WEBVTT - Introducing Slow Burn: The Rise of Fox News 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:03.480 Hey everyone, it's Ed and I just wanted to let 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:06.080 you know that today we're bringing you a very special 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:11.799 episode of Slate's award winning podcast, slow Burn. The podcast 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.440 is back with a new season titled The Rise of 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:19.239 Fox News. Hosted by Josh Levin. This season looks at 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.040 the early years of the Fox News Channel, when it 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:27.760 went from bumbling to seemingly invincible, the moment Fox actually 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.479 became Fox during the two thousand election, Fox News would 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.519 captivate the nation and arguably change the fate of American 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.680 democracy forever. You'll hear from Fox insiders who have never 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.560 spoken out before, sharing some shocking details about their time 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.040 at the station. And you'll hear from some activists and 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.760 comedians and even me about my time at the Daily Show, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.680 where we tried to call out Fox News from time 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.200 to time. So keep listening for the first episode of 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.880 slow Burn The Rise of Fox News, and then follow 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.240 and listen to the entire season wherever you get your podcasts. 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:05.080 Enjoy. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.000 Mike Schneider was getting ready for one of the biggest 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:13.160 moments of his journalism career. It was November nineteen ninety six, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.720 and he was about to anchor election night coverage on 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:20.320 a national television network. There was only one problem. Even 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.400 his biggest fans had no clue he was still on TV. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:25.679 What they would say to me is where you been. 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.040 Mike had been an anchor and correspondent on The Today Show, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.959 Good Morning America, and Nightline over decades. He'd built his 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.319 name as a solid old school journalist. 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:41.199 Be honest, be fair, don't be boring, but don't hype 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:45.119 anything up. Just go tell the story. It also didn't 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.240 hurt that he looked the part I had a face 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.680 where grandma's thought that their daughters might be interested in 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:53.720 seeing young mister Schneider. 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:58.240 By the mid nineties, Mike wasn't quite as fresh faced 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.440 as he used to be. But just when his time 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.120 as a TV news star seemed to be running out, 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:05.960 he'd gotten an opportunity he hadn't expected. 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:12.239 Our news sources, your source for news Fox News Channel. 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.359 Roger came to me and he said, listen, I would 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.560 like you to anchor our newscaster record every evening. 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.200 Roger was Roger Ale's, the chairman and CEO of the 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.320 brand new Fox News Channel, and he wanted Mike front 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:31.799 and center. 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.280 So I want to know why, I mean, maybe part 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.880 of its ego. I'm looking for a compliment. I don't know, 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.080 and he said, because I think you're one of the 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.840 best anchors in the country, and because you have a 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:45.639 reputation for fairness. 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.840 Mike knew that Ales had a reputation for pushing his 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.160 conservative views, but that fairness line hit his ear just right. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:55.960 If they really wanted to do this, and they really 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:00.600 wanted to do it right, I felt, Okay, let's see 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:02.680 where they want to take this thing, and then we're 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:03.440 off to the races. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.640 And it was the way you want it, when you 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.959 want it. Fishneighter Report weeknights, Fox News Channel. 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.000 But when Fox News debuted on the fall of nineteen 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.880 ninety six, it wasn't available on some of the country's 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:20.320 biggest cable systems, including Time Warner in Manhattan. That's why 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.520 Mike's fans didn't know that he was still on TV. 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.400 We used to watch you on AVC or NVC. Where 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:27.399 are you, Ben? What are you doing? And I'd say, 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.960 on the Fox News Channel, where can I see it? 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:30.680 You can't. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.360 But on November fifth, nineteen ninety six, everything was supposed 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:36.120 to change. 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.000 On election night, we would be on the air with 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.720 comprehensive coverage a full traditional election night show. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.040 That Election Night with Bob Dole challenging Bill Clinton, would 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.520 be Fox News's first big showcase, a chance for this 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.720 cable TV upstart to prove it was a serious player. 0:03:57.800 --> 0:03:59.880 The plan was for the whole show to get simul 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.280 asked on the Fox broadcast network, the channel that showed 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.600 NFL games and The Simpsons. Pretty Much anyone with a 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.440 TV could watch broadcast Fox. That meant Mike and the 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.000 cable Fox News channel would get a massive promotional boost. 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.839 The idea of me and the anchor chair that night. 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:18.400 I was jazzed. 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.440 Then what actually happened on Election Night? 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:24.679 That was a shit show. 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.479 Imagine something that could go wrong on a live television show. 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.880 It probably happened to Fox News on Election Night. The 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.760 actual broadcast signal kept fizzling, the sound went in and out. 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.520 When Mike and his co anchor Katherine Kryer tried to 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.200 go live to a reporter in Arkansas, it just didn't work. 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.360 After only a few minutes, they had to abandon everything 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.320 and just roll a half hour of taped footage about 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.320 congressional races in complete. 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.919 Honestly, I'll tell you what was happening off camera. In 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.160 those days, you would have a phone on the set. Well, 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:01.680 you'd pick it up to talk to the producer and 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.360 control room, and I said, what are we doing next? 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.040 What are we doing next? What are we doing next? 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:07.960 And they get back to you a minute, get back 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.120 to you in a minute. And I said, Okay, if 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.400 nobody's going to answer this phone, I guess we don't 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.560 need the phone. So I ripped the phone off the 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:16.000 wall and I threw it across the studio. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.440 Made a point when I asked you to picture what 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.520 could go wrong on live TV. You may have imagined 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.239 some bad technical glitches and a frustrated anchor. But something 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.919 else happened that night that I'm guessing you haven't thought of. 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.240 Remember how Mike had been promised that his big election 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:36.080 special would get shown on the broadcast Fox network. Well 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:37.320 that didn't happen. 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.080 Tonight Fox presents a special movie presentation. Do you remember 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:43.200 the movie that they should? 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:44.480 Oh? 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.400 God, I don't know this election day, America is going 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:55.720 to the dogs with two hundred pounds of shedding. Truly betoved, 0:05:55.880 --> 0:06:01.160 Oh Charles Groden film, Holy shit, some bites into your 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.520 Election Night on NonStop Fox. 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:09.840 Mike didn't get totally drowned out by a drooling Saint Bernard. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.680 Twice an hour during commercial breaks, the Fox News hosts 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.679 would pop in to give updates on the race. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:18.960 You could see that mister Clinton has now amassed three 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.840 hundred and sixty seven electoral votes according to our account. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.120 Roger Ayles claimed he was fine with getting preempted by 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.760 a dog movie because it wasn't a dramatic presidential race anyway. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:35.000 But critics weren't buying the span. They called Fox News disorganized, incompetent, 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:40.600 and laughably inept. Ales and Fox's billionaire founder Rupert Murdoch 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.200 had been touting their grand ambitions to take over TV news, 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.640 but chances were it wasn't going to survive long enough 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:48.560 to redeem itself. 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.039 Viewership is dismal, and some analysts say that Rupert Murdoch 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:54.680 has overreached again. 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.520 That's how things looked in nineteen ninety six, but Fox 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.360 News Channel wouldn't stay inept or invisible for long. Four 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.160 years later, it was on the air all over the country. 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:11.280 It looked and sounded different than its TV rivals, full 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.400 of eye catching graphics and blaring sound effects, and when 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.320 the next big election came, around in November two thousand, 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.920 Fox would captivate the nation and just maybe changed the 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:24.800 fate of American democracy. 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.680 Who will be the next president? 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:28.880 You has died? 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.680 He had two days elected him day coverage owner on 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:34.200 the Fox News Channel. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.800 This is Slow Burn, Season ten, The Rise of Fox News. 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:45.120 I'm Your Host Josh Levigne. In just a few years, 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.400 the Fox News Channel went from non existent to bumbling 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.000 to seemingly invincible. Its sudden, shocking emergence as a cultural 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.960 force and political kingmaker transformed the country and left a 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.760 mark on all of us along the way. Today, as 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:06.440 another election approaches, Fox's future prospects feel totally uncertain. It's 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.080 been buoyed by its codependent relationship with Donald Trump and 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:14.520 nearly sunk by peddling his election lies. It's been outflanked 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.040 to the right by insurgent TV news challengers, and it's 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.920 now imperiled by a Murdoch family succession drama that recently 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.600 spilled into public view. What is clear, almost three decades 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.880 into the country's Fox News era, is that Fox's fate 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.160 and America's are bound together. This series is about how 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:39.320 that happened and how it almost didn't. Over the next 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.800 six episodes. I'm going to tell you about a crucial 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.200 inflection point in the nation's history, the moment between two 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.400 thousand and two thousand and four when Fox News first 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.840 surge to power and a whole bunch of people rose 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.960 up to try and stop it. You'll hear from the hosts, reporters, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.720 and producers who built Fox News, many who've never spoken 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.480 publicly about what they saw and what they created. 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:03.920 And I said, I don't give a good god fuck 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:04.560 who you are. 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:06.920 You are not going to kick a garbage can at 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:11.160 my head. You'll also hear from Fox's biggest antagonists, the 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.520 political operatives, journalists, and comedians who attacked it, investigated it, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:17.199 and tried to mock it into submission. 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.560 Here we were like scrappy little fighters and we're going 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:23.760 to take them down, and they were like, oh, look 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:24.839 cute they are. 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.240 And you'll hear from Fox's victims who are still coming 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.439 to terms with how a cable news channel upended their lives. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.280 Maybe they couldn't find anything wrong with the actual work 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.480 I was doing, so they went after me. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.280 But first in two thousand, with one of the tightest 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:45.000 presidential elections ever hanging in the balance, Fox News made 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.920 a call that divided America, maybe forever. 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.800 If there were any more surprises that could take place tonight, 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.800 it seems impossible to imagine. 0:09:55.080 --> 0:10:11.560 This is episode one we report, you can say. Caroline 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.040 Brunner came to New York in the mid nineteen nineties 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:15.760 with dreams of becoming a star. 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.640 I wanted to be an actor. I had an internship 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:20.640 at a soap opera, at Guiding Light, and I thought 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:21.439 that was fab. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:29.319 Acting felt totally thrilling, but also risky and unreliable. So 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.600 Caroline quickly changed course and set her sights on a 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:33.400 different career. 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:35.920 Television news kind of gave me the same sort of 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.439 buzz that I felt when I would go on stage. 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:40.640 There was action and there was things happening, and it 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:42.280 was interesting and it was challenging. 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.320 Caroline got a job at NBC News and loved it, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.600 but when that role ended, she couldn't find anything else. 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.400 She was desperate to get back into the industry. Somewhere 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.880 at her college reunion, she spotted a woman who she 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:01.559 knew worked in TV news. Caroline approached Colds and basically 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:02.439 begged for help. 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.040 And she said, how resourceful are you? And I said, 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:06.600 I can be very resourceful. She's like, find me a 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.520 ball of bourbon and a pack of cigarettes Menthols within 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:11.480 fifteen minutes and we'll. 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:17.280 Talk hard liquor smoking. A nearly impossible deadline. It was 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.640 like she was working in TV news already, and Caroline 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.320 nailed the assignment. After she handed over the bourbon and 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.480 the Menthols, she got a personal referral to Fox News. 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.720 In nineteen ninety nine, she landed a job as a 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.720 Fox production assistant in the Washington DC bureau. 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.920 When you're dealing with something like NBC and that behemoth, 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.040 it was a lot harder to get the ship to 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.360 change course. Whereas Fox, if something wasn't working, they would 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:44.160 change it immediately. 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.280 I do better when things are not like said in Stone, operationally, 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:50.839 and you're kind of creating things as you go. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.760 Jim Mills was working at c SPAN when he heard 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.559 that a new thing called Fox News Channel was staffing 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.320 up in Washington, DC. It was going to be young 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.360 and swashed, not bound by the stale conventions of classic 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:04.200 TV news. 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.240 That's going to be kick ass, and I want to 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.760 be part of it. I needed to be the guy 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.160 they hired for Capitol Hill. 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.239 Jim spent his days chatting up politicians and staffers, scouring 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.320 the Capitol building for tidbits to pass along to Fox's 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.400 on camera reporters. He was also a Fox News evangelist, 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.640 telling everyone on the hill what the channel was and 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:27.360 what it wasn't. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:31.000 It took forever to get people to notice that we 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.400 were a separate network than Homer Simpson. I had to 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.960 go around and go into offices physically turning their TVs 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.599 to Channel eighteen so they could see that we have 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:42.760 a whole network here. 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:45.280 He was always up on the hill occasionally. It was 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.280 very exciting when he walked into the bureau, was like 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:48.240 Jim Mills is here. 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.160 Ann McGinn worked in DC too. She'd started out at 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.680 ABC News but quickly found herself stuck with no room 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:00.479 for advancement. Then a couple of her mentors, including Kochi Robs, 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:02.040 suggested she look at Fox. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.920 See what this whole cable thing's about, and then the 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.520 line was and when they fail, when they closed down, 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.079 come back to ABC. 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.720 Whether or not. Fox News crashed and burned and would 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:20.080 have a lot of opportunities. Unlike its broadcast competitors, Fox 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.000 was non union, which meant there were basically no restrictions 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.440 on which people could do what jobs. As a newbie 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.120 in Fox's DC bureau, and worked long hours learning how 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.439 to edit tape and work with satellite. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.960 Feats with non union I was great cheap labor. But 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:39.360 when you're in your twenties and it's a startup and 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:43.440 it's fun and you are learning, you can rationalize the 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:44.040 low pay. 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.560 And Jim and Caroline were the workhorses for Fox's daytime 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.000 and early evening programming blocks. They worked exclusively on hard news, 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:57.160 and none of them saw their work through an ideological lens. Well, 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.040 Fox News Channel was founded by well known conservatives. Anne 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.640 didn't see that kind of partisan lean in the newsroom. 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:08.199 Within the Washington bureau, there were so many more Democrats working, 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.679 at least behind the scenes than non Democrats. 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.200 Anne and Jim both told me they were middle of 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.840 the road politically back then. Caroline Tilton more to the left. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.200 In DC. She worked alongside one of Fox's highest profile 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:26.680 conservative journalists, brit Hume, the anchor of the nightly newscast 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:31.280 Special Report. Not long after Caroline started, she heard him 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:37.560 demand that Fox be more fair to Hillary Clinton. During 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.400 Clinton's two thousand center race. Someone had sent along an 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.480 unflattering photo of her to use in an on air graphic. 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.400 So he's like, you absolutely remake that graphic. You make 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:49.440 her look as good as she can. Is not your 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:50.440 job to make her look bad. 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.680 To be clear, this was happening on the news side 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.320 of Fox News. The primetime opinion shows were a totally 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.760 separate operation with a very different approach. Well, brit Hume 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:06.080 insisted on being impartial towards Hillary Clinton. Conservative host Sean 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.320 Hannity aired conspiracy theories about her connection to a White 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.920 House staffer who died by suicide in the. 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.960 Article you talk about affairs of not only the President, 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:16.800 but of Hillary Clinton. 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:18.840 With Vince Foster, at least David. 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:22.400 We were the news gatherers. Those shows were the opinion page, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.400 and they got a little batshit crazy sometimes. 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.720 The batshit crazy stuff. Was easy for Jim to ignore her. 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:34.320 He was busy on Capitol Hill doing actual journalism, and 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.640 as the political calendar flipped to two thousand, he felt 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.600 like Fox and its campaign reporters were holding their own. 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.080 We just did kick ass coverage of the two thousand election. 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.120 Carl Cameron and Jim Angle, I mean, they were doing 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:47.800 some great work. 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.400 Carl what feeling do you get from the Bush campaign? 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.920 Is this feeling of confidence anxiety? 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.560 Well, it's funny, actually, the Texas governor today said, you 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.400 don't like to feel confident in this business. And that's 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.560 the only sort of moment of deprecating humility that we've 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:03.600 heard in a while. This is a very cocky campaign. 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.840 We had some great reporters out there doing what I 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:12.000 was doing, which was being first, being scrappy, being competitive. 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:17.240 Here we are sitting next to the other guys, ABCCBSCNN. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.280 It just felt like we belong. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.480 And Jim and Caroline all say that Fox's politics didn't 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.120 affect their day to day work. They had free reign 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.200 to look into whatever stories they wanted without the layers 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.360 of bureaucracy that weighed down other networks. At least that's 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.800 what they thought. But just days before the presidential election, 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.120 Fox's journalistic values would get put to the test. A 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.720 long buried secret from a candidate's past threatened to leak out. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.480 It was a story that could prove Fox News's neutrality 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:54.359 or demonstrate that a Fox's editorial independence was just a mirage. 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.600 And the guy who instigated everything was a Democrat from Maine. 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.600 Who called a Republican from Texas a big wiener. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.879 My name is Tom Connolly and an attorney. I've been 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.760 practicing now for forty two years. 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.240 Tom Connolly is a defense lawyer and his clients are 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.280 usually in desperate straits. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.080 Severe severe mental illness, and severe violence. 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:19.640 Real hard, hard cases. 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:20.680 You know whoa. 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.960 Tom was active in the main Democratic Party and the 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:27.600 delegate to the two thousand Democratic National Convention. He was 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.119 always looking for a chance to speak out against the 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:35.040 death penalty and Reaganomics. So when the fiscally conservative capital 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.560 punishment endorsing George W. Bush started campaigning for president, Tom 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:41.119 had to give him a piece of his mind. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.520 One of the first stops was in Maine, so I 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:45.600 went over to protest it. 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.040 Tom found a spot in the crowd and waited for 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:49.600 his moment. 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.119 So he comes out and turns around the big limo 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:54.879 and he's got the window down, and there he is. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.880 I'll see him, and so I yelled, you big wiener, 0:17:58.080 --> 0:17:59.359 and he yelled back at me. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:00.800 Who you call him? 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:01.600 Wiener boy? 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:03.480 Is what he said, and he drove away. 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.560 That wiener boy incident kicked off a grassroots anti Bush campaign. 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.280 Tom launched a wiener boy website and made ws for 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.359 Wiener bunts that featured a drawing of Bush stuffed inside 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.000 a hot dog bun. Despite Tom's best efforts, the whole 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:23.320 Wiener thing didn't really catch on. Bush got the Republican nomination, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.000 and as the election drew closer, he had even odds 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:28.240 to win the presidency. 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:30.919 The Bush and Gore campaigns don't agree on much, but 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:32.600 tonight they do agree on this. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:34.600 The race goes to the wire. 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.000 But Tom was about to learn something with the potential 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.520 to throw the election into chaos. On the afternoon of Thursday, 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.720 November second, he was in court defending a client when 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:47.560 a friend approached him with some information. 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:49.879 Did you know George Bush had a drunk drive in 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:51.159 charge hearing me? 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:52.440 I said no. 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:54.920 He said yeah. I said no, he said yeah. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:56.760 I said really, He said. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.560 Yeah, Even though his friend said yeah at least three times. 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.920 Tom wanted to confirm it for himself, so he called 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.919 up the Clerk of court in Biddeford, an old milltown 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.480 not far from the Bush family's summer estate and Kennebunkport, Maine. 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.520 So you can need a check for a closed file 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.480 and she said okay, sure, Tom, about you and I 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:19.359 said George Bush. She says, I know that, Like she 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:20.240 was waiting for this call. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.240 You know, the. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.639 Clerk facts Tom what She had a document from nineteen 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.080 seventy six showing that George W. Bush had pleaded guilty 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.359 to a misdemeanor for operating a vehicle under the influence 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.080 and paid a small fine. Although Bush's hard drinking past 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.280 wasn't a secret, he had never revealed this arrest publicly. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.560 And now this powerful, potentially election changing intel had fallen 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.120 into the hands of the w is for Wiener. 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.080 Guy, And I thought, why hasn't this come out? And 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.840 so I'm telling anybody that would listen, Hey, did you know? 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:54.399 Did you know? 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.240 One of the people who listened was a local TV 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.960 reporter who happened to be hanging around the courthouse that afternoon. 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.679 Tom told her what he knew, and then he waited 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:04.480 for the fallout. 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.920 At six o'clock that night, I just watched local news 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.520 and I remember thinking, huh, it's not even on there. 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.040 What Tom didn't know is that his story was now 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.920 in the hands of a national news network. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:21.240 Fox News Channel. We report, you decide. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:33.800 We'll be right back. Fox News Channel learned about George W. 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:38.440 Bush's trunk driving conviction mostly by dumb luck. On November two, 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.679 two thousand, a reporter for a local Fox station got 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.600 a tip from Tom Connolly about Bush's dui. Her station 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.480 then got in touch with its corporate sibling, Fox News 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:50.600 and asked for help confirming the story. 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.040 The internal conversation it was a healthy debate, as it 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.600 should be in any newsroom about does this matter? Is 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:58.119 this fair? 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.960 Ann McGahn worked on the team that coordinated special coverage 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.320 for Fox News primaries, political conventions, and in just five 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.440 days election night. She knew that revealing Bush's drunk driving 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:15.120 arrest could have massive ramifications if Fox chose to report it. 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:20.879 Are we going into gossipy territory? Is it relevant? Is 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:25.800 it sensational? It concerned me slightly, maybe more than slightly. 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:29.080 Ann was a respected producer, but way too junior to 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.240 have any real say. This decision came quickly from the 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:36.359 very top, from Roger Ayles. Fox was going with the story. 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:40.439 Fox News has learned that in nineteen seventy six, Governor 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.200 Bush was arrested in Maine and charged with driving under 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.520 the influence of liquor. The date of the charge October fifteenth, 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:46.560 nineteen seventy. 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.160 Six, Fox's reporter inside the Bush campaign, Carl Cameron broke 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:54.880 the news. CNN, MSNBC and all the broadcast networks scrambled 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.880 to catch up, and everyone had the same question. Had 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.520 Fox News Channel just sunk the Republican presidential candidate. 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.640 There's never been a bigger surprise this leak in the game. 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.480 This whole episode has added a dose of uncertainty to 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:12.439 the Bush campaign at the worst possible moment. 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.240 The question tonight is whether Bush's decision to keep his 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:17.480 arrest from the public will hurt him politically. 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:25.520 Hey, honest. Second, George W. 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:28.359 Bush spoke for himself later that evening and told a 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.600 gaggle of journalists that everything Fox had reported was true. 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:37.919 I oftentimes said that years ago, I made some mistakes. 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.840 I occasionally drank too much, and I did on that night, 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.800 and I regret that it happened, but it did. I've 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:45.719 learned my lesson. 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:51.359 Bush sounded vulnerable, his presidential ambitions, possibly thwarted by the 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:55.199 network everyone had assumed would be his biggest ally, but 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.879 he didn't just apologize for his mistakes. He also wondered 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.320 about the motives of who ever had peddled this scoop. 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:04.040 I think it. I think that's an interesting question. Why now, 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:08.080 four days before an election, I got my suspicious Thank 0:23:08.119 --> 0:23:10.080 you all, I've got my suspicious. 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.679 Bush was basically giving the national media an assignment figure 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:17.880 out where the dui story came from. It didn't take 0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:19.160 long to find an answer. 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.800 Thomas Connolly of flamboyant Portland, lawyer and active Democrat. 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.399 He now operates an outlandish anti Bush website called w 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:28.400 is for Wiener. 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:32.159 When Fox News first reported the dui the focus was 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:35.640 on Bush's drinking and whether he'd hidden his arrest from voters. 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:39.400 Now that Tom had been identified as the source. Producer 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:41.840 Ann McGann watched that focus shift. 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.560 You saw Fox's coverage change a bit. It was softening. 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.280 Twenty four hours after he broke the news of Bush's arrest, 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:54.119 Fox's Carl Cameron reported another story, this one focused almost 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:58.560 entirely on Tom and his Democratic Party ties. Cameron was 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.439 squarely on the news side of Fox News, not an 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:05.560 opinion slinger like Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity. But now 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.680 he was suggesting that the dui story very well could 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:11.919 have been a Democratic plot, and that Tom Connolly had 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:14.800 been part of the plotting. Is it fair to call 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:18.000 it a what you did a political dirty trick? Not 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:19.360 at all dirty trick? 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:20.040 Telling the truth. 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:22.280 No dirty trick is if I sat on and knew 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:25.240 about it in August or something, and then snuck it 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:26.119 out at the last minute. 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:27.160 Maybe that's a dirty trick. 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:27.760 Maybe it's not. 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:28.760 It's called the truth. 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:33.240 Is Tom Drumore scrutiny. George W. Bush did an exclusive 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.840 sit down with Carl Cameron and essentially thanked him and 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:41.080 Fox for looking into where the Dui story came from. 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:46.040 I understand through your reporting and others that a Democrat 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:52.520 official has in Maine put this information out. 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.880 A couple of hours later, Bill O'Reilly told his viewers 0:24:56.920 --> 0:24:59.920 that it was now clear that Fox News had no partisanate, 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:03.919 that the channels reporting on George W. Bush's arrest proved that. 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:07.439 What he didn't say is that Fox then helped Bush 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:12.000 by deflating its own scoop. So why did Fox change course? 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:16.879 O'Reilly offered one possible answer. He said that he'd gotten 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.720 more than five thousand letters about the Dui story, many 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:23.240 of them from viewers who were angry that Fox News 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:26.960 had put Bush in a negative light. Fox's most loyal 0:25:27.000 --> 0:25:31.480 audience members didn't want journalistic neutrality. They wanted their candidate 0:25:31.520 --> 0:25:38.119 to win. Ann McGinn hadn't been at Fox News for 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.480 the network's first presidential election, the one with Beethoven, the 0:25:41.520 --> 0:25:44.720 slabbering Saint Bernard, and Mike Schneider ripping the phone off 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:47.199 the wall. By the time she got to Fox, that 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:50.080 early catastrophe had become a part of workplace lore. 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:53.040 Folks who were there in ninety six, you could see 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:55.200 that they just wanted to put their head in their hand, 0:25:55.480 --> 0:25:57.600 kind of like, wow, that was so bad. 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:00.919 On November seventh, two thousand, Anne would be one of 0:26:00.920 --> 0:26:03.840 the producers in Fox's New York control room, and she 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:06.280 felt certain that this time there wouldn't be any kind 0:26:06.320 --> 0:26:06.880 of debacle. 0:26:07.520 --> 0:26:10.480 It was just like, Okay, look how far we've come. 0:26:10.800 --> 0:26:12.840 We actually know what we're doing now. There was a 0:26:12.840 --> 0:26:13.720 confidence I felt. 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:17.119 In two thousand, Fox's election special would be hosted by 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:19.000 the network's two star anchors. 0:26:19.480 --> 0:26:23.000 Now God Great Human follows on, We're continuing election night coverage. 0:26:23.040 --> 0:26:25.920 That's clear and consids on America's number one network for 0:26:26.040 --> 0:26:28.800 political coverage. 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:33.320 Sean Hannity's primetime opinion show would get preempted on election night, 0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:37.159 but that afternoon, Anne and her boss saw the conservative 0:26:37.160 --> 0:26:40.200 host coming out of his office. Ann says that as 0:26:40.240 --> 0:26:43.080 they passed each other, Hannity made a prediction about the 0:26:43.080 --> 0:26:44.000 presidential race. 0:26:44.840 --> 0:26:48.560 I think our guys got this, and I had a 0:26:48.560 --> 0:26:52.120 physical reaction. My head snapped back, and I thought, our guy, 0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:55.200 who's our guy? We have no guy, but I know 0:26:55.320 --> 0:26:58.960 exactly who Sean Hannity was referring to, and I thought 0:26:59.000 --> 0:27:02.480 it was very sumptuous that he was assuming that we 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:04.280 all had the same guy. 0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:09.160 A Fox News spokesperson says, Sean Hannity has no recollection 0:27:09.240 --> 0:27:12.280 of this, but no matter which candidate Hannity or the 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:15.280 rest of Fox preferred, election night would come down to 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:16.439 how America voted. 0:27:17.400 --> 0:27:19.520 As the country desires, We'll bring you up to the 0:27:19.560 --> 0:27:22.080 minute results with a special eye on the exit polls 0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:23.800 and the crucial electoral vote county. 0:27:24.800 --> 0:27:28.639 The broadcast networks, CNN and Fox News all relied on 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:31.280 the same source for their state by state vote totals, 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:35.320 a group called Voter News Service. While all the channels 0:27:35.359 --> 0:27:38.080 had the same data, they still made their own calls, 0:27:38.560 --> 0:27:41.520 relying on in house decision teams to crunch the numbers 0:27:41.640 --> 0:27:45.600 and project which candidate had won. These decision desks were 0:27:45.600 --> 0:27:48.159 typically kept separate from the rest of the newsroom to 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:52.600 avoid outside influence, and they were seen as basically infallible. 0:27:53.440 --> 0:27:56.200 If we say somebody's carriage state, you can pretty much 0:27:56.240 --> 0:27:59.000 take it to the bank book it if that's true. 0:27:59.200 --> 0:28:02.320 The Fox Control only heard from the decision team through 0:28:02.359 --> 0:28:05.840 an intermediary who gave Ann's boss a heads up whenever 0:28:05.880 --> 0:28:06.760 a call got made. 0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:12.080 Results are in this is what it is Fox News Projects. 0:28:11.720 --> 0:28:14.920 At Fox those projections would trigger an on screen graphic 0:28:15.000 --> 0:28:18.439 and sound effect, the wiz Bang New. 0:28:18.320 --> 0:28:22.280 Hampshire Roll the whiz Bang Delaware. Oh, I love the 0:28:22.320 --> 0:28:25.359 wiz Bag. It would wiz in and like do a 0:28:25.440 --> 0:28:28.080 turn and then there's like a star effect at the 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:30.959 bottom to make it look very pretty and official and patriotic. 0:28:31.720 --> 0:28:35.600 Sh sh that was great. 0:28:37.440 --> 0:28:40.800 The Knight's first consequential whiz Bang came around seven to 0:28:40.880 --> 0:28:42.320 fifty pm Eastern time. 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:44.040 We've just been able to make a call in the 0:28:44.080 --> 0:28:46.720 state of Florida and Fox News Projects at al Gore 0:28:46.800 --> 0:28:48.720 will carry the state of Florida's. 0:28:48.360 --> 0:28:50.840 Fox News wasn't going out on a limb there. They 0:28:50.840 --> 0:28:54.640 made their call after CBS, CNN, and NBC. 0:28:55.360 --> 0:28:57.600 He wins the twenty five electoral votes. 0:28:57.760 --> 0:28:59.880 It turns out that Governor Jeb Bush was not his 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:00.720 brothers keeper. 0:29:01.200 --> 0:29:05.040 After all those announcements, Gore wins Florida felt like a 0:29:05.080 --> 0:29:08.040 settled fact, and it seemed like the election could be 0:29:08.080 --> 0:29:15.200 trending his way. But then two hours later everything got unsettled. 0:29:15.600 --> 0:29:18.640 Florida is now too close to call with the networks. 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:20.560 Give us the networks, take it away. 0:29:20.920 --> 0:29:23.520 Computer and data problem one of the CBS News Election 0:29:23.680 --> 0:29:24.840 night headlines of the hour. 0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:28.160 The numbers from voter News service had been off, and 0:29:28.240 --> 0:29:32.440 the network decision teams weren't so infallible after all. By 0:29:32.480 --> 0:29:35.360 this point it was clear that whoever really won Florida 0:29:35.520 --> 0:29:38.200 was going to win the White House, and Fox's Bridge 0:29:38.240 --> 0:29:41.800 Hume sounded totally uncertain about when the night might end. 0:29:42.200 --> 0:29:44.960 The decision desks all over the place are looking at this, 0:29:45.120 --> 0:29:47.560 scratching her heads and unable to call this race. 0:29:47.920 --> 0:29:50.600 As Tuesday night turned to Wednesday morning, it felt like 0:29:50.680 --> 0:29:54.480 nothing was going to break the deadlock. But at two 0:29:54.640 --> 0:29:57.880 sixteen am Eastern, the wiz Bang banged again. 0:29:58.640 --> 0:30:01.640 Is now projects w Bush the winner in Florida, and 0:30:01.720 --> 0:30:04.280 thus it appears the winner of the presidency of the 0:30:04.360 --> 0:30:06.280 United States Fox News projection. 0:30:06.560 --> 0:30:09.880 This time, Fox was taking the lead projecting Florida for 0:30:09.960 --> 0:30:13.400 Bush before any of the other networks, and Bridge Hume 0:30:13.520 --> 0:30:15.120 didn't sound totally convinced. 0:30:15.440 --> 0:30:17.680 I must tell you, everybody, after all of this, all 0:30:17.800 --> 0:30:20.040 night long, I feel a little bit apprehensive about the 0:30:20.040 --> 0:30:20.400 whole thing. 0:30:20.440 --> 0:30:21.120 I have no. 0:30:21.040 --> 0:30:24.959 Reason to doubt our decision desk, but but there it is. 0:30:25.280 --> 0:30:29.000 At Bush headquarters in Austin, Texas, the candidate's chief strategist, 0:30:29.120 --> 0:30:32.520 Carl Rove, was feeling wary too. When that call came 0:30:32.560 --> 0:30:36.640 across the screen. Rove said, it's just Fox, but it 0:30:36.680 --> 0:30:40.520 wouldn't be just Fox for long. Within minutes, everyone in 0:30:40.600 --> 0:30:42.920 TV news that made the exact same call. 0:30:43.240 --> 0:30:44.320 Oh, something's happened. 0:30:44.440 --> 0:30:46.520 George Bush is the president of the Black of the 0:30:46.600 --> 0:30:47.120 United States. 0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:48.160 Florida goes Bush. 0:30:48.320 --> 0:30:51.520 The presidency is Bush. That's it. Unless there is a 0:30:51.640 --> 0:30:55.800 terrible calamity. George W. Bush, by our projections, is going 0:30:55.840 --> 0:31:00.000 to be the next president of the United States. 0:31:00.240 --> 0:31:04.400 Victory Party in Austin was ecstatic about their candidates projected 0:31:04.440 --> 0:31:08.160 when and the network that called it first and Fox 0:31:08.200 --> 0:31:11.040 anchor paula Is on wanted to make sure her channel 0:31:11.280 --> 0:31:12.600 got the credit it deserved. 0:31:13.040 --> 0:31:15.600 We're gonna take some time out now for some shameless 0:31:15.760 --> 0:31:17.920 self promotion. You want to know what these folks are 0:31:17.920 --> 0:31:21.000 waving at on the JumboTron themselves? They are seeing themselves 0:31:21.000 --> 0:31:24.360 on the Fox News channel feed the way, a lot 0:31:24.360 --> 0:31:27.760 of these folks found out that the president. 0:31:27.440 --> 0:31:31.600 Elect at Gore headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. It wouldn't stop raining, 0:31:32.160 --> 0:31:34.880 and the Democratic nominee was certain it was all over. 0:31:35.680 --> 0:31:37.920 Gore had to call and concede. 0:31:38.360 --> 0:31:41.920 Jenny Bachis was the communications director for the Democratic National 0:31:41.960 --> 0:31:45.080 Committee on election eight, she was in the Gore campaign's 0:31:45.160 --> 0:31:46.080 war room. 0:31:46.200 --> 0:31:48.640 Gore was going to go get his speech, which was 0:31:48.640 --> 0:31:51.800 probably like five minutes away, and that's just when all 0:31:51.840 --> 0:31:52.720 chaos broke loose. 0:31:53.800 --> 0:31:57.080 The Florida Secretary of State says, the margin in Florida, 0:31:57.680 --> 0:31:58.760 get this, folks. 0:31:58.840 --> 0:32:04.160 Six When Fox had called Florida for Bush, his lead 0:32:04.280 --> 0:32:07.800 was in the tens of thousands. Now with the margin 0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:11.960 shrinking down to almost nothing, it felt absurd for Gore 0:32:12.080 --> 0:32:13.480 to give up on the presidency. 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:15.640 And I'm like, can I call the networks? Can I 0:32:15.680 --> 0:32:16.480 call the networks? 0:32:16.920 --> 0:32:19.320 Jenny got the go ahead and told one of her 0:32:19.360 --> 0:32:23.440 network contacts that Gore was taking back his concession. 0:32:23.200 --> 0:32:26.040 And she said, are you fucking sure? And I said, 0:32:26.200 --> 0:32:28.040 I'm fucking sure, and I gotta go. 0:32:28.480 --> 0:32:33.600 Vice President Al Gore has called Governor Bush and retracted 0:32:33.640 --> 0:32:37.640 his concession because he is now of the mind that 0:32:37.680 --> 0:32:40.200 things could be turning yet again in Florida. 0:32:43.480 --> 0:32:45.880 The truth is, no one should have called Florida for 0:32:45.960 --> 0:32:46.520 George W. 0:32:46.600 --> 0:32:47.080 Bush. 0:32:47.360 --> 0:32:49.920 The margin was just too narrow and the chances of 0:32:49.920 --> 0:32:53.680 a data air were just too high. The Associated Press 0:32:53.760 --> 0:32:56.440 understood that and decided that they couldn't make a projection. 0:32:57.280 --> 0:33:00.200 But Fox News and its television rivals all screw root 0:33:00.320 --> 0:33:06.160 up twice. Fox's second retraction came after CBS, ABC and 0:33:06.440 --> 0:33:09.840 NBC had already pulled back their calls. It was around 0:33:09.880 --> 0:33:13.239 four AM as gores campaign chairman called out Fox and 0:33:13.320 --> 0:33:15.800 everyone else for giving the race to Bush. 0:33:16.560 --> 0:33:25.200 It now appears that their call was premature. Now returning 0:33:25.240 --> 0:33:27.560 the state of Florida through the too close to Call 0:33:27.680 --> 0:33:32.760 column in light of developments there, it would take. 0:33:32.640 --> 0:33:35.640 A recount and a whole slew of bitter legal fights 0:33:35.720 --> 0:33:39.280 before a real winner could be declared. The whiplash on 0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:43.520 election night had sewed chaos, anger, and confusion. There was 0:33:43.600 --> 0:33:46.880 plenty of blame to go around to Voter News Service, 0:33:47.040 --> 0:33:50.320 whose data had helped lead the TV networks astray, to 0:33:50.360 --> 0:33:53.960 the networks themselves for caring more about being first than 0:33:54.000 --> 0:33:57.920 being right, and to Fox News in particular for leading 0:33:57.960 --> 0:34:00.000 the way and declaring that Bush had won. 0:34:00.680 --> 0:34:03.320 But it mattered that Fox News was the first network 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:06.960 They called not only Florida for Bush, but the country 0:34:07.000 --> 0:34:10.040 for Bush, and it has shaped the way we perceive things. 0:34:10.480 --> 0:34:13.200 Is sort of like, you know, Bush was the presumed 0:34:13.200 --> 0:34:15.440 president Gores trying to snatch something away. 0:34:16.320 --> 0:34:18.640 A lot of people wanted to know how Fox News 0:34:18.680 --> 0:34:21.640 had made such an important decision, one that had created 0:34:21.640 --> 0:34:25.279 the impression that the election was over soon. They'd all 0:34:25.280 --> 0:34:28.680 be focusing on the man who ran the Fox Decision team. 0:34:29.040 --> 0:34:30.520 His name was John. 0:34:30.280 --> 0:34:38.520 Ellis, and he was George W. Bush's first cousin. Let's 0:34:38.520 --> 0:34:47.600 take a quick break. John Prescott Ellis grew up in 0:34:47.680 --> 0:34:52.200 Conquered Massachusetts, the grandson of a US senator. He roomed 0:34:52.200 --> 0:34:55.040 with A Kennedy at the private Milton Academy, then moved 0:34:55.080 --> 0:34:57.920 on to Yale. After college, she got a job at 0:34:58.040 --> 0:35:01.279 NBC as a producer in their election nit, but he 0:35:01.320 --> 0:35:04.440 stepped down in nineteen eighty nine after his uncle, George 0:35:04.440 --> 0:35:07.960 Herbert Walker Bush got elected president to avoid the appearance 0:35:08.000 --> 0:35:12.800 of a conflict of interest. Ellis's relationship with Fox News 0:35:12.920 --> 0:35:16.440 began after the channel's first election fiasco, the one in 0:35:16.480 --> 0:35:19.920 nineteen ninety six. Here's Ellis in an interview with c SPAN. 0:35:20.320 --> 0:35:23.680 They had what Roger Ayles felt was not a very 0:35:23.719 --> 0:35:26.719 good night, so he asked me to come in and 0:35:26.840 --> 0:35:29.520 sort of do the decision desk team to professionalize the 0:35:29.560 --> 0:35:30.399 operation there. 0:35:32.480 --> 0:35:35.080 Ellis ran the decision team during the nineteen ninety eight 0:35:35.080 --> 0:35:38.160 midterms and the two thousand primaries, but his work didn't 0:35:38.200 --> 0:35:42.520 draw much scrutiny. Fox producer Ann mcghinn remembers hearing something 0:35:42.560 --> 0:35:45.239 about his family connections, but it didn't seem like a 0:35:45.320 --> 0:35:46.279 huge problem. 0:35:46.600 --> 0:35:50.600 He was related in some way to the Bush family, 0:35:51.040 --> 0:35:54.960 but then hearing that he is qualified in his own right, 0:35:55.200 --> 0:35:57.240 felt like, Okay, we'll give the benefit of the doubt, 0:35:57.440 --> 0:35:59.440 and what kind of effect could that have on an election? 0:35:59.520 --> 0:35:59.920 Anyway? 0:36:01.000 --> 0:36:03.520 No one had expected the two thousand election to come 0:36:03.560 --> 0:36:06.719 down to a couple hundred votes, or that Fox's call 0:36:06.760 --> 0:36:10.600 in Florida would be so pivotal. But even so, the 0:36:10.640 --> 0:36:13.480 makeup of the Fox News decision desk wasn't getting much 0:36:13.480 --> 0:36:17.760 attention until six days after the election, when John Ellis 0:36:17.800 --> 0:36:21.000 spoke with a reporter. Here's Ellis in a twenty twenty 0:36:21.000 --> 0:36:21.799 three podcast. 0:36:22.239 --> 0:36:24.759 I did an interview with what I the person I 0:36:24.760 --> 0:36:27.360 thought was a friend of mine from the New Yorker. 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:31.000 That came out, and there was a lot of drama 0:36:31.040 --> 0:36:33.600 because I'm related to the Bush family. 0:36:35.120 --> 0:36:38.080 That New Yorker piece was written by Jane Mayer, and 0:36:38.440 --> 0:36:42.440 Ellis seemed excited to relive his election calling adventures. How 0:36:42.480 --> 0:36:45.560 the afternoon exit polls had looked so bleak for Bush 0:36:45.640 --> 0:36:48.840 that he'd pantomimed a next slash and Roger ALS's office, 0:36:49.120 --> 0:36:52.080 How he'd watched the numbers in Florida flip in Bush's favor, 0:36:52.719 --> 0:36:54.960 How it was so cool to be on the phone 0:36:54.960 --> 0:36:57.799 that night with his two cousins, the governor and the 0:36:57.800 --> 0:37:01.799 president elect. It was a short article, less than seven 0:37:01.880 --> 0:37:05.000 hundred words, but when it got published, the whole world 0:37:05.120 --> 0:37:07.279 knew where John Ellis worked and who was in his 0:37:07.360 --> 0:37:08.200 family tree. 0:37:08.520 --> 0:37:10.800 It does not look good for Fox News. 0:37:10.880 --> 0:37:11.919 I mean, that's just the trip. 0:37:12.160 --> 0:37:14.480 I watched Fox all night and I think it was 0:37:14.600 --> 0:37:17.120 misinformation for us to be told things. 0:37:17.160 --> 0:37:19.680 And it turns out that your analysts say it was 0:37:19.760 --> 0:37:21.200 the cousin of George Bush. 0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:23.839 It makes me very very concerned. 0:37:28.400 --> 0:37:31.040 Before election day and even for a few days after, 0:37:31.520 --> 0:37:34.680 almost no one knew or cared that Bush's cousin was 0:37:34.760 --> 0:37:38.600 running the Fox News decision team. Now, the whole thing 0:37:38.680 --> 0:37:42.600 seemed totally bizarre and scandalous, like if the home plate 0:37:42.680 --> 0:37:45.399 umpire in the World Series game was cousins with one 0:37:45.400 --> 0:37:49.439 of the starting pitchers. Sleet's then editor Michael Kinsley thought 0:37:49.440 --> 0:37:50.640 it was all pretty rich. 0:37:51.080 --> 0:37:53.280 If it had been a cousin of Al Gore sitting 0:37:53.320 --> 0:37:57.160 there making this call, Republicans would be burning up the 0:37:57.200 --> 0:38:00.120 phone lines and spreading all sorts of conspiracy theory. 0:38:01.040 --> 0:38:04.040 The person who made the strongest case against John Ellis 0:38:04.440 --> 0:38:08.400 was John Ellis. Along with his decision desk work, Ellis 0:38:08.400 --> 0:38:11.440 had a regular column in The Boston Globe. In nineteen 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:13.839 ninety nine, he told his readers that he wouldn't write 0:38:13.840 --> 0:38:17.279 about the upcoming presidential race. He said, there is no 0:38:17.400 --> 0:38:19.040 way for you to know if I am telling you 0:38:19.080 --> 0:38:22.719 the truth about George W. Bush's presidential campaign, because in 0:38:22.760 --> 0:38:26.160 his case, my loyalty goes to him and not to you. 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:29.879 He's too biased to write an opinion column, but he's 0:38:29.920 --> 0:38:33.880 somehow hirable to make some of the most important news 0:38:33.960 --> 0:38:36.319 decisions at the Fox News Channel. I don't see how 0:38:36.360 --> 0:38:37.200 that quite works out. 0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:43.080 After The New Yorker published its story about Ellis, Fox 0:38:43.120 --> 0:38:46.640 pleaded ignorance about his election night phone calls. One of 0:38:46.680 --> 0:38:50.160 Fox's editorial leaders, John Moody, said he hadn't known that 0:38:50.200 --> 0:38:52.640 the guy running the channel's decision desk had been chatting 0:38:52.760 --> 0:38:56.239 up his cousins. In an internal memo, Moody wrote that 0:38:56.280 --> 0:39:02.400 Ellis's status was under review. Meanwhile, totally absolved itself of wrongdoing. 0:39:03.200 --> 0:39:05.400 John Moody said it would have been a strange not 0:39:05.520 --> 0:39:07.560 to hire Ellis because of who he is related to 0:39:08.040 --> 0:39:12.239 as to hire him because of his relatives. Seriously, that 0:39:12.440 --> 0:39:14.680 was their argument, that it would have been just as 0:39:14.760 --> 0:39:20.600 unethical not to employ George W. Bush's cousin. Finally, Fox 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:23.640 explained that the head of its decision desk wasn't really 0:39:23.680 --> 0:39:27.480 the one in charge. That John Moody, not John Ellis, 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:30.279 had given the ultimate sign off on the Florida call. 0:39:30.760 --> 0:39:33.520 This was sort of one of the earliest instances of 0:39:33.640 --> 0:39:36.240 night being day dealing with Fox at times. 0:39:36.800 --> 0:39:39.840 David Fokenflick is now a media correspondent for in PR, 0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:42.319 but in two thousand he was on that beat for 0:39:42.320 --> 0:39:46.560 The Baltimore Sun. Back then, David heard all of Fox's 0:39:46.560 --> 0:39:50.040 span about John Ellis's role on election night, but he 0:39:50.120 --> 0:39:52.920 also knew that they were scrambling behind the scenes to 0:39:53.040 --> 0:39:54.440 rewrite the LS narrative. 0:39:54.840 --> 0:39:57.000 I get these furious calls from a guy who worked 0:39:57.000 --> 0:39:57.480 for Fox. 0:39:58.280 --> 0:40:00.759 It just so happened that the ball Tamar Sun had 0:40:00.760 --> 0:40:03.880 assigned a freelancer to embed with the Fox News decision 0:40:03.960 --> 0:40:07.960 team on election Night. Now Fox PR wanted David to 0:40:08.040 --> 0:40:11.239 command that reporter to say publicly that John Ellis had 0:40:11.280 --> 0:40:12.560 not been calling the shots. 0:40:13.120 --> 0:40:15.360 He wasn't saying I need a favor. He said, this 0:40:15.440 --> 0:40:16.480 is what's going to happen. 0:40:17.080 --> 0:40:20.040 That Baltimore Sun freelancer had left early on election night 0:40:20.280 --> 0:40:23.920 and hadn't gotten much information, but she had passed along 0:40:24.080 --> 0:40:28.200 one important thing. John Ellis had told her directly that 0:40:28.239 --> 0:40:30.520 he was the one making the calls for Fox News. 0:40:31.440 --> 0:40:34.640 That's what David said to Fox PR, and Fox PR 0:40:34.840 --> 0:40:35.680 didn't want to hear it. 0:40:36.440 --> 0:40:39.759 This was met with a fiery blast. You know you're 0:40:39.760 --> 0:40:42.000 trying to fuck us over, and the answer is no, 0:40:42.080 --> 0:40:45.239 I'm telling you this is what she observed. This was 0:40:45.719 --> 0:40:48.520 for years a reference point and a grievance point with 0:40:48.600 --> 0:40:50.520 Fox every time I did some reporting. 0:40:50.239 --> 0:40:50.799 They didn't like. 0:40:54.640 --> 0:40:57.640 But even if John Ellis did make the Florida call personally, 0:40:58.120 --> 0:41:02.120 there was still a big unanswered question had he intentionally 0:41:02.160 --> 0:41:05.840 cooked the books for his first cousin. Ellis declined to 0:41:05.880 --> 0:41:08.640 talk to us for this podcast, but over the last 0:41:08.640 --> 0:41:11.719 twenty four years he said emphatically that he didn't do 0:41:11.920 --> 0:41:13.080 anything nefarious. 0:41:13.840 --> 0:41:17.880 It's hard to imagine how preposterous conspiracy theories are until 0:41:17.920 --> 0:41:19.600 you find yourself at the center of one. 0:41:22.200 --> 0:41:25.200 In December two thousand, Ellis wrote his own blow by 0:41:25.239 --> 0:41:28.759 blow account of election night. In that article, he said 0:41:28.760 --> 0:41:32.160 that Fox's decision to call Florida for Bush was totally 0:41:32.239 --> 0:41:36.160 empirical that based on the vote counts, al Gore simply 0:41:36.239 --> 0:41:40.160 could not overcome the math. But another member of the 0:41:40.200 --> 0:41:43.480 Fox decision team later said that Ellis wasn't looking at 0:41:43.480 --> 0:41:46.040 the numbers when he made the call. She said he 0:41:46.120 --> 0:41:48.480 was actually on the phone with his cousin, Jeb, the 0:41:48.520 --> 0:41:52.080 governor of Florida, and according to her. When Ellis hung up, 0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:55.040 he announced to the rest of the team, Jebby says, 0:41:55.080 --> 0:41:58.880 we got it. Jebby says, we got it. But Fox 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:01.760 News wasn't the only NAE work to call Florida for Bush, 0:42:02.120 --> 0:42:06.080 just the first. So was Fox really responsible for everyone 0:42:06.120 --> 0:42:09.879 else falling in line? Ellis said this in twenty twenty three. 0:42:10.880 --> 0:42:13.879 If I'd never realized I had the power to make 0:42:14.000 --> 0:42:17.640 CBS call for a Bush and make NBC call for. 0:42:17.640 --> 0:42:21.720 Bush, Ellis didn't have the power to make CBS do anything. 0:42:22.560 --> 0:42:25.480 When Fox made its call at two sixteen am, the 0:42:25.560 --> 0:42:29.200 leader of the combined CBS and CNN decision desks declined 0:42:29.239 --> 0:42:33.040 to follow suit, saying Fox has an agenda, don't forget. 0:42:37.120 --> 0:42:40.400 But NBC made a different decision. When the head of 0:42:40.440 --> 0:42:44.359 that decision desk heard about Fox's projection, he immediately hung 0:42:44.440 --> 0:42:47.680 up a phone call, saying, sorry, gotta go. Fox just 0:42:47.760 --> 0:42:51.680 called it. NBC would declare Bush the President elect a 0:42:51.680 --> 0:42:54.680 minute and a half after Fox did. Just twenty two 0:42:54.760 --> 0:42:58.880 seconds after that, CBS and CNN called it too. The 0:42:58.960 --> 0:43:03.600 network's clearly he felt competitive pressure instigated by Fox News's call. 0:43:04.360 --> 0:43:07.239 Maybe if Fox didn't call the race first, nobody would 0:43:07.239 --> 0:43:09.440 have jumped the gun, and we could have lived in 0:43:09.440 --> 0:43:12.840 a world where neither candidate was the presumed president elect. 0:43:13.480 --> 0:43:16.440 Other networks were definitely influenced by the fact that someone 0:43:16.480 --> 0:43:21.520 had gone first and said, in this fraught moment, George W. 0:43:21.600 --> 0:43:24.120 Bush will be the next president of the United States. What 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:26.719 you hear in journalism all the time is you want 0:43:26.719 --> 0:43:28.680 to be first, but it's more important to be right. 0:43:29.280 --> 0:43:31.239 What you see all the time is you want to 0:43:31.280 --> 0:43:33.680 be first, and yes, we'd like to be right. 0:43:34.480 --> 0:43:37.680 Here's where I come down. It was totally nuts for 0:43:37.760 --> 0:43:40.120 Fox News to put John Ellis in charge of its 0:43:40.160 --> 0:43:43.680 decision desk. It was also nuts for Ellis not to 0:43:43.719 --> 0:43:46.560 recuse himself and to be chatting it up with George 0:43:46.600 --> 0:43:49.360 and Jeb Bush all night. But I don't believe that 0:43:49.480 --> 0:43:52.400 Fox or Ellis had some kind of secret plan to 0:43:52.440 --> 0:43:56.239 steal the presidency. So why was John Ellis running the 0:43:56.280 --> 0:44:00.239 Fox News decision team during the two thousand election. Think 0:44:00.280 --> 0:44:03.759 Fox was sending two different signals. The first was to 0:44:03.800 --> 0:44:07.480 a potential Republican administration, showing that the network would be 0:44:07.520 --> 0:44:11.040 full of friendly faces. The second signal went out to 0:44:11.120 --> 0:44:12.400 Fox's media peers. 0:44:13.000 --> 0:44:15.160 It was a kind of a wink at the rest 0:44:15.200 --> 0:44:18.160 of the establishment press, saying we can create our own 0:44:18.200 --> 0:44:20.759 counter establishment. And by the way, if you guys are 0:44:20.800 --> 0:44:23.600 going to get all pious about it, screw you. It's 0:44:23.640 --> 0:44:25.680 them saying, hey, we don't have to live by your rules. 0:44:26.280 --> 0:44:28.400 You know, we write our own rules. 0:44:30.040 --> 0:44:33.520 Fox's rule breaking did inspire a bunch of piousness about 0:44:33.520 --> 0:44:36.640 ethics and morals and all that high and mighty journalism 0:44:36.719 --> 0:44:39.719 kind of stuff. Congress also took an interest in how 0:44:39.760 --> 0:44:42.640 Fox and everyone else in TV news bungled the election. 0:44:43.480 --> 0:44:46.120 In his testimony in Washington, d C. In two thousand 0:44:46.120 --> 0:44:49.040 and one, Roger Ailes actually said he was sorry. 0:44:49.440 --> 0:44:53.239 Our lengthy and critical self examination shows that we let 0:44:53.280 --> 0:44:54.520 our viewers down. 0:44:55.000 --> 0:44:57.839 I apologize for making those bad projections that night. 0:44:58.000 --> 0:45:02.920 It will not happen again. Ales may have apologized, but 0:45:03.000 --> 0:45:06.600 he wasn't admitting that Fox did anything wrong. He said 0:45:06.640 --> 0:45:09.839 that those bad projections were caused by bad numbers from 0:45:09.920 --> 0:45:13.800 Voter News Service. In his written testimony, Ales added that 0:45:13.880 --> 0:45:16.560 John Ellis was a consummate professional, and he said that 0:45:16.600 --> 0:45:19.520 Ellis's frequent phone calls to his cousins on election night 0:45:19.719 --> 0:45:22.360 were nothing more than a good journalist talking to his 0:45:22.560 --> 0:45:26.200 very high level sources, or to put it in another way, 0:45:27.200 --> 0:45:31.960 screw you. Ellis would ultimately resign his position leading the 0:45:31.960 --> 0:45:34.759 Fox News decision desk, but the role he played in 0:45:34.800 --> 0:45:38.560 the two thousand election loomed large for Fox's critics, including 0:45:38.560 --> 0:45:40.480 the Daily Shows John Stewart. 0:45:40.280 --> 0:45:42.640 Mister Bocle has forced network higher ups to change their 0:45:42.680 --> 0:45:46.239 slogan from we report you decide to we report you 0:45:46.400 --> 0:45:47.120 can suck it. 0:45:49.520 --> 0:45:52.880 That was sort of the beginning of the Democratic axiom 0:45:53.000 --> 0:45:55.560 that Fox News is the axis of all evil. 0:45:58.200 --> 0:46:01.600 Democratic spokesperson Jenny back Guests says the two thousand election 0:46:01.800 --> 0:46:04.680 and the recount that followed made her see the world differently. 0:46:05.400 --> 0:46:08.480 She believed that Fox News was a destructive influence on 0:46:08.520 --> 0:46:12.440 American life. She was also jealous of its power and reach. 0:46:13.160 --> 0:46:16.279 The Republicans had a motor in their motor boat that 0:46:16.400 --> 0:46:18.880 was a cable news station that was taking their talking 0:46:18.920 --> 0:46:21.319 points and pushing it out or approaching the news of 0:46:21.360 --> 0:46:23.879 the day from that perspective, we didn't have that. 0:46:24.600 --> 0:46:27.279 I started wising up during the recount. 0:46:27.840 --> 0:46:30.840 Fox News producer Anne McGahn had been scandalized when she 0:46:30.920 --> 0:46:34.160 heard Sean Hannity say that George W. Bush was our guy. 0:46:35.120 --> 0:46:38.160 Now she started picking up that vibe everywhere at Fox. 0:46:38.880 --> 0:46:43.480 It became much more apparent how the organization felt. I 0:46:43.520 --> 0:46:47.800 just was left with this constant feeling of people really 0:46:47.840 --> 0:46:49.920 hope that this is going to go towards Bush. 0:46:50.440 --> 0:46:53.000 A special edition of The O'Reilly Factor is on tonight. 0:46:53.040 --> 0:46:53.880 It looks like George W. 0:46:54.000 --> 0:46:56.560 Bush has it is on election night, Fox News called 0:46:56.600 --> 0:47:01.440 Florida ninety seconds before anyone else the legal wrangling started. 0:47:01.760 --> 0:47:04.440 Bill O'Reilly declared that Bush had won more than two 0:47:04.520 --> 0:47:07.200 weeks before the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. 0:47:07.560 --> 0:47:10.360 This whole thing in Florida was about hustle and calculation 0:47:10.719 --> 0:47:12.080 on the part of al Gore's team. 0:47:12.320 --> 0:47:15.959 They brilliantly executed a plan that almost gave the vice 0:47:16.000 --> 0:47:16.759 president to win. 0:47:17.080 --> 0:47:20.640 During the Florida recount, Fox News's audience grew four hundred 0:47:20.680 --> 0:47:23.319 and forty percent to an average of more than a 0:47:23.360 --> 0:47:27.600 million daily viewers. When the numbers settled back down, Fox's 0:47:27.600 --> 0:47:31.920 audience was still bigger than MSNBC's basically permanently, and it 0:47:32.000 --> 0:47:35.480 was closing in on CNN. Fox News now had a 0:47:35.560 --> 0:47:38.239 loyal army of fans, and when they called in to 0:47:38.320 --> 0:47:42.239 Fox's weekend media criticism show. They expressed their gratitude for 0:47:42.280 --> 0:47:43.880 what they were seeing and hearing. 0:47:44.400 --> 0:47:46.920 You're the only ones who give a fair and balanced 0:47:47.040 --> 0:47:48.120 news of the election. 0:47:48.239 --> 0:47:51.719 I did choose Box channel surfing because I felt that 0:47:51.719 --> 0:47:53.240 they were touching the closest to the truth. 0:47:53.440 --> 0:47:55.759 I really can only stand a turn on Fox News 0:47:55.760 --> 0:47:57.799 to hear the coverage because it seems to be the 0:47:57.840 --> 0:48:00.840 only network that reports it in a fair manner. 0:48:02.040 --> 0:48:06.560 We would get messages from people saying, we've burnt the 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:10.680 Fox News icon into our TV screens because we have 0:48:10.760 --> 0:48:12.879 an on all day, so when you turn off the TV, 0:48:12.920 --> 0:48:15.320 you'd still see Fox News burned into the glass. 0:48:15.760 --> 0:48:17.640 Fox producer Caroline Brunner. 0:48:17.880 --> 0:48:21.279 That was a turning point for me, realizing that things 0:48:21.280 --> 0:48:24.640 were a bit different. The Fox News bug, the logo, 0:48:24.760 --> 0:48:28.160 it started moving because otherwise it was burning into screens. 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:33.120 That Fox News logo started spinning in the summer of 0:48:33.160 --> 0:48:36.160 two thousand and one, a few months into the Bush presidency, 0:48:36.400 --> 0:48:38.799 in less than five years after the channel got off 0:48:38.880 --> 0:48:42.360 the ground. At that point, Anne and Caroline and a 0:48:42.400 --> 0:48:44.839 bunch more of the Fox staffers we spoke with said 0:48:44.880 --> 0:48:47.279 they still believed in each other, but they knew that 0:48:47.360 --> 0:48:50.720 Fox News was becoming a different place, that a whole, 0:48:50.760 --> 0:48:54.240 big universe of Americans believed in Fox in a different 0:48:54.280 --> 0:48:55.040 way than they did. 0:48:55.960 --> 0:48:58.520 I would travel around and I would tell people. They'd ask, 0:48:58.560 --> 0:48:59.080 what do you do? 0:48:59.200 --> 0:49:02.800 I worked for Fox News Capitol Hill producer Jim Mills, 0:49:03.040 --> 0:49:04.160 and it's oh, man. 0:49:04.040 --> 0:49:05.040 Fox, I love Fox. 0:49:05.160 --> 0:49:08.560 That's all I watch. And I would say to them, 0:49:09.120 --> 0:49:10.640 don't do that to your brain. 0:49:18.200 --> 0:49:20.839 Coming up this season on Slowburn, so we. 0:49:20.960 --> 0:49:23.880 Just expect to do fine balanced journalists. 0:49:24.080 --> 0:49:26.400 I said to Roger, the last thing you are at 0:49:26.400 --> 0:49:27.440 fair and balanced. 0:49:27.719 --> 0:49:29.040 That should have been my slogan. 0:49:29.400 --> 0:49:31.520 It was like, oh, I'm living in a Vanity Fair article. 0:49:31.600 --> 0:49:33.759 Oh my god, this is insanity. 0:49:34.400 --> 0:49:36.239 He writes it in his book. He tries to make 0:49:36.239 --> 0:49:36.480 me out. 0:49:36.520 --> 0:49:39.040 No no, no, no, no no no, that's shut up. Yeah 0:49:39.160 --> 0:49:40.560 you thirty five minutes. 0:49:40.920 --> 0:49:41.879 Shut up. 0:49:42.960 --> 0:49:46.600 There were moments where I'm like, wait, are you fucking serious? 0:49:47.239 --> 0:49:49.960 You know, sending a woman out to pretend to date 0:49:50.000 --> 0:49:51.279 me was just idiotic. 0:49:52.000 --> 0:49:53.080 I can tell you this now. 0:49:53.200 --> 0:49:54.240 Roger was my source. 0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:57.560 And why do you feel comfortable saying this publicly? 0:49:57.680 --> 0:49:57.919 Now? 0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:00.960 Well, I don't think people really asked. 0:50:04.160 --> 0:50:08.200 And next time, before Fox News, Roger Ales launched another 0:50:08.280 --> 0:50:11.880 cable network, a channel that was a political and strange 0:50:12.400 --> 0:50:14.960 and that he believed would be a huge success. 0:50:15.640 --> 0:50:18.799 Roger would stand on a soapbox in the middle of 0:50:19.160 --> 0:50:23.920 the newsroom. He's giving us our marching orders, and we 0:50:23.960 --> 0:50:26.040 want to do it right for this guy. 0:50:29.320 --> 0:50:31.960 We couldn't make slow Burn without support from our members, 0:50:32.120 --> 0:50:34.279 and I strongly urge you to sign up for Slave 0:50:34.320 --> 0:50:37.600 Plus today. You'll get all kinds of perks, including ad 0:50:37.600 --> 0:50:41.080 free listening, and member exclusive episodes of slow Burn. In 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:44.279 this week's Plus episode, you'll hear more fascinating stories about 0:50:44.280 --> 0:50:48.520 the two thousand election from NPR media correspondent David fokenfleg 0:50:49.080 --> 0:50:51.799 He talked about John Ellis in the Fox News Decision Desk, 0:50:52.160 --> 0:50:55.240 sparring with the Fox PR team and stopping the pressis 0:50:55.360 --> 0:50:58.719 on election ning. Join now by clicking Try Free at 0:50:58.760 --> 0:51:01.560 the top of the Slowburn Show, Ope on Apple Podcasts, 0:51:02.120 --> 0:51:04.920 or visits Slate dot com slash Slowburn Plus to get 0:51:05.000 --> 0:51:12.600 access wherever you listen. This season of slow Burn was 0:51:12.600 --> 0:51:16.160 written and reported by me Josh Levine, an executive produced 0:51:16.160 --> 0:51:19.799 by Lizzie Jacobs. Slow Burn is produced by Sophie Summergrad, 0:51:20.000 --> 0:51:23.240 Joel Meyer, and Rosie Belson. With help from Patrick Fort, 0:51:23.440 --> 0:51:28.320 Jacob Finston, and Julia Russo. Derek john is Slowburn's executive producer. 0:51:28.800 --> 0:51:31.680 This season was edited by Susan Matthews and Hillary fry 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:36.080 Merrit Jacob a senior technical director. Mix and sound designed 0:51:36.120 --> 0:51:39.920 by Joe plored Our theme music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. 0:51:40.400 --> 0:51:43.480 Derek Johnson created the artwork for this season. We had 0:51:43.520 --> 0:51:47.400 production help from Chris Sinclair, Josh Neil and Hillary Niles. 0:51:47.880 --> 0:51:52.200 Special thanks to Rachel Strom, Murray Edelman, David Moore, Leon Napok, 0:51:52.360 --> 0:51:55.600 Julia Turner, and Lauren Levine, and to Slate's Evan Chung, 0:51:55.800 --> 0:52:01.000 Madeline ducharm Forrest Wickman, Christina Cattererucci, Greg Lavalley, Ben Richmond, 0:52:01.160 --> 0:52:06.520 Seth Brown, Katie Rayford, Caitlin Schneider, Alexandra Cole, Emily Hodgkins, 0:52:06.680 --> 0:52:11.480 Ivy Li Simonas, Joshua Metcalf, Heidee straw Moon, and Alicia Montgomery, 0:52:11.560 --> 0:52:15.200 Slate's VP of Adria. Thanks for listening. We'll see you 0:52:15.239 --> 0:52:15.840 next week.