Brian Lewis: The Day After

More color is emerging…or more dirt is emerging (depending on your point of view) about the Brian Lewis firing…

The New York Times’ Bill Carter has some well placed leakage…

The news stunned many in the world of cable news, where Mr. Lewis, an executive vice president who ran the aggressive communications and public relations arm of Fox News, was long thought to be an indispensable adviser to Mr. Ailes. But one senior executive who worked closely with both men for a number of years said that their relationship had soured badly within the last year or so.

“This has been coming for a long time,” said the senior executive, who asked not to be identified because of professional relationships with both men. “They have not been close for a long time. I have known this was coming.”

The executive said that Mr. Lewis, who for most of the existence of Fox News occupied an office just down the hall from Mr. Ailes, had within the last year been moved to another floor. “It had gotten really nasty and acrimonious between the two of them,” the executive said.

And New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman chips in an interesting anecdote…an anecdote which makes me wonder why Sherman didn’t relay it back when it happened? Or did I just miss it?

In April 2012, I bumped into Lewis in North Carolina at a cocktail reception before Ailes delivered a speech to UNC Journalism students. Ailes had traveled down to Chapel Hill on News Corp.’s private jet with his handpicked biographer, Zev Chafets, and Lewis. It was a few days after the Fox mole story broke on Gawker.

“So, we’re gonna sue Gawker, and we might try and have him arrested,” Lewis said, referring to Joe Muto, the mole.

“Why are you guys making such a big deal about this?” I said. “You’re a television network valued at $14 billion. Isn’t this punching down?”

“Dude, I know. I was overruled,” Lewis said. “I told them, but I was told that legal would be handling this from here forward. I’m like, Okay.”

As Lewis saw it, tracking down Muto and firing him were the important things. Muto’s leaks, embarrassing as they were, were inconsequential.

“So he puts up a picture of O’Reilly posing with a naked girl? O’Reilly deserves to get whacked for that. Chucklehead,” Lewis said. “And he writes that Sean Hannity has trouble with TelePrompTers and coddles Republicans? Geesh, really?”