Wolff: Murdoch brought in Obama to criticize Ailes for Fox?s coverage.
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on December 9th, 2008 5:33 am by HL
Wolff: Murdoch brought in Obama to criticize Ailes for Fox?s coverage.
Sometime last summer, Barack Obama reportedly met secretly with Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and the network’s owner Rupert Murdoch in an attempt for both parties to “clear the air,” after Obama had received some unfavorable coverage from the network. Yesterday on CNN, Michael Wolff, author of a recent Murdoch biography — “The Man Who […]
Sometime last summer, Barack Obama reportedly met secretly with Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and the network’s owner Rupert Murdoch in an attempt for both parties to “clear the air,” after Obama had received some unfavorable coverage from the network. Yesterday on CNN, Michael Wolff, author of a recent Murdoch biography — “The Man Who Owns The News” — said that Murdoch brought in Obama to criticize Ailes for Fox’s unfair coverage of Obama:
WOLFF: When he arranged for the summit between Murdoch and Obama, the first time that they met, he brought in — he brought Ailes to this exactly so that he could let Obama take on Ailes. Murdoch himself didn’t want to say, you know, change your coverage, you’re unfair here. He specifically brought Ailes into the room so that Obama could say, what are you doing?
Watch it:
Host Howie Kurtz appeared to be skeptical of Wolff’s reporting, noting that Murdoch “is not exactly shy about meddling with the journalistic operations of his properties.” But Wolff countered that Ailes is the one who is actually contractually in charge at Fox News and that Murdoch is “scared of him.”
