Rolling Stone Analyzes Fox News' Spin Machine

[A Black Falcon]

Edit: Fittisize, I don't think the point of the article is to somehow suggest that Ailes is the first person to do this kind of thing or that he's evil for wanting lots of money, but that no one has been able to carry out such a wide-spread propaganda campaign in the guise of real news as Ailes is doing right now [and fairly successfully].

You are absolutely right. Fittisize's criticisms are very, very minor compared to the reality of what Ailes is doing. It paints him as a bit evil because he's an extremely partisan very far right conservative dedicated to spinning an entire major news channel that way, and successfully.

Furthermore, I'm troubled by the villanous characterization of Ailes on the basis that he allegedly manipulated the power of television for his own personal gain, as if he was the worst and most evil person to ever encourage somebody to say something nasty or misleading, and how this was all part of a master plan to create a poisinous news empire laden on dishonesty and polemics. What immediately springs to mind in this regard is the infamous "Daisy" ad used in LBJ's presidential campaign, which came before Ailes.

Ailes has done that far more successfully than anyone before, though -- there's never been as partisan a news network. Traditionally news networks tried to be nonpartisan. Sure, they'd have some bias, but we haven't seen this kind of bias in television news ever before, before Fox News; it'd only been seen in some newspapers, never TV. Ailes' extremist agenda pushes American politics rightward, and helps keep the Republican party all on message. There is no prescedent for it; MSNBC is a pale imitation in comparison, from the left side. I mean, sure MSNBC is left of center, but nowhere remotely near as much so as Fox News, and without the unity of messaging.

Creating an unprecedented news empire based on dishonesty and polemics is EXACTLY what Ailes has done.

As for the "Daisy" ad, nasty political campaigns have a very long history -- the Adams-Jefferson race in 1800 was quite viscous, and things have not improved since then -- but that's different from a news channel dedicated entirely to supporting one political party against the other one.

It's said in the article how Ailes "minted" Chris Matthews at CNBC, who is so obviously on the other side of the political spectrum as Ailes' virulent conservatism. Maybe there's a side of him that's truly an entertainer and wishes to cultivate talent when he sees it?

Yes, he tries to find people able to spread the right-wing agenda in an entertaining fashion. Certainly true, this is television after all and ratings matter.

Finally, a big "meh" to the charts. I hate quantitative stuff like that, especially alongside such a biased article. It lacks any meaningful judgement and there's so much room for methodoligical errors and deliberately skewing and presenting data to meet the ends of your established position.

The article is much, much less biased than Fox News is.