← Slow Burn
Slow Burn
The Rise of Fox News | 6. What Hath We Wrought?
01:17:01
Some of the people who built Fox News now wonder how much they’re to blame for what it’s become.
Loading summary
Transcript298 lines
- [00:01]
Josh Levine
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.
- [00:30]
Brian Stelter
The way Roger Ailes saw it, the only thing that mattered in cable news was getting people to watch.
- [00:36]
Josh Levine
If you don't get the ratings, you go off the air and you're out of work. And my mother doesn't want me to be out of work.
- [00:42]
Brian Stelter
Fox was getting the ratings, and Ailes liked to brag.
- [00:47]
Josh Levine
We're the new kids on the block. We are the smallest in terms of distribution of the networks and the newest, and we are doing quite well in the ratings.
- [00:56]
Brian Stelter
There was also this Exchange When C SPAN's Brian Lamb asked him to talk about anything but Fox's viewership besides the ratings.
- [01:04]
Josh Levine
When did you get a sense that things were working? Well, I don't know exactly when I knew it was working, but the first time we really beat CNN for an evening, I went down and announced it in the newsroom. The staff was standing on their desk cheering. I said, you know, these people have a lot of spirit. They want to win.
- [01:21]
Brian Stelter
Fox News had plenty of wins to celebrate. First they moved ahead of msnbc, then cnn, and finally zoomed past the ratings king of cable tv, a cartoon character who lived in a pineapple under the sea.
- [01:37]
Josh Levine
Spongebob. The remote control's broken. Get over here and fix it. I got a better idea. We had a party in the conference room that had a SpongeBob SquarePants cake.
- [01:48]
Brian Stelter
Fox News producer Caroline Bruner. Do you remember being, like, excited about that moment?
- [01:54]
Josh Levine
Well, it was cake. And also, it felt like my job was safe.
- [02:00]
Brian Stelter
Caroline and her Fox colleagues ate that spongebob cake in April 2003, a few weeks after the start of the Iraq war. A year later, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, Fox News would hit another milestone, getting more viewers than any of the traditional big three broadcast networks.
- [02:20]
Josh Levine
Fox was number one. Fox had a great story to tell.
- [02:24]
Brian Stelter
That's Brian Stelter. He's now the chief media analyst for CNN. But in 2004, he was just out of high school and maybe the only person in America who cared as much about cable news ratings as Roger Ailes did.
- [02:37]
Josh Levine
I felt like there was no one tracking the Ins and outs of cable news. So. So I decided to do it.
- [02:45]
Brian Stelter
After his first semester at Towson University outside Baltimore, Brian started up a website that he called Cable Newser.
- [02:53]
Josh Levine
I launched the blog anonymously because I figured if people knew I was an 18 year old college freshman, they would never take me seriously.
- [03:01]
Brian Stelter
That plan pretty much worked. Thousands of industry types followed his blog religiously, not knowing it was written by a teenager. And one network in particular took a very special interest in cable newsr.
- [03:14]
Josh Levine
Fox News PR started feeding me information and most importantly started feeding me ratings.
- [03:20]
Brian Stelter
Fox gave Brian proprietary information, the daily overnight ratings, which showed how all the channels stacked up naturally with Fox News number one, that data was closely guarded. Some cable news producers and hosts didn't even have it. But thanks to Fox, a college freshman did.
- [03:40]
Josh Levine
They saw my blog as a vessel to say we're winning our agenda's Winning.
- [03:47]
Brian Stelter
Those numbers made his site a destination. And after just a few months, he felt established enough to reveal his identity to a New York Times reporter.
- [03:56]
Josh Levine
Would you believe this is one of the most powerful people in television? He lives in a cramped, messy apartment and hasn't even graduated college yet.
- [04:06]
Brian Stelter
After Brian went public, CNN and MSNBC started sending him data too. But the Fox PR department made sure that he didn't stray too far.
- [04:16]
Josh Levine
Fox definitely wanted to woo me, you know, they wanted to impress me. There was definitely some cultivating going on.
- [04:25]
Brian Stelter
In the summer of 2004, he got invited to Fox News headquarters in New York. Fox treated the teenager like a vip, ushering him into a conference room to meet Fox executives. And then as if on cue, the chairman, Roger Ailes came storming in.
- [04:42]
Josh Levine
He was pissed about some headline on the Fox News homepage. He roared at this executive, he said, fix the God forsaken headline. I remember coming away thinking that he was trying to put on a show for me of this swashbuckling kind of leader.
- [04:57]
Brian Stelter
Cable newsr kept running items touting Fox's triumphs. One reader wrote in warning Brian that he was being manipulated by Fox News just as the American viewers are at the time. He shrugged off that critique. Now he sees things differently.
- [05:15]
Josh Levine
I was definitely learning on the job and I think there were times that Fox took advantage of that. I don't remember exactly how I met this Fox News PR intern, but maybe she had emailed me items or sent me press releases. It was one of those things where, hey, the next time you're in New York, let's hang out. Which for a college kid down in Baltimore, that's pretty tempting.
- [05:38]
Brian Stelter
Brian took her up on that offer. And they ended up going out a couple of times, including around his 20th birthday.
- [05:45]
Josh Levine
I remember going to that restaurant on Union Square. It was called Coffee Shop. We had dinner there. We rode the subway uptown. We went back to her apartment. We spent an evening on her rooftop on the Upper east side.
- [05:58]
Brian Stelter
Did you guys kiss?
- [05:59]
Josh Levine
Not that I recall. But it was flirtatious. Or at least, you know, I thought I was on a date.
- [06:07]
Brian Stelter
From his side. That was the whole story. But then years later, he caught up with that Fox News intern after she'd moved on to another network.
- [06:17]
Josh Levine
And I think we were talking about our old times in New York. And I might have admitted to having a crush on her at the time. And she spilled the beans, you know, she told me what happened.
- [06:27]
Brian Stelter
It turned out those nights in Manhattan weren't dates at all.
- [06:31]
Josh Levine
The intern was assigned to me to take me out, listen to everything I say, take notes, and feed information back to Ailes. And it was detailed. Like, at one point, we were at the restaurant in Union Square, and I had a phone call from a CNN PR person, and apparently this intern is going to the bathroom and scribbling down notes. She didn't want to do this. This was not her idea. You know, this young woman who gets, you know, roped into Roger Ailes paranoia. And what I found out was that this intern was hauled into Ailes office the next morning because he wanted a full debrief about the date or the not a date date.
- [07:19]
Brian Stelter
Everything that you're describing here seems, like, incredibly creepy.
- [07:23]
Josh Levine
I was creeped out about it when I found out PR staffers are not supposed to be sent out on pretend dates. But I guess Fox was always trying to have it both ways. Friendly, helping out with information, but at the same time engaging in covert ops.
- [07:47]
Brian Stelter
This is slow burn, season 10, the rise of Fox News. I'm your host, Josh Levine. By 2004, Fox was the undisputed leader in cable news, and it wanted everyone to know it. It had come a very long way since its debut around the 1996 election, when it tried and ultimately failed to look even a little bit competent. For fox news, the 2000 election had been its springboard into relevance, the moment when it started to wield power and build loyalty. But the 2004 race would be the first fully Fox News election, a contest that was framed by Fox and fought on Fox's terms.
- [08:29]
Josh Levine
As all of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth allegations continue to fill the air and dominate the campaign trail. Senator Kerry again today that he has been honest about his military service.
- [08:43]
Brian Stelter
In 2004, the country was primed for a massive confrontation about George W. Bush, the Iraq war, and a cable news channel. But the fight over Fox News was about more than just partisan politics. Or at least it should have been. Fox didn't only break journalistic rules, it also spied on reporters and let loose a secret army of online trolls. And when a Fox producer made serious allegations against Bill O'Reilly, the network showed just how far it would go to defend its biggest star and to stay number one, no matter the cost. Now, two decades later, the people who fought against Fox News are reckoning with the choices they made. And some of the people who worked at Fox have started to wonder how much they're to blame for what it's become.
- [09:32]
Josh Levine
I remember saying to people, this is the worst it could ever possibly be. It's never going to get worse than this. And man, how wrong I was.
- [09:41]
Brian Stelter
This is our Season Finale, Episode 6 what Hath We Wrought? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to at work in social settings around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself so you can take the mask off. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for our emotions. Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. BetterHelp changes the way people approach their mental health and helps them tackle life's challenges by providing accessible and affordable care. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slowburn today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com slowburn blinds.com is.
- [10:57]
Josh Levine
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 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 now@blinds.com rules and restrictions may apply.
- [11:34]
Brian Stelter
By 2004, Fox News was indispensable to millions of Americans. It was also despised by millions. And you could hear that fervor when C Span opened up its phone lines.
- [11:45]
Josh Levine
For people to say that Fox News is fair and balanced. I don't see it. I'm calling because Fox News has really irritated me to no end. I find myself just annoyed. I have to constantly turn away from it.
- [11:57]
Brian Stelter
They've been allowed to lie and lie and lie every day and every day, forever and ever. The documentary Outfoxed had harnessed a whole lot of pent up anti Fox energy. And when the movie wrapped up, that passion didn't go away.
- [12:11]
Josh Levine
We were floundering because we felt like all of a sudden we had nothing to do.
- [12:16]
Brian Stelter
Chris Bradley was one of the newshounds, the eight women who did the research for Outfaxed. Judy Dobbenmeyer was another. And she says an Outfoxed producer recommended they keep the project going.
- [12:29]
Josh Levine
Jim Gillian, he suggested to us, you know, that you should start a blog. And our response was, well, what's a blog? And he trained us in that.
- [12:38]
Brian Stelter
Newshounds US launched in the spring of 2004 with the motto we watch Fox so you don't have to. They were a devoted squad of volunteers transcribing segments and chiming in with their own analysis under headlines like absolutely an idiot and news you can't use.
- [12:57]
Josh Levine
It took an enormous amount of time to do this. I got between two to four hours of sleep a night, but I had an obligation.
- [13:08]
Brian Stelter
The newshounds built a small but loyal audience. Ellen Brodsky, who became the leader of the site, noticed that they had one particularly avid reader, Johnny Dollar.
- [13:20]
Josh Levine
I mean, the minute the post went up, there he was calling us liars. Oh, yes, we obsessed over Johnny Dollar for many a moon.
- [13:31]
Brian Stelter
In the comments of their site and on his own blog, the pseudonymous Johnny Dollar mocked the newshounds relentlessly and accused them of bias, dishonesty and outright lying.
- [13:42]
Josh Levine
I always thought he was a paid operative. You know, I was never able to get the full story there.
- [13:50]
Brian Stelter
Ellen may have been right to be suspicious. Salon later reported that Fox News had at some point begun subsidizing the man behind Johnny Dollar, a lawyer named Mark Coldis. Fox News told us they have no knowledge of that. And Coldus also denied that Fox subsidized his work. But the allegations about Fox's online behavior go way beyond what Johnny Dollar was doing.
- [14:13]
Josh Levine
I was told by a bunch of people who had worked at Fox that they were directed to essentially argue with the Internet.
- [14:20]
Brian Stelter
That's NPR's David Falkenflick. He reported on Fox's in house trolling operation for a book he wrote about Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
- [14:29]
Josh Levine
Any posting online, any comment needed to be addressed.
- [14:34]
Brian Stelter
David says that Fox News staffers would use as many as 100 aliases to post pro Fox rants. And if they fell behind, they'd hear about it from the heads of Fox PR saying, why the hell haven't you.
- [14:47]
Josh Levine
Gone after this thing yet? And it would be a comment, you know, 10, 20, 40 comments deep. It was meaningless. But the idea was nobody anywhere could take on Fox unchallenged. It was just basic vindictiveness. I'm going to squash you. Where? Eight ladies from around the United States. What are they going to do? You know, is it going to be Bambi meets Godzilla? But it didn't stop us. You know, we just kept going.
- [15:16]
Brian Stelter
In 2004, the newshounds were staying vigilant, scrutinizing how Fox News was covering the presidential race and what Republicans favorite TV channel was saying about the Democratic nominee.
- [15:28]
Josh Levine
We knew they were going to come after Kerry. Anybody with half a brain knew that.
- [15:36]
Brian Stelter
At the start of the primaries, John Kerry hadn't looked like a real contender. But Democrats coalesced around the Massachusetts senator who was seen as a more viable wartime candidate than the progressive Howard Dean.
- [15:48]
Josh Levine
We deserve a president of the United States who understands how to make America stronger and safer in this world.
- [15:57]
Brian Stelter
Fox News united around him too, in the opposite way.
- [16:01]
Josh Levine
In my opinion, John Kerry's losing because his campaign is living in the past. All they want to talk about is Vietnam. Did John Kerry on the slopes curse out a Secret Service agent?
- [16:10]
Brian Stelter
Is that true?
- [16:10]
Josh Levine
They're saying John Kerry looks French.
- [16:15]
Brian Stelter
That French thing got repeated a lot, and it was considered a major insult given that France had opposed the US Invasion of Iraq.
- [16:22]
Josh Levine
Now being served in congressional cafeterias. Freedom fries. And instead of French toast, you can get freedom toast.
- [16:32]
Brian Stelter
Calling Kerry French was the same as calling him a coward. But his campaign had what it believed was the perfect counterattack touting John Kerry's military service in Vietnam. While George W. Bush had avoided combat during the war, Kerry had volunteered to go overseas as a lieutenant. He'd commanded a 50 foot aluminum vessel called a Swift Boat and been awarded the Silver Star, Bronze star and three Purple Hearts. In a campaign ad that ran on May 3, 2004, two of Kerry's crewmates said he was a hero.
- [17:07]
Josh Levine
The decisions that he made saved our lives. When he pulled me out of the river, he risked his life to save mine.
- [17:13]
Brian Stelter
Those two weren't outliers. The enlisted man who'd served alongside John Kerry vouched for his bravery and campaigned for him. But they weren't the only Vietnam veterans who had strong opinions about the Democratic nominee.
- [17:28]
Josh Levine
We believe based on our experience with him, that he is totally unfit to be the commander in chief.
- [17:33]
Brian Stelter
The day after that Kerry ad debuted, another group of men held a press conference in Washington D.C. they called themselves the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth. And they said that it was their mission to correct the record about John Kerry.
- [17:48]
Josh Levine
His lies and political cynicism, while they may be customary somewhere else, are simply things that we don't understand.
- [17:55]
Brian Stelter
These veterans said that Kerry's anti war activism when he'd come home from Vietnam was a betrayal. They also said they were skeptical that he really deserved his medals. But that accusation was based on pretty much nothing. Only one person who'd actually served next to Kerry joined up with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and he was refuted by every other eyewitness.
- [18:19]
Josh Levine
There was very quick real time pushback which either resulted in the mainstream media not covering the story or in fact checks that were positive from the campaign's perspective.
- [18:31]
Brian Stelter
David Wade was John Kerry's national press secretary. He believed that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's big press event was a total dud.
- [18:40]
Josh Levine
And the buzz that we had heard was that they weren't happy, that they felt that they had not broken through in the way that they had planned to.
- [18:50]
Brian Stelter
David Wade is right. The Swift Boat Veterans were not happy. And in the summer of 2004, the Kerry campaign leaned even harder into his military pedigree.
- [19:01]
Josh Levine
He very much wants the American public to see him as the Vietnam War hero. He will be arriving with these Vietnam vets at his side.
- [19:11]
Brian Stelter
In July 2004, Kerry showed up for the Democratic convention in Boston on a water taxi accompanied by some of his old crew members. When Kerry accepted his party's nomination, those veterans stood with him on stage and he greeted them and the country with military salutes.
- [19:29]
Josh Levine
I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.
- [19:45]
Brian Stelter
Fox and friends called Kerry's Vietnam reunion boat ride weird and staged, which in their defense it kind of was. But non. Fox outlets praised his performance at the convention, calling his speech strong and tough. By this point, the months old claims from the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth had mostly been forgotten. But those allegations that Carrie had lied about his war record were still circulating in an emerging right wing ecosystem. Online websites like the Drudge Report and Newsmax, the message board Free Republic and blogs like Carrie Haters, and on cable, Fox News Seemed like it might be up to something, too.
- [20:29]
Josh Levine
By July of 2004, we knew it was coming. They're going to come after his war record. And we didn't see any response from the Democrats at all.
- [20:42]
Brian Stelter
Chris Bradley and the other newshounds saw Fox continue to keep the story alive. As of the beginning of August, Hannity and Combs had done at least 15 segments on Kerry's time in Vietnam. With the conservative host Sean Hannity continually raising doubts about his service, the newshounds felt compelled to warn someone. They worked feverishly, trying every possible connection. They wrote to Air America's Rachel Maddow, but got no response. And when Chris reached out to the Democratic National Committee, she could only get an answering machine.
- [21:17]
Josh Levine
At that point, I gave up and I realized the Democrats didn't care what the base had to say. The Republicans always listen to their base.
- [21:24]
Brian Stelter
Right?
- [21:25]
Josh Levine
The Democrats. It's like we know better and we're going to tell you what to do.
- [21:34]
Brian Stelter
As the newshound stewed at home, the Kerry campaign tried to keep up the momentum from the Democratic convention. On August 4, Kerry spoke to a crowd of 3,000 in Missouri as part of a nationwide whistle stop tour. That same night, a national TV audience would see and hear something else. An ad from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
- [21:56]
Josh Levine
I served with John Kerry. I served with John Kerry. John Kerry has not been honest about.
- [22:01]
Brian Stelter
What happened in Vietnam.
- [22:03]
Josh Levine
He is lying about his record.
- [22:05]
Brian Stelter
That commercial would run in just three states as part of a small campaign. But before it ever aired as a paid spot, Fox's Hannity and Combs played a clip for its one and a half million viewers.
- [22:17]
Josh Levine
I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury. John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. I know. I was there. I saw what happened.
- [22:28]
Brian Stelter
The ad sounded convincing, and Hannity said it was sure to drive the Cary campaign crazy. Kerry's national press secretary, David Wade, says it did once he finally saw it. Do you remember watching those ads?
- [22:43]
Josh Levine
No. In part because we were on the road, I believe. I didn't see them until much, much later.
- [22:49]
Brian Stelter
John Kerry did not repudiate the ad right away because the campaign didn't want to give the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth any more oxygen. But just as they had months earlier, Cary staffers pushed back behind the scenes, offering up information to newspaper and broadcast journalists, while traditional outlets took their time digging into the various claims. Daily coasts, the newshounds and the right wing blogosphere fired shots back and forth. And the Daily show contributed a classic Jon Stewart debunking.
- [23:21]
Josh Levine
See, by served with him, they mean they were in Vietnam at the time. Kind of the same way that Snoopy served with the Red Baron.
- [23:37]
Brian Stelter
On Fox News, nobody was laughing about the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth. Hannity and Combs just kept on fanning the flames night after night. Back in 2000, when Fox got the scoop that George W. Bush had been arrested for drunk driving, the channel's reporters had broken the story and then given way to the opinion hosts. With Swiftboat, the tail was wagging the dog. The opinion side had instigated everything. And now the news crew was following behind.
- [24:08]
Josh Levine
One veterans group saying Kerry's claims about his service are not quite accurate.
- [24:13]
Brian Stelter
John Kerry hoped the Democratic National Convention.
- [24:15]
Josh Levine
Would be the last best word on his Vietnam record. But it hasn't been far from it. Voters who've seen the ads have growing doubts about him.
- [24:23]
Brian Stelter
That last voice was Carl Cameron, the reporter who broke the Bush DUI story in 2004. Cameron was Fox's chief political correspondent, and he and his producer, Ann McGinn were on Swift Boat duty.
- [24:37]
Josh Levine
Fox loved that story, loved it. The entire network was just obsessed with it. For too long. There was no there there anymore.
- [24:46]
Brian Stelter
Ann says that she and Carl Cameron rebelled by writing a script on a different topic, something critical of George W. Bush. And she says that one of Fox's leading editorial voices, Brit Hume, challenged that approach. Anne, who was usually soft spoken, decided this was the moment to stand her ground.
- [25:06]
Josh Levine
And I said, Brit, listen to me. I will fuck John Carey when he deserves to be fucked, but today he doesn't. And I knew my stuff and I had all my facts laid out. And Britt looked at me and said, go with what you have.
- [25:23]
Brian Stelter
Anne wasn't the only one at Fox News who thought the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were getting too much airtime. Bill O'Reilly called their ad campaign horribly exploitative. And Sean Hannity's liberal co host, Alan Combs did his best to butt in and defend John Kerry. But Hannity and Combs Swiftboat coverage was really the Fox ideal, balanced but not fair. On a show in early August, they did two interviews with Vietnam veterans. One was with a man Cary had rescued. The other was with a Swiftboat veteran for Truth who was not Kerry's crewmate and who nevertheless called Kerry a liar. Hannity said that his goal was to let all sides be heard and let the American people decide. Or to put it another way, he made no effort to figure out the truth. The truth did emerg slowly in newspapers and on Broadcast tv.
- [26:22]
Josh Levine
Today a new report said military records contradict one of Kerry's most vocal critics who argues Kerry never faced enemy fire while saving the life of this man.
- [26:32]
Brian Stelter
It took the New York Times two weeks to publish their big debunking. The day that story ran, Hannity and Colmes promoted a brand new ad from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
- [26:44]
Josh Levine
He betrayed us in the past. How could we be loyal to him?
- [26:48]
Brian Stelter
The Swiftboat ads didn't just get played and replayed on Fox News. CNN and MSNBC publicized them too. Following Fox's lead in August, polls found that more than half of voters had seen or heard of the Swiftboat campaign and that Kerry's support among veterans had dropped sharply. That was the state of the presidential race with two and a half months to go. But another story about a candidate's military record was about to drop.
- [27:18]
Josh Levine
60 Minutes has obtained government documents that indicate Mr. Bush may have received preferential treatment in the Guard after not fulfilling his commitments.
- [27:28]
Brian Stelter
Those documents, obtained by CBS's Dan Rather, questioned George W. Bush's military service. And they turned out not to be authentic. Conservatives argued that liberal bias had compelled the network to run a bogus story. But CBS did a huge self lacerating investigation and Dan Rather lost one of the most coveted jobs in TV news.
- [27:52]
Josh Levine
It was a mistake. CBS News deeply regrets it. Also, I want to say personally and.
- [27:57]
Brian Stelter
Directly, I'm sorry Fox did not acknowledge spreading false accusations about John Kerry's military service. Years later, Sean Hannity bragged about the role he'd played during the campaign.
- [28:11]
Josh Levine
I'm very proud of the fact that we put the Swift Boat vets for truth on first before anybody else. Isn't this good for America that there are alternative media sources to do the.
- [28:20]
Brian Stelter
Mainstream media's job because they have failed.
- [28:23]
Josh Levine
In informing people about the candidates? Sean Hannity in particular would continue to run the same voices repeating the same lies no matter how much it had been discredited.
- [28:36]
Brian Stelter
John Kerry's national press secretary, David Wade.
- [28:40]
Josh Levine
It was creating an alternative reality where people who had failed to find any facts to bolster their claims were given a megaphone. There was no recognition that there aren't two sides to a lie.
- [28:59]
Brian Stelter
We'll be back in a minute.
- [29:08]
Josh Levine
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 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.
- [30:19]
Brian Stelter
In the summer and fall of 2004, Bill O'Reilly was the king of cable news, the host of its highest rated show and a subject of media fascination. Is he a patriot?
- [30:31]
Josh Levine
A blowhard?
- [30:32]
Brian Stelter
A braggart?
- [30:33]
Josh Levine
A bully? Well, it turns out there's a lot more to him than any of that.
- [30:38]
Brian Stelter
A little less than two months before election day, O'Reilly chose to share his platform with another TV star, a man he called the darling of the television critics, Jon Stewart.
- [30:49]
Josh Levine
You know what's really frightening? Uh oh. You actually have an influence on this presidential election.
- [30:57]
Brian Stelter
Bill O'Reilly wasn't the only one who thought so. Rolling Stone would call Stewart the most trusted name in news, but O'Reilly was the only person who said this.
- [31:07]
Josh Levine
I mean, you got stone slackers watching your dopey show every night. Yeah, okay. And they can vote. You can't stop them. What am I, a Cheech and Chong movie?
- [31:14]
Brian Stelter
Stone slackers. Three weeks later, O'Reilly came on Stewart's the Daily show to promote a new book, the O'Reilly Factor for Kids, and he started out by addressing the slackers in the studio audience.
- [31:28]
Josh Levine
Is there anything you would like to say to them? You know, I was stoned when I said that.
- [31:34]
Brian Stelter
From there, Stewart praised O'Reilly, and he wasn't being sarcastic.
- [31:39]
Josh Levine
I enjoy your program, by the way. I think your opinions are always very interesting and not the typical punditry opinions. But it surprises me that you still support this administration. But I said it a thousand times. Why are you missing that? I'm an independent. Haven't made up my mind yet.
- [31:56]
Brian Stelter
O'Reilly's claim in 2001 that he was a registered independent when he was actually a registered Republican was one of the lies Al Franken had called out. But Jon Stewart gave O'Reilly the benefit of the doubt.
- [32:08]
Josh Levine
As I talk to you I can truly believe that you're undecided, and I would never have believed that before you walked in. That's because you're a pinhead. All right. It's true. That's the O'Reilly I love. Right? I am going to shut my own.
- [32:23]
Brian Stelter
Mic off because that was October 7, 2004. Eight days later, Stewart would make his strongest statement yet about the destructive influence of cable news. His target was not Bill O'Reilly or anyone else from Fox News. He was setting his sights on CNN's long running partisan debate show.
- [32:46]
Josh Levine
Today on Crossfire, John had a real bee in his bonnet about the show. It really, really bothered him.
- [32:54]
Brian Stelter
Ben Carlin was the Daily Show's executive producer.
- [32:58]
Josh Levine
It was more about, like, yelling at each other than trying to come up with any kind of productive solutions. The question is not whether it's okay.
- [33:04]
Brian Stelter
To burn the flag.
- [33:05]
Josh Levine
It's not uncomfortable. But it is.
- [33:08]
Brian Stelter
Stewart was very open about his loathing of Crossfire, including in this interview on NPR's FRESH AIR, for instance, on Crossfire.
- [33:16]
Josh Levine
I'm not sure what those guys are doing there other than egging their own side on. And if anything, I think that puts out misinformation.
- [33:23]
Brian Stelter
In 2004, Crossfire had a rotating team of pundits, including Democratic consultant Paul Begalla and right wing commentator Tucker Carlson. And Stewart decided it was about time he paid them a visit and he began to talk about, you know, how he was going to confront these two guys. That's Chris Regan. He was a writer on the Daily Show.
- [33:44]
Josh Levine
Inasmuch as John ever took advice from me, which I can say is next to never, I was sort of saying maybe we should be careful about becoming this story.
- [33:54]
Brian Stelter
Ben Carlin says he strategized with Stewart in the car on the way to the CNN taping, and he remembers the plan differently.
- [34:02]
Josh Levine
At no point was there any discussion about going super hard after them. The kind of idea was like, let's engage them in the kind of conversation that they should be having on this show.
- [34:12]
Brian Stelter
Modeling good behavior.
- [34:14]
Josh Levine
Exactly. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Crossfire giants here. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was very kind of you to say. And then something just kind of turned. I made a special effort to come on the show today because I have privately amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows mentioned this show as being bad. What you noticed? And I wanted to. I felt that that wasn't fair and I should come here and tell you that I don't. It's not so much that it's bad as it's hurting America watching from the green room. And I'm kind of standing with the producer, and they were all really giddy because a lot of those people were big fans of Jon, and I don't think they had seen this. Jon. Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys.
- [35:01]
Brian Stelter
Yeah.
- [35:02]
Josh Levine
Stop hurting America.
- [35:08]
Brian Stelter
Stewart called both hosts partisan hacks and said that Crossfire was an insult to journalism. Tucker Carlson was unmoved.
- [35:18]
Josh Levine
I think you're a good comedian. I think your lectures are boring. Let me ask you. Let me ask you a question on the news now. This is theater. I mean, it's obvious. How old are you?
- [35:26]
Brian Stelter
35.
- [35:27]
Josh Levine
And you wear a bow tie.
- [35:28]
Brian Stelter
Yeah, I do. Once the crowd stopped applauding, Carlson pushed back, scolding Stewart for lobbying softball questions when he got the rare opportunity to interview John Kerry.
- [35:40]
Josh Levine
And I'll tell you why. I know John Kerry on your show, and you sniff his throne, and you're accusing us of partisan hackery. Absolutely. You're in. You've got to be kidding, man. He's not in cnn. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you? Well, I'm just saying there's no reason. It was awkward. I mean, it's like watching, like, a wedding speech go bad. I would just kind of, like, exchange tight smiles with a woman in the headset next to me. I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion. Jon Stewart goes one interesting fan. You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show. Now you're getting into it. I like that. Okay, we'll be right back. Tucker Carlson is, like, literally the definition of a dick. That's a true statement. But as like, a comedy person, you want to take someone down on the merits of their shittiness, not just by, like, an ad hominem attack guide to democracy in action. From the left, I am Paul Bogalla. That's it for. And from the right, I'm Tucker Carlson. Have a great weekend. See you Monday.
- [36:44]
Brian Stelter
In case you didn't catch that, Stewart ends the segment by saying, oh, that went great. What was your conversation with John on the ride away from the studio?
- [36:54]
Josh Levine
That went terribly. Like, you know, that's not how we wanted to present our argument against this. That's not how he wanted to present himself. He felt like it was like a missed opportunity.
- [37:04]
Brian Stelter
Daily show writer Chris Regan remembers the staff getting together the next day to watch.
- [37:10]
Josh Levine
I could see Angry John coming through there, and I'd seen Angry John in person.
- [37:16]
Brian Stelter
And, you know, seeing angry Jon was.
- [37:19]
Josh Levine
Certainly enough to make me uncomfortable.
- [37:21]
Brian Stelter
So at least some people inside the Daily show bubble saw Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance as a big, angry failure. But the Daily Show's fans, they thought it was incredible. Oh, people were very excited by it.
- [37:35]
Josh Levine
Someone had finally, you know, talked back.
- [37:37]
Brian Stelter
To these two boobs. That rapturous response didn't come from people actually tuning in to Crossfire. This TV episode went viral online before YouTube even existed.
- [37:49]
Josh Levine
The ensuing reaction took all of us massively by surprise. In a weird way was also a little disappointing because that wasn't what we do really, really well, which is these kind of smart, funny, informed critiques. And this was just much more raw emotion.
- [38:08]
Brian Stelter
That raw emotion resonated everywhere, including inside cnn. Just a few months after Jon Stewart went on Crossfire, the network's president pulled the show off the air.
- [38:20]
Josh Levine
I had no idea that if you wanted a show canceled, all you had to do was say it out loud.
- [38:30]
Brian Stelter
I'm reminded of what a Daily show producer told us about why they went after CNN as hard and sometimes harder than Fox. That CNN was supposed to be the gold standard, that it had a self proclaimed mission to keep its viewers informed. That's why the Daily show gave CNN what that producer called pinches of love. And those pinches were actually effective because CNN cared what its critics thought. But Fox News was just going to keep on being Fox News. So the Daily show didn't try to change it or Bill O'Reilly. Instead, Stewart just mocked them sometimes right to O'Reilly's face.
- [39:09]
Josh Levine
No spin zone. No spin zone. No one's allowed to spin, lie, equivocate, anything like that. So no one comes on. That's right, it's me.
- [39:16]
Brian Stelter
Bill O'Reilly actually came up when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire. It went by so quickly that hardly anyone noticed. A quick back and forth after a commercial break.
- [39:26]
Josh Levine
We're talking to Jon Stewart, who was just lecturing us on our moral inferiority. Jon, you're bumming us out. Tell us, what do you think of the Bill O'Reilly vibrator story? I'm sorry, I don't. Oh, okay. What do you think? Where's your moral outrage on this? I don't have any. I know which candidate.
- [39:41]
Brian Stelter
The Bill O'Reilly vibrator story was a crude gloss on a story that had broken two days earlier.
- [39:47]
Josh Levine
Bill O'Reilly, the highly opinionated Fox News star commentator, is in the news himself tonight. He's in a very public lawsuit with a producer who has filed allegations of sexual harassment, including language that even the.
- [40:01]
Brian Stelter
More it was actually O'Reilly who'd gone public first filing a lawsuit against that producer Andrea Macross, claiming she was trying to extort him. Macris then filed her own suit the same day. She alleged that O'Reilly, her boss, had harassed her in person and initiated phone sex against her wishes while using a vibrator on himself.
- [40:24]
Josh Levine
Her complaint alleges that in one phone conversation, O'Reilly fantasized, you would basically be in the shower. I would take that little loofah thing and kind of soap up your back. The rest too graphic to air.
- [40:36]
Brian Stelter
O'Reilly did get incredibly graphic, and there were tapes. Although those recordings were never made public, Macross legal complaint did have a three paragraph transcript. That excerpt included O'Reilly referring to Aloofa mistakenly as the falafel thing. That one word would become shorthand for the entire case. The legal website the Smoking Gun, which published the complaint online, would call it the O'Reilly falafel suit. And Conan O'Brien made a joke of it doing a sketch where an O'Reilly impersonator reenacted the harassing phone call.
- [41:14]
Josh Levine
He'd be sitting in front of me.
- [41:15]
Brian Stelter
In the tub and I put on.
- [41:16]
Josh Levine
One of those loofah mitts. Conan, massage your tummy with that falafel thing. Sure. I'm sorry.
- [41:22]
Brian Stelter
That was the tone of a lot of the coverage, making fun of Bill O'Reilly and giggling about falafel. But Andrea Macris got plenty of attention, too much of it extremely negative. In the Washington Post, columnist Richard Cohen blamed Macross for going out to dinner with O'Reilly and for not complaining about him to HR Cohen wrote that Macross had either skipped classes in Common sense or was playing O'Reilly like the proverbial violin. That idea that maybe Macris was the villain lined up with the story. Bill O'Reilly told his Fox News audience.
- [41:58]
Josh Levine
This is the single most evil thing I have ever experienced and I've seen a lot. The goal of all of this was to depict her as this promiscuous woman who was trying to shake O'Reilly down.
- [42:11]
Brian Stelter
Emily Steele is a journalist for the New York Times. She started reporting on O'Reilly, Fox News and sexual harassment.
- [42:18]
Josh Levine
Years later, they adopted this very aggressive strategy that almost was like a warning of what could happen to other women, that we're going to protect the star. We're not going to protect you.
- [42:35]
Brian Stelter
In her complaint, macra said that O'Reilly had already threatened her, saying, if you cross Fox News Channel. It's not just me. It's Roger Ailes who will go after you. In fact, Fox's PR chief worked his contacts in the newsroom trying to poke holes in macross story, and O'Reilly hired a private investigator to dig up information about her.
- [42:57]
Josh Levine
And soon after that, that's when all of these unflattering stories appeared in the tabloids.
- [43:03]
Brian Stelter
Fox's corporate sibling, the New York Post, ran pieces with the headlines Lunatic O'Reilly gal went nuts in a Bar and Boozy Boast Gal said she'd ruin O'Reilly. And what signal does it send to women who might be thinking about coming forward with allegations like this?
- [43:22]
Josh Levine
Oh, it's terrifying. It makes people think, why would I say anything?
- [43:33]
Brian Stelter
Inside Fox, sexual harassment wasn't really talked about openly, but O'Reilly's other bad behavior was. Was it a known thing that O'Reilly.
- [43:43]
Josh Levine
Would had a temper? Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [43:47]
Brian Stelter
Randy Lou Braddich saw that temper up close. As a young Fox News producer in the New York bureau, she sometimes worked next to the O'Reilly Factor team.
- [43:57]
Josh Levine
And Bill was on a usual tear and he kicked a garbage can, which came across the aisle and flew like really close to my head and at the top of my lungs with the entire newsroom to hear me, I said, I don't give a good godfuck who you are. You are not gonna kick a garbage can at my head. He looked at me and he just said, sit down, and went back to yelling at his staff.
- [44:24]
Brian Stelter
That's not the only story we heard about Bill O'Reilly's rage. Another woman who worked in the New York newsroom told us that O'Reilly yelled at her to shut up so intensely that her boss had to intervene. When Randy had her O'Reilly moment, she didn't go to human resources. But a third New York producer did make a complaint to HR and to Fox News executives about his behavior, which in her case did not include sexual harassment. She reached a settlement with Fox News and O'Reilly in July 2002. She also signed a non disclosure agreement, which meant her allegations did not get aired publicly. So Andrea MacRoss was O'Reilly's first known accuser. But while everyone chuckled about falafel, Emily Steele says there was another line in Macris complaint that everyone missed.
- [45:13]
Josh Levine
Andrea Macross alleged that she wasn't the only one that this had happened to. It's on the seventh page of the lawsuit. Continued sex discrimination and sexual harassment against plaintiff Andrea Macras and other female employees.
- [45:28]
Brian Stelter
Forwards and other female employees.
- [45:30]
Josh Levine
Exactly.
- [45:35]
Brian Stelter
13 years later, Emily Steele and her New York Times colleague Michael Schmidt would follow up on that claim that O'Reilly was harassing other female employees. But in 2004, no reporter picked up that breadcrumb. Andrea Makris was sometimes mocked and often attacked. At best, she was seen as a one off victim. And so she was on her own trying to tell her side of the story, both in the pages of her complaint and in interviews. Here she is on cnn.
- [46:07]
Josh Levine
How is it ever appropriate for an employee to ever speak and ever think that they can speak to an employee the way he spoke to me?
- [46:12]
Brian Stelter
Bottom line, she was talking to one of the few journalists who took her allegations seriously, Erin Brown, the CNN anchor that Fox News had mocked by saying he looked like a dentist.
- [46:24]
Josh Levine
You're taking on an extraordinarily powerful person. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, a company that plays hardball to the extreme.
- [46:35]
Brian Stelter
Are you scared?
- [46:37]
Josh Levine
I'm aware of the threat. I'm not threatened. I know that I'm right.
- [46:42]
Brian Stelter
Despite the confidence she was projecting, Macross acknowledged that going public with her allegations had blown up her life.
- [46:49]
Josh Levine
My career is over. I've worked extremely hard since about 17 years old. I take my career very seriously. I absolutely loved what I was doing. Everybody who works with me knows that I had no intention of this ever happening.
- [47:04]
Brian Stelter
The case played out in public for two weeks, and then suddenly, on October 28, 2004, it was over.
- [47:14]
Josh Levine
Before we get to the Talking Points Memo, I have something very important to tell you. All litigation has ceased in that case. It has made me the object of media scorn from coast to coast. O'Reilly ultimately agreed to pay her about $9 million. And the shocking thing about that was that they both agreed to issue a public statement that no wrongdoing whatsoever had occurred. Today, lawyers issued a statement saying there was no wrongdoing in the case whatsoever by anyone. Obviously, the words no wrongdoing are the key.
- [47:47]
Brian Stelter
That 2004 sexual harassment settlement was not the last for Bill O'Reilly or for the channel that defended him.
- [47:54]
Josh Levine
It created a playbook for how O'Reilly and Fox News would respond when people came forward with these allegations against him. And after that, there were a number of settlements, but all of those were private, and so nobody knew.
- [48:09]
Brian Stelter
Emily Steele and Michael Schmidt shared the Pulitzer Prize for their stories uncovering those settlements. There were at least six payouts totaling about $45 million. To put that amount into context, at his peak, O'Reilly earned $25 million per year. And during one two year stretch the O'Reilly Factor generated $450 million in advertising revenue. O'Reilly and Fox were both raking it in. So they stuck together. And from the mid 2000s to the mid 2010s, no one was pressuring them to do anything differently.
- [48:46]
Josh Levine
You do wonder with this first lawsuit, if the story had been framed differently or if Fox had reacted or responded differently, would other women not have been victimized?
- [49:01]
Brian Stelter
All of the settlements that Emily reported on mandated that the women never speak out about what was done to them. O'Reilly was also required not to speak about his interactions with Andrea Makris. But after that settlement, he continued to prosper and she struggled.
- [49:17]
Josh Levine
It's hard to understate how powerful and influential he was and how much his career just soared. And she just lived this life where she never worked in TV news again. She struggled from ptsd. She spent years going to a therapist just trying to figure out, like, how to make a new life.
- [49:47]
Brian Stelter
Because of her non disclosure agreement, Macris couldn't speak with Emily about Fox News or Bill O'Reilly. But three years ago, Macris decided that she couldn't stay silent any longer, that she was going to tell her full story.
- [50:02]
Josh Levine
17 years and counting. Outside of my profession, where I belong, I never wanted the money. I wanted my day in court. I wanted my career. I wanted my voice.
- [50:11]
Brian Stelter
That's Andrea Makris in a podcast she recorded with the Daily Beast in 2021.
- [50:16]
Josh Levine
I'm at the point that no matter what chaos this might bring me, I have to take the risk to live my fullest life without fear. Even if I have to pay a breach, it's less than the cost of the past 17 years. And my act of breaking it is almost an act of self defense.
- [50:30]
Brian Stelter
It's clear that Macris felt unburdened by her decision to speak out. But that sense of freedom would be short lived. In the three years since she did that interview, Andrea Makris hasn't spoken publicly again. My colleague Molly Olmsted and I recently discovered why. After Macra spoke to the Daily Beast, an arbitration panel asserted she had broken her NDA and ordered her to pay $100,000 in legal fees for the breach. They also ruled that the NDA is still enforceable today, even though Macris argued that she only agreed to it under duress. She says she signed the document in tears, feeling pressure from her lawyers. Amazingly, those same lawyers would go on to represent Bill O'Reilly. Additionally, the agreement required Macris to turn over her recordings of O'Reilly's harassing phone calls and promised that if other copies ever surfaced, she would deny that they were real. In other words, the NDA legally obligates her to lie. O'Reilly got fired by Fox News in 2017 after Emily Steele and Michael Schmidt's reporting led advertisers to abandon who show. O'Reilly now writes books and hosts a Web series called no Spin News. While he didn't respond to our interview request, he did make a recent guest appearance on the Daily Show.
- [51:58]
Josh Levine
Please welcome back to the program Bill O'Reilly, sir.
- [52:03]
Brian Stelter
When the former Fox News host visited Jon Stewart, who's back hosting the Daily show in advance of the 2024 election, O'Reilly celebrated their shared history.
- [52:12]
Josh Levine
But if you watch, if you Google.
- [52:16]
Brian Stelter
All right, we, we are able to.
- [52:18]
Josh Levine
Disagree without hating each other. Now I truly hate him, but I don't, I don't show it. You hold it very well.
- [52:26]
Brian Stelter
Stewart asked O'Reilly if he believed that America was in a unique time of polarization. He did not ask about his history of paying settlements to women who've accused him of sexual harassment or tell O'Reilly that he'd heard America. We'll be back in a minute.
- [52:56]
Josh Levine
Former President Donald Trump rewrote the rules of how the American justice system treats our nations most powerful people. Hello, It's Andrea Bernstein. I'm the host of the Law According to Trump, a special series from Slate.
- [53:11]
Brian Stelter
Plus.
- [53:14]
Josh Levine
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.
- [53:41]
Brian Stelter
The race between George W. Bush and John Kerry felt like more than a presidential election. It was the culmination of one of the most tumultuous periods in modern American history, years marked by terrorism and war and growing divisions in the nation's politics and media. Election night 2004 would be a referendum on all of that. And the anti Fox crowd was feeling optimistic, including the crew from Air America Radio.
- [54:08]
Josh Levine
Do you realize that when Kerry wins tonight, and he will, that starting January 20th, we get to change the world?
- [54:17]
Brian Stelter
The vibes were strong inside the John Kerry campaign, too.
- [54:21]
Josh Levine
They are seeing the kinds of things come in that in fact we are seeing. They feel good about it, but they felt good about it.
- [54:28]
Brian Stelter
For the past week, the staff of the Daily show was also getting ready for a very big night.
- [54:34]
Josh Levine
You know, it's exciting to do a live television show and the audience is Very excited.
- [54:38]
Brian Stelter
Elliot Kalin was on set in New York working behind the scenes on The Daily Show's 2004 election special, Prelude to.
- [54:46]
Josh Levine
A Recount featuring Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Too Close to Call dancers. Going into the election, I was like, all these people are watching our show. Young people love it. And George W. Bush is objectively a bad president. Maybe people are realizing this. Good evening. With polls closed in six states, it is already a busy night. Beside the early returns from the president.
- [55:15]
Brian Stelter
The Fox News Channel's third ever presidential election would like in 2000 feature Brit Hume in the anchor chair. And whenever a state got called, the Fox News whiz bang was ready to do its thing.
- [55:29]
Josh Levine
But I think it would add a little pizzazz to our conversations if I prefaced my remarks to you by saying.
- [55:39]
Brian Stelter
The biggest change for Fox News in 2004 was that George W. Bush's cousin John Ellis would not be running the decision desk this time. In a show of transparency, Fox actually had a camera on its backroom decision team, a bunch of data analysts with none of their relatives on the ballot, staring at computer monitors and proceeding with caution.
- [56:01]
Josh Levine
Our decision desk obviously isn't going to call it until they have a much higher level of certainty.
- [56:06]
Brian Stelter
After the 2000 election debacle, everything was moving slowly all across television news. But as the night dragged on and more states went for Bush, Air America Radio was getting concerned.
- [56:19]
Josh Levine
Am I, like, in a Democratic bubble or something? What's the matter? The whole country is red. No, that's okay. The whole country's always gonna be red. No one lives there.
- [56:30]
Brian Stelter
And then at 12:40am Eastern Time, Fox News was once again the first network to make a momentous call.
- [56:38]
Josh Levine
Fox News is now projecting that President Bush will win the state of Ohio. It sucked. That was the night that taught me that satire is ineffective. And we were actually not making a difference as a show. Our show has no impact. It looks very red, and then there's some blue there at the top. Where many of us will most likely spend the next four years, I would imagine, huddled, huddled together, and in fact, weeping. My question is, you know, what do we do now?
- [57:15]
Brian Stelter
Fox's critics and antagonists had tried all different strategies in the lead up to the election, calling out Fox News and emulating it, being explicitly partisan and striving to be apolitical. Nothing had worked. And now George W. Bush's Republican Party and Roger Ailes Fox News were even more entrenched.
- [57:37]
Josh Levine
The reason Fox News wins is very simple. We have some very fine journalists who've done an excellent job. And they come in every day and try to be fair. That simple.
- [57:49]
Brian Stelter
Around 8 million viewers watched Fox News on November 2, 2004. It's most ever in prime time and an audience closer in size to the broadcast network CBS than Fox's cable rival cnn. There was no denying it. Fox News had won the election. But Roger Aile said that Fox was still the underdog, fighting against the media establishment. That his team would always be the scrappy kids with their nose up against the glass.
- [58:19]
Josh Levine
I do believe Fox News makes a tremendous contribution to journalism. We see it in how they try to copy it, how they try to attack. And, you know, if we weren't making any impact, they'd ignore us.
- [58:34]
Brian Stelter
There are plenty of ways to assess the impact of Fox News on partisanship in media, on the temperature of the country, on relationships within families. But in the months we've been working on this series, one small fact has stuck with me. From a journal article about media consumption and the Iraq War. That study found that Fox News viewers were the most likely to be misinformed about how the war was going to believe there was a clear link between Iraq and Al Qaeda and that the US had found weapons of mass destruction. Fox viewers were also the only group that were less informed the more they watched. So that's one consequence of the rise of Fox News. And by 2004, Fox was fully risen on top for three straight years, having crushed its challengers and bullied its critics. Chronologically, 2004 is where we're finishing our series. But for the people we've been following in these six episodes, that wasn't the end. And their final chapters say a lot about where Fox News was then and what it's become now.
- [59:46]
Josh Levine
The ratings were so strong that no one in their right mind should have taken me off the show. It was just so dumb.
- [59:55]
Brian Stelter
Ed Hill was the reason the morning show Fox and Friends was called Fox and Friends. She was the Fox, reading the news and chatting it up with Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy. The three of them helped establish what Fox News was feisty, rule breaking and crowd pleasing. But then in 2006, with very little public explanation, Edie got replaced by Gretchen Carlson. After Fox and Friends, Edie ended up getting moved to an off the radar afternoon show called America's Pulse. Nothing she did there got any real attention until one day in June 2008.
- [60:32]
Josh Levine
We had a segment and it was about how close a relationship the Obamas had because they were always making these little gestures towards each other.
- [60:43]
Brian Stelter
That segment Started with a tease from the host.
- [60:46]
Josh Levine
A fist bump, a pound, A terrorist fist jab. The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently. We'll show you some.
- [60:54]
Brian Stelter
Ed interviewed a body language expert who said the Obama's fist bump indicated that they were happily married.
- [61:01]
Josh Levine
And it's a connection that they have together. It's something just personal between the two of them. Like, I'm proud of you. We had this long discussion afterwards because it was such a fluff piece for the Obamas that we felt we had to come back the next week and balance it out. And so that was it.
- [61:18]
Brian Stelter
That was not it. Within a few hours, Media Matters had posted the video online. In an instant, that terrorist fist jab moment was everywhere, including MSNBC's Morning Joe. Could they even be jihadists?
- [61:33]
Josh Levine
Perhaps? What's wrong with you? That's what one person suggested on Fox News. Oh, God. That, you know, got picked up and glommed onto and didn't reflect the segment that I did, but it did what they wanted it to do.
- [61:49]
Brian Stelter
Edie doesn't defend what she said on the air, but she does want to defend herself.
- [61:54]
Josh Levine
Anyone who knows me knows I would never do something that cheap. Like, if I'm going to say something negative, I'll say something negative. And I'm mad at myself for not catching it too.
- [62:04]
Brian Stelter
Ed did not invent the phrase terrorist fist jab. She was quoting a comment from a right wing website. But that attribution had gotten trimmed out of her script. Her real mistake basically was not going with the old Fox News staple. The phrase some people say, as in some people say that John Kerry looks French. But this wasn't some people saying terrorist fist jab. It was Ed Hill saying it at a time when Fox was getting more attention for how it talked about race.
- [62:36]
Josh Levine
We already know that Fox is not a news network. They are a propaganda machine. But their racist attacks have gone way too far.
- [62:45]
Brian Stelter
That's the rapper NASA outside Fox News headquarters at a rally led by the group Color of Change. The kind of racist attacks he was talking about included a Fox contributor joking about assassinating Barack Obama, an on screen graphic referring to Michelle Obama as Barack's baby mama, and Ed Hill saying terrorist fist jab. All of which happened on Fox News in a single month.
- [63:10]
Josh Levine
We're not engaged in politics. It's not about left right. This is about lies that are used to racially divide.
- [63:16]
Brian Stelter
That's James Rucker, the co founder of Color of Change. You heard from James in our last episode. He was one of the leaders of the progressive group move on by 2008, he was helping to lead a new kind of anti Fox movement, one that didn't see politics and race as separate issues.
- [63:33]
Josh Levine
There was some really good strategy around not necessarily putting Fox out of business, but tarnishing the brand and kind of shrinking the power of Fox News.
- [63:45]
Brian Stelter
Color of Change would have success driving away some Fox advertisers. And in Ed Hill's case, while she apologized on the air, it wasn't enough to save her show or her career at Fox News.
- [63:57]
Josh Levine
Without a doubt, it was a convenient excuse.
- [64:01]
Brian Stelter
Edie is probably right that saying terrorist fist jab wasn't the real reason for her downfall at Fox. After all, the person who joked about assassinating Obama didn't lose her position as a contributor. Ed says that her departure has a longer backstory, one that she's never talked about publicly. It starts with her getting pulled off of Fox and Friends after a threat from Roger Ailes.
- [64:26]
Josh Levine
One of his close people called me in and said, you need to be nicer to Roger. And I said, I am very nice to Roger. I like Roger a lot. I think I'm just fine with Roger.
- [64:40]
Brian Stelter
Being nicer to Roger did not mean being nicer to Roger. She was being told by an intermediary that she needed to play along with the Fox News chairman's sexual overtures, and she refused. She says that's why she got replaced on Fox and Friends very abruptly. Told on a Friday that she'd just done her last morning show. And she says it's why Fox News let her go after she said terrorist fist jab.
- [65:09]
Josh Levine
About two years later, I saw this same person at an event, and this was after Fox had not renewed my contract. And he said, now I bet you wish you were nicer to Roger.
- [65:21]
Brian Stelter
What did you do?
- [65:25]
Josh Levine
Nothing. Am I going to go into Roger and say, okay, how do you want me to be nicer to you? How do you want me to be more friendly? No, I'm not going to have that conversation. But it definitely hurt me being taken off like that. And it made me mad that they did it that way. It made me mad that Roger did it that way.
- [65:44]
Brian Stelter
Why do you feel comfortable saying this publicly now?
- [65:48]
Josh Levine
Well, I don't think that people really asked, you know, And Rogers passed away.
- [65:56]
Brian Stelter
Ed Hill's replacement on Fox and Friends, Gretchen Carlson, filed a lawsuit against Roger Ailes in July 2016. Carlson said that Ailes sabotaged her career because she refused his sexual advances and complained about severe and pervasive sexual harassment. Carlson's complaint would ultimately unleash at least 20 more and force Ailes to resign. The chairman of Fox News died less than a year later in May 2017. The Fox News producers we interviewed for this series all left the network while Ailes was still in charge. The Washington, D.C. news crew in particular had seen Fox flourish, going from a place that was fighting for attention to a cable TV Goliath. They'd also watched their co workers change from journalists like them with traditional news backgrounds to people who just wanted to work for Fox. But Jim Mills, Caroline Bruner, and Anne McGinn didn't march out of Fox News and protest. So I left 10 years of Fox to work for a Republican presidential candidate, Fred Thompson.
- [67:12]
Josh Levine
What got me to leave in 2007? I'm not loving my work at Fox. Like, there was just nothing for me. And I thought, well, okay, I'll move to New Zealand. And so I did. I left on a very high note, with my head held high and reputation, I think, very much intact.
- [67:26]
Brian Stelter
Out of the producers we spoke with, Ann McGinn is the one who felt most conflicted about her work. While she was still at Fox, as far back as 2000, she'd been worried about its Republican tilt. She'd been shocked when a correspondent she worked with said pro abortion on management's orders. And she was appalled by Fox's swiftboat coverage and how hard she'd had to fight to get fair coverage on the air. But in this trio of DC producers, Ann is the one who stayed the longest until 2012.
- [67:58]
Josh Levine
In the first few years after I left, I had my reasons for working there. I learned so much. And in many ways, the work there helped in my next career. How could I be ashamed of it? Since 2016, and especially since January 6th, I am ashamed of it. I'm ashamed.
- [68:28]
Brian Stelter
The partisanship, the race baiting, Donald Trump, calling into Fox and Friends week after week to spread the lie that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States, the rise of Glenn Beck, the rise of Tucker Carlson. For the producers on the news side of Fox News, none of that was defensible. But it also wasn't enough to make them question the work they'd done when they were at Fox. The legitimate reporting that they believed made fair and balanced into more than just an empty catchphrase. But the lies that Fox spread about the 2020 election and the violence that followed, that broke the spell for all of them. Ten years at Fox. Most of that time, that Capitol building is where I want to work. And I just knew every nook and cranny of that place.
- [69:20]
Josh Levine
And to look up and see those.
- [69:23]
Brian Stelter
I don't even call them people, those bastards. I was January 6th was a bad day.
- [69:30]
Josh Levine
That kind of opened the door to discussions that we had about what kind of role did we play in making shit like that happen.
- [69:41]
Brian Stelter
Those discussions have been happening on WhatsApp in a small group led by Ian McCaleb. He worked at Fox News from 2002 to 2008 as a producer covering the Justice Department and the Pentagon.
- [69:54]
Josh Levine
The initial topic was these are all people who love and respect each other and want to stay in touch. The follow on, I think over a few months of discussion was, oh, wait a minute, maybe we are sort of analyzing what it was we came from. It's a loaded phrase. But what hath we wrought?
- [70:14]
Brian Stelter
What hath we wrought is what they call that WhatsApp group. It's a question that all of them have been struggling to answer. It's like a group therapy session. You know, what was that? What did we do? Did I have anything to do with creating that audience? And I have to say I did. I mean, I was there at the very beginning. We didn't have 100,000 viewers. So I've got some of that on my hands.
- [70:48]
Josh Levine
I know I did contribute to the legitimacy of Fox in the beginning because I fought so hard to make it legitimate, right? Like I was constantly defending it.
- [70:57]
Brian Stelter
That's the perverse thing, right? The harder you worked, the more legitimate you helped make it.
- [71:01]
Josh Levine
100%. 100%. And I think I can look back and see some of the coverage that was at the time. I was probably a little desensitized to it. But now I'm truly horrified by stuff. Cause I will say it just got worse. When I try to talk to family members or friends about Fox viewership, I say, look at me. I worked at that place for 13 years and I'm telling you that is not news that you are watching. You just, you need to pretend it doesn't exist. You need to turn it off.
- [71:54]
Brian Stelter
To read our full reporting on the most recent legal actions between Bill O'Reilly and Andrea Makres and learn more about how a non disclosure agreement from two decades ago has kept Macras silent, go to slate.com foxnda Also, former Fox News Executive Vice president John Moody sent us comment after the publication of our fourth episode, Beacon of Truth. Moody says that our description of his editorial notes sounds more or less accurate. And he says the allegation from X Fox producer Caroline Bruner that he attempted to give her his hotel room key is inaccurate. We couldn't make Slow Burn without support from our members and I strongly urge you to sign up for Slate plus today. You'll get all kinds of perks, including ad free listening and member exclusive episodes of Slow Burn. In this week's plus episode, you'll hear more from Emily Steele on how she and her New York Times colleagues brought to light Fox News culture of sexual harassment.
- [72:55]
Josh Levine
Is it about sex? Is it about power? Is it about intimidation? Like what is actually going on here?
- [73:02]
Brian Stelter
Join now by clicking Try Free at the top of the Slow Burn show page on Apple podcasts 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 Slow Burn's executive producer. The season was edited by Susan Matthews and Hilary Fry, Merritt Jacobs as 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 Emily Gaddick, Chris Sinclair, Emily Vaughan, Kate Mishkin, Maddie Masiello and Nick Pittman. And special thanks to Rachel Strom, Roger McDonald and the Marion Stokes Collection at Internet Archive, the Dart center on Trauma at Columbia University. Especially Kate Porterfield and Chris Still Grow. Also Donegal Young, Margie Reedy Larkin, Justin Krebs, Brian Rosenwald, Nadia Raymond, Katie Simon, Megan Dietry, Emily John, Jesse Shapiro, Jessica Seidman, Henry Ruby and Manga Chetikadur. And to Slate's Evan Chung, Molly Olmsted, Madeline Ducharme, Forest Wickman, Christina Cotterucci, Greg Lavalley, Ben Richmond, Seth Brown, Katie Rafer, Caitlin Schneider, Alexandra Cole, Emily Hodgkins, Ivy Lee Simonis, Joshua Metcalf, Heidi Strom Moon and Alicia Montgomery, Slate's VP of Audio. Thanks for listening.