Mock & Roll

Rupert Murdoch's heir-apparent (not anytime soon) - son James - is not a big fan of Fox News and Roger Ailes (right, unflattering photo used by New York mag).

New York magazine's lonnnnnnnnng piece on Rupert Murdoch: "Roger Ailes is another complication for James. In Europe, where James spends much of his time, Ailes and Fox News are mocked and loathed as the worst form of American jingoism. James is concerned about climate change, and his wife, Kathryn, a former model and marketing executive, works for the Clinton Foundation. Politically, James is not liberal—he’s a committed free-market thinker—but Fox’s brand of politics is a problem that, in his view, needs to be managed."

Writer Gabriel Sherman opines: "Is Fox News a disreputable cash cow, its reported $700 million in profit something to be tolerated with a held nose? Or is it central to the News Corp. mission?"

Me:  depends on what the "mission" is.

Sherman notes Rupert's other son is out of the loop by his own hand: "Lachlan walked away from the throne in 2005, resigning as deputy COO of News Corp. after clashing with Roger Ailes and then–News Corp. president Peter Chernin, feeling that his father wouldn’t back him up."

Sherman kicked off "The Raging Septuagenarian" with Rupert's son-in-law Matthew Freud (yeah, Sigmund) informing Rupert he trashed Roger in the NYTimes profile of the Fox News boss:  “I’ve given a quote to the New York Times, and you’re probably not going to like it." The quote lived up to its advance billing—and quite a bit more. “I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to." Certainly there was personal animus in the remark; in the left-of-center London social circles where Freud and Elisabeth operated, Fox is particularly loathed.

Nothing like biting the hand that feeds you.  What I'm not getting is that all of Rupert's newspapers are conservative.  Why the Fox News outrage?  Roger Ailes is unquestionably the brains behind the phenomenal success of Fox News and deserves every penny of his reported $24 mil pay and new five-year contract.  Why the hard-on toward Ailes?

MSNBC faced similar mocking and loathing from G.E. shareholders after the 2008 Republican presidential convention where anchor Keith Olbermannn was sent back to New York after his biased, unwarranted, unprofesssional on-air attack on John McCain. What hit home for GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt were the anti-NBC protest signs that popped up at the convention hall and chants captured by other TV networks.

MSNBC bills itself as "The Place For Politics" but the cable network's internal politics manifesting externally temporarily eclipsed campaigns and threatened G.E.'s corporate image and bottom line.