Fox News

On Tuesday morning, Bloomberg LP executives announced that David Rhodes, Fox News' Vice President of news, is joining them as the company's new head of American television (the move was first reported on TVNewser).

According to the press release, the addition of Mr. Rhodes "caps a reorganization" currently being implemented by Andrew Lack, the former President of NBC News, who joined Bloomberg back in October as the new C.E.O. of the company's multimedia group.

"We are empowering local Bloomberg Television management, making room for innovative programming and delivering more relevant and insightful content to Bloomberg viewers, the highest net-worth audience in the world," Mr. Lack said in the release.

What kind of changes does Mr. Rhodes—who has spent the past 12 years working at Fox News—have in mind for Bloomberg TV programming? On Tuesday afternoon, we reached the 34-year-old executive on his cell phone in the back of a cab.  read more »

Alan Colmes will be stepping down as co-host of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes at the end of the year, it was announced today.

Mr. Colmes, who for the past 12 years has played liberal to Sean Hannity's conservative, has posted a press release announcing his decision on his blog Liberaland.

From the release:

In announcing his decision, Colmes said, 'I approached Bill Shine (FNC’s Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it’s bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I’m proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years.

 read more »

Arianna, Tina, Liz ... and Greta?

On GretaWire today, Greta Van Susteren, the Fox News anchor and profilic blogger, invited readers to write in about their dream jobs. Ms. Van Susteren kicked things off by admitting that she sometimes dreams of running an online news site.

From the post:

I love my job but from time to time think about the future (I can be a dreamer)….what is next? what would be fun for me? Every day I have a different idea of what is next (and let me repeat, I do love my job), but if I had to pick today I would love to run an internet news site.  read more »

• 1 comment

Rupert Murdoch announced today that Roger Ailes has signed a five-year contract extension to stay at News Corporation, where, in part, he oversees Fox News and the Fox Business Network.

"It is one of the ironies of his extreme success over the 10 years of the Fox News Channel that Roger Ailes hates journalists, manages them, and counts himself among their ranks," wrote Rebecca Dana in The Observer two years ago in a profile of Mr. Ailes.

Last night, Bill O'Reilly of Fox News appeared on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. There, Jon Stewart admitted that on the heels of President-elect Barack Obama's victory, he was worried for Mr. O'Reilly.

"I'm an anarchist," said Mr. O'Reilly.

To soothe him, Mr. Stewart gave the anchor a teddy bear and some hot cocoa.

Martin Eisenstadt, principal of the Eisenstadt Group and Senior Fellow at The Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy is on a the mind of a lot of bloggers and cable news talent bookers lately. Apparently Mr. Eisenstadt, as an adviser to Senator John McCain, leaked the story that former G.O.P. Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin didn't know that Africa is a continent and not a single country. That bit of news was picked up by many, many media sources including Fox News, whose Carl Cameron's on-air telling of the anecdote Media Mob saw fit to include in a round-up of post-election bashing of Governor Palin. He also spread the rumor that Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher was spotted "canoodling" with Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig and that he might appear on The Bachelor. That little story made it to Politico's Shenanigans blog, written by Anne Schroeder Mullins, and then the New York Post on Nov. 4, in a "Campaign Morsels" sidebar that is not online, but was recounted in New York magazine's Daily Intel blog.

And who can forget back in August when Mr. Eisenstadt revealed that Paris Hilton's family was offended with the McCain campaign for an ad that compared Senator Obama to Ms. Hilton and Britney Spears.

This election year, Mr. Eisenstadt has been full of great scoops. He's also been completely full of it.  read more »

Matt Drudge is reporting that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is giving her first extensive post-election interview to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, who back in September scored the first post-convention interview with First Dude Todd Palin. That extensive walk-and-talk interview took place at the couple’s scenic house in Wasilla.

"The sniping at Gov. Palin after the election by 'anonymous' sources is rotten,” Ms. Van Susteren wrote on her blog this morning. "I have said over and over and over again, it is our job in journalism to be aggressive in challenging politicians…but it is not right to gratuitously trash someone."

On Tuesday night, some 71.5 million viewers tuned in across 14 television networks to watch Senator Barack Obama's victory over Senator John McCain, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Overall it was the highest rated election night since 1980.

On broadcast television, ABC News was big winner. On cable, CNN dominated.

The Nielsen numbers for total viewers via THR:

ABC: 13,135,000

NBC: 12,018,000

CBS: 7,829,000

Fox: 5,137,000

CNN: 12,304,000

Fox News: 9,044,000

MSNBC: 5,889,000

And now the fun part begins.

The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller has an A1-promoted story headlined Internal Battles Divided McCain and Palin Camps, in which she reveals all about the Republican candidates' failed bid for the White House. This comes a day after Newsweek broke new ground on the Governor's campaign trail spending spree and Carl Cameron told FOX News (FOX News!) that the woman New York Times columnist Bill Kristol favorably compared to Andrew Jackson didn't know what countries were in NAFTA or that Africa is a continent. (This clip comes via Andrew Sullivan.)  read more »

Today, Michael Calderone of Politico writes about Brit Hume's swan song at Fox News. After the election, Mr. Hume, who joined the cable news network during its fledgling days back in 1996, will be significantly cutting back his duties, which currently include anchoring Special Report at 6 p.m., anchoring big political night coverage, and serving as the managing editor of the news division.

One fun moment from the piece: ABC News' Sam Donaldson, who is 74, questions why Mr. Hume, who is 65, would be winding things down.

From the article:

'What are these young kids like Brit Hume stepping down for?' asked veteran anchor Sam Donaldson, a former colleague at ABC (and nine years his senior). 'I think Brit's at the height of his power.'

In early October, The View's Elisabeth Hasselbeck denied rumors that she was considering moving to Fox News. But today on the show, during an interview with Richard Dreyfuss, Ms. Hasselbeck—who recently stumped for Sarah Palin in Florida—quipped that she'd "like" to work for Fox News' Sean Hannity.

In a clip provided by the Huffington Post, Mr. Dreyfuss describes working for W. director Oliver Stone by saying, "Imagine working for Sean Hannity."

As Mr. Dreyfuss pauses to let that image sink in, Ms. Hasselbeck chimes in, "I would like that!"

"Would you?" The actor asks. "Then you'd like working for Oliver... You know, you can be a fascist even when you're on the left."

As you probably know by now, Ashley Todd, the Texas woman who claimed she was attacked in Pittsburgh and had a 'B' scratched in her face because of her support of Senator John McCain was lying.

There had been doubts expressed about her story from the moment it broke on the Drudge Report yesterday, including from conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, but the strongest statement came last night from Fox News' executive vice president, John Moody, who wrote on his FOX Forum blog:

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.  read more »

In his latest 43-second Media Web Minute, MarketWatch's Jon Friedman bids farewell to retiring Fox Newsman Brit Hume, whom he describes as "one of the fairest minded people on the scene and above all, the most droll."

Mr. Friedman continues, "Hume's not a table pounder, he's not a yeller, he's not a preener or a screamer. He's calm and measured. And above all, incisive."

Presumably Mr. Hume's incisiveness is maximally "above all" including his drollness which, as we've learned, is above his fairness.

In The Washington Post today, Howard Kurtz reports that former New York Times national security correspondent Judith Miller (who once famously referred to herself as "Miss Run Amok") is joining Fox News as an on-air analyst and writer for the cable news channel's Web site.

Update, 12:25 PM: Ms. Miller spoke to Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp, telling him, "I get to spout my views, I will NOT be joining the news team... I care about First Amendment issues and free speech and I will talk about that and foreign policy if and when we ever stop talking about the economy, which is going to be going on for a while."

She also tells Politico's Michael Calderone, "I was a Hillary supporter who has gone over to the Obama side... Lots of people think they know what I believe, but don’t."

Politico's Michael Calderone is reporting that Glenn Beck is jumping from CNN Headline News to Fox News.

Mr. Beck has hosted a daily show on the network since 2006. For Fox, he will be anchoring a 5 P.M. weekday show and a weekend program.

Mr. Calderone quotes a CNN spokesperson as saying, "Glenn has been a terrific employee and colleague to many of us at CNN... We wish him well."

Last week, a lot of people in the media were upset about Newsweek's un-retouched cover photograph of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The cover showed an extreme close up of Governor Palin's face, illustrating a critical appraisal of the candidate by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham in the magazine.

It prompted Portfolio's Mixed Media blogger Jeff Bercovici to aks, "Did 'Newsweek' Have to Show Palin's 'stache?" Fox News devoted a segment to the cover on October 8, 2008, and CBS News' Bonnie Erbe had some thoughts about in her Washington Whispers column last week.

To make the controversy all the weirder, The Weekender is running a shocking cover that touts an "exclusive" view of the "First-Ever Unretouched Photos of the Weird Birthmark on Barack Obama's Face."  read more »

Earlier this week, Richard Huff of the New York Daily News broke the story that conservative pundit Sean Hannity had signed a new multimillion dollar contract with Fox News, which will keep him at the cable news network through 2012.

"The new deal will keep Hannity as one-half of the nightly show Hannity & Colmes, which he does with Allan Colmes," reported Mr. Huff. "Today, the nightly show he hosts with Colmes has been No. 1 at 9 p.m. among the cable news networks for the past 58 months."

How's Mr. Colmes doing?  read more »

On Thursday night, Fox News' telecast of the Vice Presidential debate attracted more viewers than either MSNBC's or CNN's. The event also ranked as Fox News' highest telecast in the network's 12-year history.

From a Fox News release:  read more »

Today, Sarah Palin sat down for an interview with Carl Cameron, the chief political correspondent for Fox News. In one portion of the interview, Mr. Cameron asked the Alaska governor about her recent stumbles in interviews. Governor Palin took the opportunity to take a shot at Katie Couric of CBS News. (This comes via Politico's Michael Calderone.)

Here's what Governor Palin said:  read more »

This morning, on the heels of the high-stakes vice presidential debate in St. Louis, Fox News' chief political correspondent Carl Cameron nabbed an interview with the elusive Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, reports Alissa Krinsky of TV Newser.

More from the post:  read more »

The third quarter numbers for the cable news networks are officially out today. Overall, the stretch from June 30 to Sept. 28 proved to be yet another strong period for the cable news networks, especially compared to the gloomy news coming from newspapers and broadcast television networks.

Today, each of the major cable news networks fired off press releases touting their achievements.

Releases after the jump.  read more »

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has announced on his Web site that his weekend variety show "Huckabee," will be airing for the first time on Fox News this Saturday and Sunday night.

From Mr. Huckabee's post:

All of us have been talking about the show I will be doing for Fox News. I wanted to bring you up to date on what is going on.

The show will be called "Huckabee." I'm sure the name will make it easy for all of you to find it. "Huckabee" will air this Saturday and Sunday at 8 PM Eastern time on Fox News Channel.

So has Fox News actually picked up the show for an extended run? Or is Saturday night's program merely a pilot?

We called Fox News to find out. A spokesperson referred questions to Mr. Huckabee's agent.

We'll update once we hear back.

As we noted last week, seemingly every journalist in America knows exactly what needs to be asked of Sarah Palin. Yesterday, Fox News' Sean Hannity became the second journalist, post-convention, to sit down with the governor of Alaska for an extended on-air interview.

Would Mr. Hannity, given his conservative beliefs, ask Ms. Palin tough questions?

Herein the abridged transcript (from Lexis Nexis) of the first part of the interview, which aired last night on Hannity & Colmes, edited down to just Mr. Hannity's questions:

Governor, thank you for being with us. All right. You said when you were asked to be Senator McCain's running mate that you didn't hesitate, you didn't blink.

 read more »

Yesterday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin sat down for her second post-convention interview. This one took place in Ohio. Sean Hannity of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes asked the questions.

At one point, Mr. Hannity asked Ms. Palin (who let her hair down for the interview) what she thought of Tina Fey's recent impression of her on Saturday Night Live. "I watched with the volume all the way down," said Ms. Palin. "I thought it was hilarious. I thought she was spot on. ... It was hilarious. Again, didn’t hear a word she said, but the visual, spot on."

"Did anyone ever say that before that there was a similarity in terms of looks?" Mr. Hannity asked.

"They’ve been saying that for years up in Alaska," Ms. Palin responded. "In fact, I dressed up as Tina Fey once for Halloween. So we’ve been doing that before Tina Fey has been doing that!"  read more »

Sean Hannity of Fox News has landed the first cable news interview with Sarah Palin. According to a release, the interview will air in two parts on Tuesday, Sept. 16, and Wednesday, Sept. 17, on Fox News' 9 p.m. show Hannity & Colmes.

Felix Gillette talks to Griff Jenkins, Fox News' man on the mean streets of St. Paul: "Roughly a week earlier, Mr. Jenkins had waded into the protestors in Denver without the aid of a security crew. Things had gotten entertainingly ugly (YouTube-worthy ugly), and now his bosses were insisting on precautions."

Leon Neyfakh meets the staff of The National Review in St. Paul for the Republican National Convention. Jack Fowler, publisher of the magazine is planning their "post-election Caribbean cruise, an elaborate week-long fundraiser for the magazine involving 250 members of the conservative intelligentsia on a boat rubbing shoulders with such celebs as Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Christopher Buckley." PLUS: Print Defender Matt Weiland Keeps 50 States in One Book.

Plus: GOOD grows up... Curl, Interrupted... Andrew Breitbart at the RNC.

ST. PAUL—The helicopters hovering over downtown St. Paul on the afternoon of Sept. 1 had long before become such a customary sound that they weren’t heard anymore, but as Griff Jenkins, the chipper and youthful-looking 37-year-old reporter for Fox News, stood outside the Xcel Energy Center contemplating his next assignment, they became relevant again.

“Apparently, they’ve confiscated the protestors’ jars of urine,” he said. “That makes me feel better.”

The air was sticky. A police officer in riot gear walked by. A German shepherd followed in his wake. Mr. Jenkins gazed to the west where, on the other side of a tall security gate, a teeming mass of bandanas, beehive beards and messenger bags was churning, chanting, shaking fists, banging drums and striding through the streets.  read more »

Last week, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote about Twitter, the kinda useful, sorta ubiquitous, sure to be short-lived new tool for journalists—and cellphone-enabled journalist-like individuals—who want to bring readers the world in 140-characters or less.

Mr. Kurtz called twittering "the digital equivalent of a sound bite, a throat-clearing, a terse observation or two for a cloistered community online."

If you're hoping to hear Fox News' Greta Van Susteren clear her throat online, you're out of luck: The On the Record host tells The Huffington Post's Danny Shea that Twittering may not be for her:

I'm not sold on it yet... I have so much going—I have a webcam, I have GretaWire, I have Greta LiveWire which is my internet show that I do every night between 9:45 and 9:50, I'm now doing the Strategy Room, I've got my pictures, my video...remember I told you it's that hairline [between being digital and being crazy]? Twitter may be it...

It also sounds mildly obscene. Am I the only one who thinks, like, Twittering... I don't know. Do you Twitter? It's like, I thought we had a don't ask, don't tell policy!  read more »

Tonight, Shepard Smith will be anchoring Fox News' coverage of Hurricane Gustav from New Orleans beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Afterwards, Brit Hume will continue the hurricane coverage, anchoring from St. Paul. From 10 p.m. to midnight, Geraldo Rivera will anchor live from New Orleans. 

Fox News will continue its live hurricane coverage throughout the night until 5 a.m. with Gregg Jarrett, Julie Banderas, Todd Connor and Uma Pemmaraju anchoring the late night shift. Beginning at 5 a.m., Fox & Friends will take over the hurricane coverage live from the channel's makeshift St. Paul studio. 

Over at the Fox Business Network, Alexis Glick will be leading all day coverage of the hurricane from New Orleans.

"I have a real affinity for the folks from Guam," said Megyn Kelly.

Since Monday morning, Ms. Kelly, the 37-year-old news anchor with Fox News, has been reporting from the floor of the Democratic convention in Denver. Her channel's riser is located between the delegations from New Mexico and Guam.

"Guam in on the floor," said Ms. Kelly. "Rhode Island is in the nose bleeds. How does this happen? They told me, it's because they went for Barack Obama and Rhode Island went for Hillary."

"They are so excited to be on the floor," she added.  read more »

On Tuesday evening, inside the Pepsi Center in Denver,  the Media Mob had a moment of clumsiness, involving Karl Rove's laptop computer.

It was a few short hours before Hillary Clinton was to address the delegates. The green room of the Fox News sky box inside the arena was buzzing with activity. Energy was high. The quarters were close.

The Media Mob was sitting on smallish couch conducting an interview with Fox News' dynamic anchor Megyn Kelly, who is reporting from the floor of the Pepsi Center, throughout the convention. A laptop computer, the screen flipped open, rested on one arm of the couch behind me.  read more »

Earlier today we caught up with Greta Van Susteren, anchor of Fox News' 10 p.m. hour, at her makeshift desk inside Braun's Bar and Grill, the cavernous sports bar across from the Pepsi Center (and inside the convention's security perimeter) where Fox News has turned into its DNC headquarters.

"I like the blogging," she said as she clicked away at her keyboard, posting updates to GretaWire. Her counterparts were all doing the more predictable TV thing: Chris Wallace had a live shot for the nes channel, and downstairs Bill Hemmer was digging away at a late breakfast-bar buffet. At the coffee and soda bar Brit Hume shot the shit with Brian Kilmeade.  read more »

Are you better off than you were a year ago? If you're Roger Ailes, you sure are.

According to Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka, the Fox News president and chairman earned an unbelievable $19.9 million in the last 12 months, according to S.E.C. filings from News Corp.

"What did he do to earn that?" Mr. Kafka asks. We wonder the same since in July, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported that the Fox Business Network averaged 8,000 viewers during the day, as noted by Felix Gillette.

Per Mr. Kafka:

Primarily, he ran Fox News, which is still crushing the competition.  read more »

The New York Post reports today that former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was in town recently to tape a pilot for a weekend variety show for Fox News, which will apparently premier sometime this fall.

The report was based on an interview that Mr. Huckabee did over the weekend with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

From the Democrat-Gazette article:

First, the TV bit. It seems such a natural as to be a stereotype. Huck TV. What else but? Mike Huckabee is to radio, television, Internet, YouTube, multi-media and anything involving a microphone-and-camera as leaves are to trees. Sometimes it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Of his show, Huckabee offers only generalities: "I can say it's gonna be unlike anything else that's on FOX and maybe on cable." When asked if it's a talk show, Huckabee says, "yes and no. Not a talk show like you've seen. We'll have a live studio audience and some very innovative features."

Update, 12:55 PM: Politico's Michael Calderone got the following statement from Fox News:

[C]ontrary to what was reported in today’s NY Post — Mike Huckabee has not shot a pilot for Fox News. We are in discussion about developing a show with him in the future, but remain in the early planning stages.  read more »

On Wednesday, the Media Mob reported that NBC Universal, Fox News, and the Fox Television Stations group were filing a joint copyright infringement suit against Redlasso—the privately held company that provides users with a search engine targeting video and audio footage from stations and networks around the country.

Today, Redlasso executives informed their site’s users that because of the suit, they are currently suspending some services.

Redlasso posted a notice on its Web site today alerting its users to the change.  read more »

"Unfortunately, due to the legal actions taken against Redlasso by two networks, we are left with no alternative but to suspend access to our video search and clipping Beta site FOR THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE," the notice

Yesterday, The Observer's Bharat Ayyar reported on MoveOn.org and rapper Nas' protest outside of Fox News headquarters in Manhattan.

Last night, Nas appeared on The Colbert Report to explain himself. When asked by Mr. Colbert why he thinks Fox is racist, Nas (real name Nasir Jones) said, "It's obvious. Everybody that has eyes and ears can see that this guy [Bill O'Reilly] is out of control. He knows what he's doing, you know what I mean? It's out of line. The things he's saying is worse than the worst rap lyrics I ever heard."

The rapper also told the host, "I think O'Reilly's afraid of me.  read more »

The Media Mob has learned that NBC Universal, Fox News, and the Fox Television Stations group are filing a joint copyright infringement suit today in the Southern District Court of New York against Redlasso.

Redlasso is a privately held company that provides a free search engine targeting video and audio footage from stations and networks around the country and allows users to create embeddable clips of the resulting material.

Back in May, lawyers representing CBS, NBC, News Corp. and Allbritton Communications sent a cease and desist letter to Redlasso, asking the company to stop reproducing and distributing the networks' material.

Although CBS was part of the initial complaint, they are apparently not participating in the group lawsuit.  read more »

Brian Stelter of the New York Times is reporting that Brit Hume, the longtime anchor of Fox News' 6 PM show, Special Report, will be relinquishing that role after the conclusion of the current presidential election.

Citing a number of sources close to Mr. Hume, the Times reports that, at 65, Mr. Hume is seeking to reduce his role at the cable news network where he has worked since the channel launched in 1996.

More from the post:

Mr. Hume’s departure from "Special Report" would represent one of the most dramatic changes to Fox's powerhouse schedule since the channel’s inception nearly 12 years ago.

Mr. Hume did not respond to requests for comment. A Fox News spokeswoman would not discuss contractual talks.