Happy Birthday Fox News...

The below comes courtesy of Danny Schecter, and Newsdissector...

Fox News: Ten Years of Infamy HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR AILESNEW JUICY DETAILS, SEX SEX SEX, UGH!FAIR LAMBASTS NEWS HOUR (AGAIN!)Last night I was writing from the inside of an airplane in flight. Tonight, I am stuck on a runway heading to Detroit. We have been here for an hour and a half. My night is blown along with my connection. This whole air travel thing which was so exciting for me back in the day, is now an excuciating ordeal. The security people are testy and overzealous treating toiletries as akin to terrorists. We all permit their bullting and invasive inspections as in our best interest. I see it as a job creation program and the front face of uniformed fascism treating us all as sheep. The absurdity or it all will become clearer in the years to come.I am told that today is the tenth anniversary of an institution that has demonstrated the fine art of fusing news and propaganda. Fox News has been with us for a decade with its very presence not only polluting our political environment but moving all the other networks to the right.I was at their opening party. Somehow I ‘Made” the list with a fancy invite signed by Rupert himself. We wanted to shoot it but in a portend of things to come, our cameras were not allowed.One of our interns stood outside 12ll Sixth Avenue, behind a security cordon trying to videotape all the VIPS who trooped in to honor an emerging media power and genuflect to the mogul who ran the NY Post.

It was jammed. The offices,just down the block from the late and lamented Globalvision HQ, had, according to the architect I chatted with, been built in just 16 weeks. The equipment was state of the Art, and Roger Ailes, ruled the roost as if he was a legitimate newsman and not a GOP ad man and operative dispatched to wage a media war.\n\nRudy was there along with a gaggle of right wing pols. But there were others as well like Geraldo Rivera who was sniffing around for a new home which would soon welcome him. Walter Crronkite walked through as did Barbara Walters. I had a sense that something very big was about to happen TO TV News but I was not prepared for what did happen.\n\nWhat seemed clear was that the Fox News Channel was not about news, but rather about promoting one way of looking at news, using news. It was a blend of right-wing talk radio, “hot” motormouth ideologue-“personalities” and patriotic packaging with friendly blonds and lots of bombast. It was formula driven as one of it program consultants—who, ironically had formerly worked for the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour on PBS—explained to me. It was run in a top down way with a message of the day discipline as t he film OUTFOXED and others explained.

It was designed as “good TV” with the Fox and Friends Morning Show in the AM and Bill O’Reilly, who had worked for ABC and “A Current Affair” batting cleanup. His personal was deliberately exaggerated as if netywork was aping themost popular format on cable—wrestling—with its cartoon performers all following a script built around conflict, good guys and bad, and lots of action.\n\nI wrote about Foc’s birth and has tracked its role in accelerating the death of TV News. My book The More You Watch, The Less You Know has a chapter, “I. Rupert” that chronicles the rise of Murdochism in tekevision while my lastest, “The Death of Media and the Fight for Democracy”assesses the consequences.

For more on what it was like in the early days, read Jeff Cohen’s new book Cable News Confidential about his experiences there. Like many I was startled when the founder of FAIR—soon to mark its 20th anniversary was allowed on the air. Or when I was invited on with O’ Reilly or Sean Hannity. But I realized it was all part of staging food fights as a way to annoy liberals and build a right wing following. It was never aboit news—and still isn’t.",1]

It was jammed. The offices,just down the block from the late and lamented Globalvision HQ, had, according to the architect I chatted with, been built in just 16 weeks. The equipment was state of the Art, and Roger Ailes, ruled the roost as if he was a legitimate newsman and not a GOP ad man and operative dispatched to wage a media war.Rudy was there along with a gaggle of right wing pols. But there were others as well like Geraldo Rivera who was sniffing around for a new home which would soon welcome him. Walter Crronkite walked through as did Barbara Walters. I had a sense that something very big was about to happen TO TV News but I was not prepared for what did happen.What seemed clear was that the Fox News Channel was not about news, but rather about promoting one way of looking at news, using news. It was a blend of right-wing talk radio, “hot” motormouth ideologue-“personalities” and patriotic packaging with friendly blonds and lots of bombast. It was formula driven as one of it program consultants—who, ironically had formerly worked for the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour on PBS—explained to me. It was run in a top down way with a message of the day discipline as t he film OUTFOXED and others explained. It was designed as “good TV” with the Fox and Friends Morning Show in the AM and Bill O’Reilly, who had worked for ABC and “A Current Affair” batting cleanup. His personal was deliberately exaggerated as if netywork was aping themost popular format on cable—wrestling—with its cartoon performers all following a script built around conflict, good guys and bad, and lots of action.I wrote about Foc’s birth and has tracked its role in accelerating the death of TV News. My book The More You Watch, The Less You Know has a chapter, “I. Rupert” that chronicles the rise of Murdochism in tekevision while my lastest, “The Death of Media and the Fight for Democracy”assesses the consequences.For more on what it was like in the early days, read Jeff Cohen’s new book Cable News Confidential about his experiences there. Like many I was startled when the founder of FAIR—soon to mark its 20th anniversary was allowed on the air. Or when I was invited on with O’ Reilly or Sean Hannity. But I realized it was all part of staging food fights as a way to annoy liberals and build a right wing following. It was never aboit news—and still isn’t.

Fox Topper Roger Ailes seems to be looking forward to covering the end of the world:
There were deeper and more disturbing repercussions [to our having seen the towers fall on live TV], geopolitically and, to many, spiritually. "The implications from a television standpoint," says Roger Ailes, chairman of FOX News and FOX Television Stations, "are simply that: When the end of the world comes, we\'ll be able to cover it live until the last camera goes out. I believe I mean it literally. If you can witness something like [9/11] by two billion people, live, then there's nothing that can\'t be covered. And if we get into a world war, with nuclear weapons, I assume we\'ll be covering it live."

That foxy quote is from a new book WATCHING THE WORLD CHANGE: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 edited by David Friend Can’t wait, can you?