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Fox policy bush { November 19 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/19/politics/19ROGE.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/19/politics/19ROGE.html
November 19, 2002
Fox News Head Sent a Policy Note to Bush
By BILL CARTER and JIM RUTENBERG
Roger Ailes, the chairman of the Fox News Channel, confirmed yesterday that he sent a note to the White House last year suggesting policies for President Bush to follow in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The existence of the note was revealed in the new book by Bob Woodward, "Bush at War" (Simon & Schuster). Mr. Woodward characterized it as "an important-looking confidential communication" in which Mr. Ailes was offering a "back-channel message" to the president: that the president needed to convince the American public that he was taking "the harshest measures possible" or else the public would not remain patient with the administration.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Ailes denied that the message was meant as political advice, saying that he was only responding "as a human being and a citizen" who was outraged by the terrorist attacks. He said he had "been up for nine days straight" after the attacks before writing the message, which he sent to Karl Rove, the chief political operative in the Bush White House.
"I never used the word `harsh' or `harshly' or anything like that," Mr. Ailes said.
He suggested that Mr. Woodward misinterpreted his message. "I'm not saying he deliberately distorted it," Mr. Ailes said. "But he's like Tom Clancy. They both make up a lot of stories, but Clancy does better research."
Mr. Ailes said that he urged the president in the letter to take action quickly and decisively and that any reference to the potential loss of support was not meant as political advice but as an assessment of the national mood.
In the book, Mr. Woodward writes that Mr. Ailes's communication had to be kept confidential because as head of a news organization, Mr. Ailes "was not supposed to be giving political advice."
Mr. Woodward declined yesterday to take issue with Mr. Ailes's characterization of the memorandum. Brian Lewis, a Fox News senior vice president, said Mr. Ailes and Mr. Woodward talked yesterday and "agreed they had a different view of the memo; both agreed it was a nonissue."
In recent years, Mr. Ailes has led Fox to dominance in the cable news wars and along the way has repeatedly denied that his cable channel favors the conservative policies of the Republican Party. Before his career in television, Mr. Ailes worked in Republican politics as an adviser to Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush. He said yesterday that he left politics 12 years ago but that opponents had unfairly continued to cite his political background as evidence that he is slanting coverage at Fox.
"If I had committed murder, people would have let me off the hook by now," he said.
Some of Mr. Ailes's critics noted that he has frequently criticized other news organizations as being biased toward Democrats. During Bill Clinton's presidency, Mr. Ailes routinely called his main competitor, CNN, "the Clinton News Network."
Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, said this kind of interaction between a news executive and a president was neither unprecedented nor surprising "especially given how incestuous Washington is."
The memorandum is more notable, Mr. Jones said, considering Mr. Ailes's past comments about CNN, and especially about the former CNN president Rick Kaplan, who was accused by conservatives of having too close a relationship with Mr. Clinton.
Mr. Kaplan and Mr. Clinton both acknowledged their friendship and Mr. Kaplan has slept overnight in the White House.
"He will be glad to attack Rick Kaplan, and will brush off anyone saying he's doing the same thing," Mr. Jones said of Mr. Ailes.
Mr. Ailes said his letter was not comparable to Mr. Kaplan's "sitting up all night in the White House" giving advice to Mr. Clinton. He also said the letter was far less worthy of scrutiny than a meeting between the NBC anchor Tim Russert and Democratic senators last year in which Mr. Russert, who long worked in Democratic politics, offered what Mr. Ailes described as "strategic tips and advice."
Mr. Kaplan said yesterday that he never gave advice to Mr. Clinton when he was president and certainly did not stay up all night with him. "Totally untrue, never happened," Mr. Kaplan said.
Mr. Russert called Mr. Ailes's accusations about helping Democrats "absolutely outrageous," saying he met with senators from both parties in his role as a reporter and never gave advice.
Of Mr. Ailes's sending a message to the president, Mr. Russert said, "I would not recommend that behavior for any practicing journalist."
CNN used the news of Mr. Ailes's message to Mr. Bush in a number of its reports yesterday, with one CNN anchor finishing his report with a mocking reference to the Fox motto, "fair and balanced, you decide."
Asked if he regretted sending the message, Mr. Ailes said: "I can't say I regret it. I regret the fact that partisans will make more of this than it deserves."
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