressman. The Levy family and its spokesman hammer relentlessly at Congressman Gary Condit, the man police say again and again is not a suspect. I'm sure there are other stories that should have gotten more coverage, but the cable news audience liked that story. And in an era where there's a shorter and shorter attention span for news, this story has been continuing and won't go away.

[Tom Johnson]

In the spring and summer of 2001, there wasn't much to the Chandra Levy story, but the mystery. In just one day, CNN ran 22 individual segments and six full shows about Levy and had no real news to report. There was plenty of speculation, though, about the baseless rumor that Levy might have been pregnant and about the Democratic congressman who it turned out had nothing to do with her disappearance and killing. Still, the coverage rolled on like baby Jessica if she never got rescued. And this time, Fox News was right there with them.

[Gail Evans]

And straight ahead in this next hour of FOX News Live, increasing pressure on Gary Condit to seek out or quit. I mean, we'd wake up in the morning on Condit Watch.

[Tom Johnson]

Fox News. Jim Mills covered the story from his perch at the U.S. capitol. If you had a camera and you.

[Gail Evans]

Got fresh new pictures of Gary Condit, that was golden. Is that news? Well, in the economy of cable tv.

[Tom Johnson]

Yeah, that's a big deal.

[Gail Evans]

It was not a story. And the fact that we kept doing it really kind of disillusioned me.

[Tom Johnson]

Randy Lou Braddich was a producer at Fox headquarters in New York. Even as a kid, it had been clear that television news was where she belonged.

[Gail Evans]

I brought a TV to summer camp to watch the Iran Contra hearings. Like I had it plugged in under my blanket. I was always a little afraid of the world in and of itself. So I felt like I had to know everything that was going on.

[Tom Johnson]

Randi loved her work and her Fox colleagues, even though she identified as a screaming liberal, but she hated the way her network was covering Chandra Levy.

[Gail Evans]

We're going to put out all this inference and no fact and no substance. It's a story of sex, lies and politics, of polygraphs, bloodstains and dead ends, and for one anguished family, a missing daughter, what really happened to Chandra Levi? For me, we were completely running with it because a congressman, a Democrat, was attached to the story. It got to be unbearable.

[Tom Johnson]

I don't think that Fox was only running with the story because Gary Condit was a Democrat. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes both had tabloid backgrounds. And sensationalism, not politics, drove much of Fox's coverage, like a segment where Paul Lazon asked a psychic where Levy might be. But it was CNN's tabloidy shift that reeked of desperation, earning it the nickname the Chandra News Network. One CNN source told a reporter that their coverage was probably a reaction to Fox, but what choice did they have? All those Chandra Levy stories were a huge ratings winner for CNN and Fox News. And so it seemed the summer of Chandra would just keep rolling into the fall. But cable news was about to have something new to cover and a new way of looking at the world.

[Gail Evans]

People are trying to figure out what exactly is going on. There are several incidents that look, for all that we can tell, to be a major terrorist attack here in the United States.

[Tom Johnson]

We'll be back in a minute.

[Gail Evans]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon. The holidays are here and you know what that means. It's time to get your friends and family the gifts they deserve. Take the stress out of shopping with Amazon's great deals and low prices on a huge range of items from toys to tech and much more. Whoever you're gifting for, Amazon has great prices on everything you need this holiday season.

[Tom Johnson]

Shop Black Friday Friday week starting November 21st.

[Gail Evans]

Hi, I'm Carvel Wallace, and on this week's Slate advice podcast, how to we're tackling the future of reproductive healthcare in the U.S. which now feels uncertain after 2024, but has been uncertain for some time. But there is one thing that is certain, which is that men need to share a greater responsibility for contraception. This idea that there's something that's unmanly about reproductive healthcare means that we don't welcome men into our health care settings. Look for how to man up about male birth control in the how to feed and find it wherever you listen. FOX and friends all right, 17 minutes.

[Tom Johnson]

Before the top of the hour.

[Gail Evans]

Our next guest, Edie, is a model.

[Tom Johnson]

And is the wife of a rock.

[Gail Evans]

Star, but this love story is anything but typical.

[Tom Johnson]

A little after 8:40am Eastern on September 11, 2001, Fox's Brian Kilmeade and Ed Hill were wrapping up their Tuesday morning shift.

[Gail Evans]

I remember we were interviewing Marisol Thomas, who was married to Rob Thomas, the musician. I just love the music that your husband makes with Matchbox 20. And now we got the chance to meet you, and you're terrific. Oh, thank you. He saw. And then in our ear they start saying to us, hey, we've got to get her off the set. So I knew that there was something.

[Tom Johnson]

Going on that morning. Fox News editorial leaders were on a conference call talking about Chandra levy coverage. At 8:49am they noticed that CNN was showing disturbing images of the Manhattan skyline. As CNN showed those live pictures, Fox was in a commercial break. After three minutes, Edie Hill came back on screen.

[Gail Evans]

Welcome back to FOX news. We have a very tragic alert for you right now. An incredible plane crash into the World Trade center here at the lower tip of Manhattan. Initially, they were saying to us that it appeared to be a small plane. When you saw the hole, then you knew it wasn't. I was driving to work. I was on the west side Highway.

[Tom Johnson]

Aaron Brown was heading into CNN's New York office when he got a call about the World Trade center and a plane. Then about 15 minutes later, his phone rang again.

[Gail Evans]

The second tower's been hit I just got there as quick as I could and I got behind a police car. I was tailgating. I went, this gotta be covered by the First Amendment.

[Tom Johnson]

He weaved his way to 34th street and 8th Avenue and ditched his car on the ramp of a parking garage.

[Gail Evans]

I remember running across the street and thinking, you gotta calm down, don't get crazy.

[Tom Johnson]

Aaron had just started at CNN. After a long stint with ABC News. He'd made the move so recently that his daily newscast hadn't even started airing yet. But on September 11, he would become the face of CNN.

[Gail Evans]

I went up on the roof, microphone on, and did television. Aaron Brown in New York City joining us now. Aaron, we can see over your left shoulder there the building still smoldering of the World Trade Center. Well, it is a grotesque site to look at from about 30 blocks away from where we are.

[Tom Johnson]

Aaron stood on that rooftop with a rolled up sheet of paper in his hand and earpieces in both his ears.

[Gail Evans]

For those of you just joining us, let's just briefly recap what we know. About an hour ago, about 8:45 Eastern Time, one plane crashed into the tower, the World Trade center tower on the right. The first. I mean, if there was one thing that kept going through my head, it was don't screw this up. Don't get ahead of the story, don't speculate. Just stay with what you know. It never occurred to me that this building was going to collapse. And there, as you can see, perhaps the second tower, the front tower, the top portion of which is collapsing. Good Lord. There are no words. You can see large pieces of the building falling. You can see the smoke rising. This is just a horrific scene and a horrific moment. You need to keep your wits about you, which is actually a greater strain, if that makes sense. You want to scream and you can't, you can't.

[Tom Johnson]

Aaron is retired now and his voice sounds different than it did on 9 11. But the fear that he felt that day is still fresh.

[Gail Evans]

You're now in a, absolutely in a mass casualty event, what everyone in America thought was what's going to blow up next.

[Tom Johnson]

TV news would never be more powerful than it was on September 11th. 90% of Americans kept up by watching television. Just 5% followed the news online. On such a confusing and scary day, everyone at home was desperate for guidance about who had done this and what the day meant. That morning, George W. Bush made just one short statement about an apparent terrorist attack on our country. TV anchors like NBC's Tom Brokaw would fill that vacuum and go much further than the President had.

[Gail Evans]

This is war. This is a declaration and an execution of an attack on the United States, two of our most conspicuous symbols of the American system of capitalism.

[Tom Johnson]

Brokaw was an experienced, confident broadcaster, a classic network news voice of God anchorman. CNN's anchor was different.

[Gail Evans]

I must say, every time we hear a plane coming up overhead, it gets a little, a little nervous where we are, whatever is happening and whoever is responsible, we have no way of knowing if it's played out yet or if it's just going on.

[Tom Johnson]

Aaron Brown spent September 11th owning his fallibility, preaching journalistic caution and making sure that the news was always the star. CNN bounced from New York to D.C. to a live feed of a Taliban press conference, to a correspondent with Secretary of State Colin Powell in South America.

[Gail Evans]

They can destroy buildings, they can kill people, and we will be saddened by this tragedy, but they will never be allowed to kill the spirit of democracy.

[Tom Johnson]

That kind of comprehensive coverage was exactly what American TV watchers wanted to see. In the first week after September 11, CNN averaged 3.4 million daily viewers, almost double the audience of Fox News. One critic wrote that the Chandra Levy saga felt like a million years ago. CNN had adjusted quickly to this new American moment. And it seemed like Fox's personality driven approach to TV news might be obsolete. Fox News hadn't been built to handle a story like September 11th. Its news operation was much smaller than CNN's and less experienced. But even with all those disadvantages, Fox's coverage holds up remarkably well.

[Gail Evans]

September 11, 2001. You're going to remember this day for a long time and a lot of things in this will change as a result of what you're seeing on your screen now.

[Tom Johnson]

John Scott, who took over anchor duties from Ed Hill that morning, was the first person on any network to mention Osama bin Laden as a possible suspect. Fox's team in Washington also beat everyone in reporting that a plane had likely crashed into the Pentagon. Plus, the channel's tone that morning was pretty restrained. No Fox News anchor said this is war like Tom Brokaw did on NBC. Fox's most respected voice, Brit Hume, spent much of his time debunking rumors that had been shared by other networks.

[Gail Evans]

There was an earlier broadcast report here in Washington that there had been a car bomb outside the State Department. Terry Schultauer reported at the State Department has talked to senior officials who say that that is not true.

[Tom Johnson]

For me, all of this is proof that Fox had a whole slew of talented journalists when they got left alone and were allowed to do their jobs. They did them very well. It's not surprising that Fox News 911 coverage isn't really remembered today, since breaking news is so ephemeral. But Fox and Roger Ailes did Change television on September 11th in a way that has endured. They did it with an innovation so simple that it feels shocking that it wasn't already a TV staple. A block of text scrolling from right to left across the bottom of the screen.

[Gail Evans]

A day of terror in the United States. Two planes crashed into the World Trade center in New York. WTC towers collapsed.

[Tom Johnson]

That's how the Fox News crawl started. Two hours after the first plane hit, it kept on going, a never ending horizontal stream. That ticker would quickly get copied by both C, CNN and msnbc. And in the days, months and years that followed, all those alerts and warnings would just keep inching along, conveying an unending sense of urgency. As one Fox commentator put it, the.

[Gail Evans]

Calls used to be used until recently for really important news, for example tornado warnings. And so I'm wondering where we go for here when we want to.

[Tom Johnson]

Regardless of what was happening in the world, the Fox News crawl was there to stay. A subtle promise that you'd always know what was happening so long as you never flipped the channel. This was what Fox News had been built on, the idea that in all kinds of ways a TV channel could forge a bond with its audience. Fox would only deepen that connection after 9 11, and they'd do it by making patriotism a competition.

[Gail Evans]

There are a dozen news outlets to choose from. If one of them is a little more flag waving than the others, I think that's perfectly legitimate.

[Tom Johnson]

Let's take a quick break.

[Gail Evans]

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 of According to Trump wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tom Johnson]

After the September 11 attacks, pretty much everyone in American politics and media spoke up about the country's character and resolve. Some people went one small step further and made their national pride more tangible.

[Gail Evans]

The way people felt then. You wanted to put a flag on. You wanted to show support for each other.

[Tom Johnson]

Edie Hill had spent three years building a rapport with her audience on Fox and Friends. Now, those shared values were easy to display. All she had to do was put a flag pin on her lapel.

[Gail Evans]

That's common sense. I'm an American. We're in America. I'm wearing one.

[Tom Johnson]

Fox News anchors Brit Hume and Neal Cavuta wore flag pins too. But CNN's Erin Brown never did.

[Gail Evans]

And I was never asked to, and I never felt a need to. I was an American, and a flag pin didn't make me more of an American. And there's not a single viewer that didn't know where my heart was.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN didn't have anything against the stars and stripes like Fox News, it added a waving American flag to its onscreen logo. But for most anchors and reporters outside of Fox, pinning the flag on your chest was a step too far, a sign that you were in lockstep with the government. Even one Fox contributor, Jane hall, was willing to say as much publicly.

[Gail Evans]

I don't really like the feeling that I should show my patriotism on my sleeve. And to me, you know, this is going to sound corny, but I think I can be patriotic by asking good questions and trying to provide good information to the American people.

[Tom Johnson]

I asked Fox producer Randy Lubradich what she thought of this whole debate and the idea that journalists should not wear flag pins on the air.

[Gail Evans]

Can I curse? Yeah, yeah, go fuck yourself. That's what I have to say to that.

[Tom Johnson]

Randy is the liberal Democrat who felt disgusted by Fox's obsessive Chandra Levy coverage. But in this case, she thought Fox News had it right and all of its critics were totally wrong.

[Gail Evans]

At that moment, we were not conservatives, we were not liberals. We were the United States of America and we joined together under that flag. So if you wanna criticize who we are as a people who are under attack where thousands of people just died, yeah, I'm okay with wearing an American flag, and I'm okay with putting it in my graphic, and I'm okay with putting it in my crawl. And if you're not, I think you need to examine who you are, not us.

[Tom Johnson]

As an institution. Fox turned those tiny flag pins into points of division. Brit Hume said that journalists who didn't wear them were a bunch of elitists who consider themselves above or apart from the readers and viewers they supposedly serve. Fox's chairman Roger Ailes put things more crudely. When a journalist reportedly criticized Ailes for allowing his on air talent to wear the American flag, he responded, I'm a little bit squishy on killing babies. But when it comes to flag pins, I'm pro choice. In the days after 9 11, as the Bush administration's war on terror kicked into gear, Fox News was ready for battle. And the restraint that Fox showed during the attacks quickly transformed into something else.

[Gail Evans]

All right. While most Americans are united in their support of President Bush and the desire to bring Osama bin Laden and other terrorists to justice, there are some differing voices.

[Tom Johnson]

On the night of September 13, Bill O'Reilly hosted Sam Houssaini, a Jordanian American political activist and writer.

[Gail Evans]

Sam, you've been on a program before.

[Tom Johnson]

When O'Reilly said the US would likely blast Afghanistan's Taliban government with air power, Husseini pushed back.

[Gail Evans]

Who would you kill in the process? Does it make any difference? No, no, it does make a difference. I don't want more civilians dead.

[Tom Johnson]

We've had civilians dead in New York and, and now you're saying maybe it's okay to have civilians dead in Afghanistan.

[Gail Evans]

Mr. Is this is war?

[Tom Johnson]

Stop it.

[Gail Evans]

This is war.

[Tom Johnson]

Yeah, exactly. And in war, you don't kill civilians. You don't kill women and children.

[Gail Evans]

Those are your words, Bill. Mr. I don't want to insult you, Mr. Hosseini, but this is, you are just the most absurd statement in the world. That means we wouldn't have bombed the Nazis or the Japanese. We wouldn't have done any of that because you don't want somebody who's declared war on us to be punished. The terrorist states have declared war. Mr. Husseini cut his mic.

[Tom Johnson]

That wartime fervor is exactly what Roger Ailes wanted to hear. After September 11, Ailes sent a letter to Karl Rove, George W. Bush's adviser, saying that the American public wanted the president to take the harshest measures possible in response to the attacks. This was the head of a media outlet that claimed to be neutral, giving political advice to the Republican White House. When Ailes message got leaked, he said, I did not give up my American citizenship to take this job. With the administration preparing for war and the public still reeling from the deadliest attack ever on American soil, the networks were left asking themselves, how do you talk about all this on the air? CNN's answer came from the guy who'd replaced Tom Johnson, the channel's new chairman, Walter Isaacson. CNN executive Rick Davis.

[Gail Evans]

Again, Walter really felt like it was important that when we did stories from Afghanistan that at the end of the story we reminded the audience of what happened on 9 11.

[Tom Johnson]

Isaacson told CNN's journalists that they should always point out that the Taliban have harbored the terrorists responsible for killing thousands of innocent people.

[Gail Evans]

Walter he had some people who agreed with him, and he had some people within the network who didn't agree with him. But he was the boss, and that was the policy.

[Tom Johnson]

That CNN directive got leaked, too. When it came out, an executive from a rival network said he would never give reporters that kind of guidance, that the whole thing was infantilizing. But one of Isaacson's peers defended him. Fox News editorial boss John Moody. He said Americans need to remember what started this. A lot of Americans did die. What no one outside of Fox knew at the time was that John Moody was writing memos, too. A whole lot of them.

[Gail Evans]

I had been working at Fox for a few years before the editorial notes started, when they actually affected my daily work life.

[Tom Johnson]

Ann McGinn was a Fox News producer in Washington, D.C. she got hired at Fox in 1998. Moody's memo started coming in early 2001, after George W. Bush was elected president.

[Gail Evans]

Within the computer system, there was a section for the editorial notes, and you were supposed to read it every day.

[Tom Johnson]

Caroline Bruner was ann's colleague in D.C.

[Gail Evans]

Moody'S note would usually be an editorial like, this is what we're going to focus on today. The notes could be, you know, fairly obvious. You know, whatever the world events, of course we're going to cover. The President is talking about jobs in Idaho. We're going to focus on the economy, that sort of thing. And then sometimes it would be things like, I remember when Osama bin Laden was the biggest news in the world. We're going to call him Osama with a U. We're going to follow the White House on that. The notes were very much in line with what the administration was putting out there.

[Tom Johnson]

One example that both Anne and Caroline Remember came in April 2002, as the US was conducting its retaliatory war in Afghanistan. At a White House briefing, press secretary Ari Fleischer got asked about a new phrase the Bush administration was trying to popularize.

[Gail Evans]

You, the president. Others in this White House have adopted a term called homicide bombing instead of suicide bombing. The reason I started to abuse that term is because it's a more accurate description. These are not suicide bombings.

[Tom Johnson]

These are murderers.

[Gail Evans]

The President has said that in the Rose Garden.

[Tom Johnson]

And I think cnn, msnbc, ABC, and the Associated Press all said that they weren't going to use the Bush administration's language. But the Fox staff and Fox viewers got a different message.

[Gail Evans]

Fox News has changed its terminology when describing people who kill others while blowing themselves up. Now we're calling them homicide bombers. Ridiculous. Only if you're a terrorist. I can't speak to what coordination was going on behind the scenes, but it certainly felt that, wow, we are in step with whatever is coming out of the White House.

[Tom Johnson]

Ann had started to get disillusioned during the 2000 campaign in the Florida recount when she felt Fox News was openly rooting for George W. Bush. She thought these notes showed that Fox was now leaning even further to the right. But Ann and other producers on the news site in Washington still believed they had the autonomy they needed to do their jobs.

[Gail Evans]

Did I feel that I had to adhere to the editorial note in lockstep? No. My executive producer was just like, I don't care about that. Going to ignore it. We in D.C. kind of felt we were above them, which sounds really arrogant and silly, but we did. We felt like we were above them.

[Tom Johnson]

While Moody's memos would stay secret for years, the public did see a Fox News that was riding high. Right after September 11, CNN had drawn a huge audience, almost double what Fox News was getting. But in just a few months, as news gave way to talking about the news, Fox zoomed back up the charts.

[Gail Evans]

Fox, the scrappy, upstart news channel founded just six years ago by publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch, has pulled ahead of CNN, the 22 year old traditional leader. In the month of January, we were number one, Fox Washington managing editor Brit Hume. We won in ratings, we won in households.

[Tom Johnson]

In this moment, when Fox News ascended to number one, CNN actually had more unique viewers. People that flipped over to watch the news for a few minutes at a time. But the Nielsen ratings reward channels with devoted watchers who tune in for longer stretches. And Fox News had more of those than cnn. To put it another way, CNN had users and Fox had fans. And thanks to Those fans, in 2001, Fox News turned a profit for the first time ever. Roger Ailes said all that success had a simple explanation. Fox loved America more than CNN did. Ailes told the New York Times. Our competition has discovered fair and balanced, but only when it's radical terrorism versus the United States. Ailes didn't only mock CNN to reporters. He also spent tens of thousands of dollars per month. On a billboard outside CNN center in Atlanta, the Fox chairman would draw up a new message every time one of his shows topped the ratings.

[Gail Evans]

I saw it every day when I came into work.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN's Rick Davis.

[Gail Evans]

Well, there was discussion. Can't we buy that billboard? Is there a way we can get rid of that? Eventually, I think we did. Took A couple years because he had like a two year contract.

[Tom Johnson]

Roger Ailes war of words against CNN after 911 wasn't just about professional competition. He also wanted personal payback after one of his star anchors got snatched away.

[Gail Evans]

Good morning, I'm Paul Azhar. Next on American Morning, a possible thaw overnight in the 10th standoff with North Korea.

[Tom Johnson]

Paula Zahn had co anchored Fox's 2000 election night coverage with Brit Hume. But the next year, just before 9 11, she decided to make a move to CNN.

[Gail Evans]

Roger was ticked. He did not see that coming.

[Tom Johnson]

Ed Hill of Fox and Friends.

[Gail Evans]

If someone's not going to be there, he wants it to be his choice, not theirs. And so when she did that, that really irritated him.

[Tom Johnson]

Irritation doesn't really capture it. Ailes told the Times that he could have improved on Zahn's ratings by putting a dead raccoon on the air. A Fox News spokesperson also compared Zahn's new role at CNN to putting a fresh coat of paint on an outhouse. And on Fox and Friends, the radio DJ man cow Mueller did a skit in when she punched an actor in the face and screamed, I'll kill you, Paula. We will kill you, Paula. As Mankow kept on pummeling, Ed Hill pleaded with him to stop.

[Gail Evans]

I was not told about that beforehand for good reason. I wouldn't have gone along with it. I think it's cheap, I think it's juvenile and I think it's mean. And we were good enough that we could beat any network on our own without resorting to something as stupid as that.

[Tom Johnson]

Paula Zahn wasn't Fox's only target.

[Gail Evans]

I was the new kid in town and the hot property in town. So Roger decided, let's take him down.

[Tom Johnson]

Aaron Brown became an unlikely TV star after anchoring CNN's 911 coverage. And then like Zahn, he got heckled on Fox and Friends.

[Gail Evans]

The morning show at one point held up a picture of me and they said, doesn't he just look like your dentist?

[Tom Johnson]

Under Brown's picture there were captions reading Aaron Brown, DDS and Molar Man.

[Gail Evans]

And it was just all to sort of humiliate me. This is like fourth grade stuff.

[Tom Johnson]

Roger Ailes orchestrated the whole thing, calling Fox and Friends co host Steve Doocy and telling him, no matter what happens, even if they torture you, say he's your dentist. This gag went on for two days.

[Gail Evans]

You know, my bosses were just like, no one's watching them. No one takes them seriously.

[Tom Johnson]

CNN had all kinds of problems in the early 2000s. A chaotic corporate merger, executive shuffles and multiple rounds of layoffs. And then there was the constant drumbeat of Fox News winning and taunting and winning and taunting some more. Aaron says he couldn't convince the people in charge to do anything to fight back about the personal shots he was taking or about Fox's suggestion that CNN loved terrorists.

[Gail Evans]

We had a competitor who had convinced people that we were actually rooting for the other side and that they were the Americans. You're not punching back. I just think it was a terrible mistake.

[Tom Johnson]

Why was it a mistake?

[Gail Evans]

Because you don't get into a ring to box and then just let your hands hang down at your side while the other person knocks you silly.

[Tom Johnson]

At its best, CNN did help its viewers understand the world, but it never inspired the passion and anger that Fox did from its fans and its enemies. That fervor would propel Fox News into a new phase, an era when it was no longer an up and coming network. In just a few years, Fox had become a media goliath, swatting away its challengers and critics, possibly for good.

[Gail Evans]

The only chance we had was at the beginning. It's very hard to take down somebody. You just can't let them get started, man.

[Tom Johnson]

Next time on Slow Burn. The backlash against Fox News grows from activists, former Fox employees, and the Daily.

[Gail Evans]

Show we all like in unison in my memory of it uttered, what if we pretend we're them?

[Tom Johnson]

If you are. If you aren't already a Slate 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 ad free access to Slow Burn and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. In this week's plus episode, you'll hear more from Tom Johnson about the successes and failures from his decade plus running CNN and how Fox News is still a part of his life.

[Gail Evans]

I've got conservative relatives. You can't get them to get off of Fox. I mean, it ruins my time with them almost because they're so addicted. They're almost addicted to Fox.

[Tom Johnson]

Do you fight with them about it?

[Gail Evans]

Sure. I'd never win.

[Tom Johnson]

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts by clicking Try Free at the top of the Slow Burn show page or visit slate.com slowburnplus 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 Slowburn's executive producer. The season was edited by Susan Matthews and Hilary Fry. Merritt Jacob is senior technical director. Mix and sound design by Joe Plourd. Our theme music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. Derek Johnson created the artwork. For this season. We had production help from Maya Kroth and Chris Sinclair. Paul eris book American television's live coverage of the 911 attacks was a valuable resource in the making of this episode. Special thanks to Rachel Strom, Paula Bernstein, Stephen Battaglio and Julia Turner, and to Slate's Evan Chung, Madeline Ducharme, Forest Wickman, Christina Cotterucci, Greg Lavalley, Ben Richmond, Seth Brown, Katie Rayford, Kaitlyn Schneider, Alexandra Cole, Emily Hodgkins, Ivy Lee Simonis, Joshua Metcalf, Heidi Strom Moon, and Alicia Montgomery, Slate's VP of Audio. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.