Roger Ailes’ Status…
The LA Times’ Joe Flint writes about Roger Ailes and News Corp. President Chase Carey talking about the New York Times’ article where Matthew Freud tried to set off a bomb inside the company, so to speak…
We were curious about the brouhaha and reached out to Ailes. He said Freud’s remarks “didn’t make sense to me,” and added that stories that “I’m a dead man” are “being manufactured.” Ailes said he’s sure he has met Freud but, “I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup … most people who have a problem at least walk up to me and talk to me about it.” (But Ailes has cameras around his office and a driver, so the casual approach might be difficult.)
Company Town has learned that Ailes has communicated with both Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch — the latter the only Murdoch sibling currently working at the company — since Freud’s remarks were published. “There is nothing to the idea that I have any problem with the children. The entire Murdoch family has been nothing but supportive.”
Update: Flint’s article was only part of the story. Variety’s Steve Clarke writes about John Ryley, the head of Sky News, backing Ailes…
John Ryley told the Cambridge Union Society he admired Fox News, which earlier this week was attacked by Rupert Murdoch’s son-in-law, Matthew Freud, for undermining journalistic standards.
The Sky News topper said, “At Sky News, we provide impartial and independent news. That’s not because Ofcom (the media regulator) tells us to but because it’s what our audience expects of us. In simple terms, it’s good business for us to be impartial.”
Ryley added, “That’s not to say there aren’t different ways of approaching television news. Whatever you think of Fox News, there is no denying that it has shaken up the sometimes staid world of U.S. TV news by using commentators like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity alongside its core news output.”
