The future will not be interrupted; The Ink, October 17, 2024

 ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, The Ink; The future will not be interrupted

"Did you watch that interview on Fox News? I did. And maybe you saw what I saw.

What I saw was an extended metaphor for the condition of the country itself.

A woman, a person of color, representing a new generation and a kind of voice that hasn’t always been heard in American life, but more and more is being heard now, trying to speak — and a barrel-chested, pomade-glazed relic of the “Mad Men” era, interrupting her and interrupting her some more and interrupting her some more still, and then adding to his interruption some interruptions, and then also interrupting.

Fox News’s Bret Baier wasn’t just trying to stop Vice President Kamala Harris’s words. He seemed offended at the notion that her vocal cords actually make sounds. He invited her voice on his show and was upset that it had a volume.

I doubt there is any woman, any person of color, in this country who has not been in a meeting and experienced this kind of bulldozing. And some of them watch Fox News and still don’t like being interrupted.

Last night’s interruptionism, elevated almost to an art form, is a metaphor for the state of the country because a minority of Americans like Baier, an encrusted old guard, wants to interrupt the future itself. But the future will not be interrupted.

They don’t want to hear voices not their own. But those voices are growing louder."

Fox News pulls executive's column on U.S. Olympic team diversity; Politico, February 9, 2018

Cristiano Lima, Politico; Fox News pulls executive's column on U.S. Olympic team diversity

"Fox News on Friday pulled from its website an opinion piece by its executive vice president that accused the Olympic Committee of seeking to make the athletic event “darker, gayer, different,” with the network saying it “did not reflect” its views or values.

In the since-deleted column, which was published on Wednesday, John Moody, Fox News’ executive editor and executive vice president, railed against the U.S. Olympic Committee for saying that it had drawn the “most diverse U.S. squad ever to the Winter Olympics” in South Korea...

A Fox News spokesperson said in a statement on Friday that “Moody’s column does not reflect the views or values of FOX News and has been removed.”"

O’Reilly, Ousted; New York Times, April 20, 2017

David Leonhardt, New York Times; 

O’Reilly, Ousted

"Rupert Murdoch tried to make his firing of Bill O’Reilly seem as if it were based on morality. In a letter to Fox News employees (obtained by CNN’s Brian Stelter), Murdoch wrote that “we want to underscore our consistent commitment to fostering a work environment built on the values of trust and respect.”

This claim is false, and Murdoch’s use of “consistent” is especially rich. O’Reilly’s pattern of harassing women has been clear for more than a decade. Megan Garber of The Atlantic has a useful review — incomplete, no doubt — of his behavior...

But if O’Reilly’s firing wasn’t based on morals, it is still a victory for morality. A man who spent years abusing people less wealthy and powerful than him has lost his large public stage, in a very public way. His legacy — like that of his old boss, Roger Ailes — will always involve his ugly abusiveness."

The fall of Roger Ailes: He made Fox his ‘locker room’ — and now women are telling their stories; Washington Post, 7/22/16

Manuel Roig-Franzia, Scott Higham, Paul Farhi and Krissah Thompson, Washington Post; The fall of Roger Ailes: He made Fox his ‘locker room’ — and now women are telling their stories:

"“Boorish behavior is Murdoch company behavior — boorish behavior as defined by tough-guy behavior,” Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff said in an interview. “The tough-guy behavior sometimes intersects with sexual harassment, and this is very strong within the organization.”

In a statement Thursday announcing Ailes’s resignation (which made no mention of the claims against Ailes), Lachlan and James Murdoch said: “We continue our commitment to maintaining a work environment based on trust and respect. We take seriously our responsibility to uphold these traditional, long-standing values of our company.”"