Sarah Palin Rehired At Fox News To ‘Piss Off’ People And Other Tales Of Temper Tantrums

What does Fox News CEO Roger Ailes have in common with New Jersey governor Chris Christie? They are both bullies who enjoy taking out revenge on their political enemies in the most childish way possible. [They are also a couple of jerks whose chunky frames are only outweighed by their inflated egos, and who have a deep and perverse mutual affection for one another] By now everyone knows how Christie sought to punish Democrats in Fort Lee by shutting down lanes on the George Washington Bridge, creating severe traffic jams, costing millions in productivity loss, and potentially endangering people’s lives. And now we learn, from Ailes himself, that his emotional maturity is similarly stunted.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter this week, Ailes was asked “Why bring back Sarah Palin just a few months after not renewing her contract?” His answer exposes him as a petulant little twerp who may be too senile to continue running a national news network.

Ailes: I’m not a defender of everything she says. I don’t hear everything she says. But I know she represents a certain group of people who rose up against their own party, which you rarely see. I probably hired her back, if you really want to get to the bottom of it, to give her a chance to say her piece and piss off the people that wanted her dead.

Indeed, Palin represents a certain group of Tea-sodden people, but they are fervently supportive of the far-right wing of their party (as is Ailes) and would never consider voting for anyone but a Republican. The fact that Ailes can’t cite as reasons for Palin’s rehire her superior intellect or insightful analysis says much about his disdain for both Palin and his audience. His management philosophy at Fox appears to include a mandate to inflict revenge on liberals who don’t even watch the network. In reality, the people who dislike Palin (this author included) couldn’t be happier that she is back on Fox News making an ass of herself and the network.

This isn’t the first time that Ailes has made a personnel decision that is rooted in childish vengeance. Last year, in a fawning biography that Ailes himself had solicited, he told the author why he had kept Glenn Beck on the air long after he had decided that Beck was a divisive figure who was costing the network advertising revenue. The reason Ailes gave for putting off Beck’s departure was that he “didn’t want to give MoveOn and Media Matters the satisfaction.” So Ailes permitted Beck to continue broadcasting his race-baiting, Nazi-inflected, conspiracy theories for several more months because he would rather poison the airwaves (and the minds of his viewers) with lies and hatred than to let his ideological adversaries think they had scored a victory.

Another example of the juvenile (and paranoid) brand of Ailes’ management style was revealed in an article this week in the Daily Beast. David Freedlander wrote in “Fox’s War Against Ailes Biographer” about the lengths to which Ailes will go to attack journalists who dare to write anything about the cable news overlord:

“Fox News has been waiting for [Gabriel] Sherman’s book [The Loudest Voice In The Room] to come out. According to interviews with a half-dozen former employees of what is known as the Fox News ‘Brain Room,’ the brain trust at the network has been following Sherman’s work for years. Although the so-called ‘Brain Room,’ located in the basement of Fox News studios, was supposed to be dedicated to research for the networks programming, two former news librarians describe an environment where they were frequently called to do opposition research about media reporters who were writing about Fox News or Ailes. Former employees described being tasked to investigate reporters from a variety of beats, including hunting down personal information such as voter registration that was used to determine how ‘Fox-friendly’ the reporter was.”

The use of a newsroom’s assets and personnel to carry out private vendettas is plainly unethical, as noted by NPR’s media reporter David Folkenflik. Folkenflik was himself a victim of Fox’s wrath and gave the Daily Beast his assessment of the toxic environment at Fox News:

“They are on a wartime footing. They approach this stuff in a very different way, in the way that a PR shop in a political campaign would. It is hard to imagine any other serious news outlet — The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN — handling negative news stories in this way.”

And that’s pretty much the gist of it. Fox is perpetually at war. It is a theme that permeates their broadcasts whether it’s about a Class War or a War on Christmas, there is a built in hostility at Fox that infects its personnel on and off the air. It is why they regard anyone who disagrees with their editorial viewpoint as a hostile adversary. And that precise language was used in an ad that Fox placed in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post:

Fox News Ad

[Update 1/11/2014] In response to Ailes claim that he rehired Palin to piss people off, Palin took to her Facebook page to say “Funny. I accepted for the same reason!” Proving that both Ailes and Palin are too stupid to grasp that her critics aren’t the least bit pissed off by her coming back to Fox and spewing her laughably ignorant drivel.

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7 thoughts on “Sarah Palin Rehired At Fox News To ‘Piss Off’ People And Other Tales Of Temper Tantrums

  1. All the brain dead fox viewers I work with seem to all have the idea that being #1 in ratings means that the views expressed on fox makes them factually correct. They don’t get it that fox is the ONLY place RWNJ’s can go for their TV viewing pleasure. Fox knows their viewers aren’t very bright and are easily manipulated. They don’t even know that Ailes, as you say, has such disdain for them.

    They do a good job keeping their audience ignorant and stupid. How could one watch otherwise? The demographics aren’t in their favor as their viewers will be dead soon enough. The rollover is just not happening soon enough.

  2. I couldn’t agree with you more, toe. The Fox demographics should be disturbing and a little frightening if you are making long term plans for the future of this network. I suppose there will always be enough willfully ignorant among us to keep Fox in business for many years to come, unfortunately. Notice how the petty vindictiveness of the Tea-publican milieu is demonstrated daily very well by the republican network aka Fox.

  3. More hate and insults from the radical left. This thread is dripping with it.And just think, boys and girls, Mark still thinks he can lecture the rest of us about incivility. What hooey.

  4. The real reason that Palin was rehired — comic relief.

    • And I’d like to point out that this woman has not had steady employment in years … since quitting the governorship for the easy money. Another lazy, self-deluded conservative parasite who thinks she has the moral authority to criticize others. Palin wouldn’t know hard work if it sat on her face and wiggled.

  5. Mr. Ailes doesn’t need to piss anyone off, his rehire of Ms. Palin is consistent with the intellectual norms of FOX news.

  6. I have come to believe in this day and time. There are Red States and Blue States. Left and Right. There is FOX News and there’s everyone else. Right wingers, Fox loyalist believe that Obama and his administration is the blame for all evil and everything that is wrong in this country and the world. Common sense tells me a broke clock is at least right twice a day. How is it you can tune to FOX News and every story or news alert is bashing Obama none stop 24/7? Logic would lead you the conclusion if the Tea party GOP view points were so spot on they would have won one of the last two presidential elections. To be honest comparing MSNBC to FOX is a false equivalency. I’m not a fan of cable news period. I feel there are no real journalist just tabloid reporters. There is no middle ground and common sense is just not so common. If you are a republican or conservative you hate Obama and everything he represent facts and elections be damned.

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