Inside the team of lawyers and P.R. agents strategizing former Fox anchor’s battle against Roger Ailes
Carlson had not given Fox a heads-up, or even announced publicly that she had been terminated from the network.
“Ailes and Fox have a very heavy hand in media relations. What’s important [is] no one had known up until the suit was filed that Gretchen had been fired,” Ripp Media founder Allan Ripp told POLITICO.
.. As someone who knows Smith’s firm well, Reis said she believes they wouldn’t have taken the case without assiduously vetting the claims.
.. Carlson and her lawyers knew that it wouldn’t be enough to fight the case in the courts; they also had to have a good P.R. strategy. That’s where Ripp Media comes in.
.. Most major national news outlets covered the suit. The most conspicuous outlier was the New York Post, which is owned by 21st Century Fox sister company News Corp. As of Saturday morning, the tabloid hadn’t published anything about the case in print or online. The Wall Street Journal, which is also owned by News Corp., reported the allegations on Thursday in a story on page B5, which was blurbed on the front page.
.. “There’s some allegations that have not even been included yet that may come out in discovery. … Not everything that could have been in the complaint was included in the complaint,” he said.
Carlson’s representatives have said that her aim is to air her complaints in a public jury trial, that settlement is not an option. Of course, that’s what complainants always say at this stage of the game.
Carlson would seem to be well situated to make good on her pledge to bring this matter to trial. Her husband, Casey Close, is one of the richest sports agents in professional baseball, with a client list that includes Derek Jeter and Clayton Kershaw.
.. “Gretchen believes she’s representing a long list of women who have faced similar issues and harassment,” Ripp said. “And she wants to take this to the very end. So she’s happy and fully prepared to go to trial. That could be a long time away.”
Respect and equality in the workplace don’t represent political correctness anymore, if they ever did. They are the cornerstones of modern human resource policies used by sophisticated companies. Mr. Ailes is not just bumping up against an annoyance he can wave away, he’s confronting a new world order, something Rupert Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, understood when they issued a statement about the lawsuit saying, “We take these matters seriously’’ and would conduct an internal review.
..Mr. Ailes’s very approach to television — as the quintessential visual medium — has stood as a rebuke to those who might be sensitive to signs of female objectification. His sets are famous for their translucent desks, which show the legs of his female stars who are so often in skirts.
It was Ms. Carlson who once said that when she was a host on the set of “Fox & Friends,” the network’s morning program, “pants were not allowed.” Fox News has denied any such rule.
.. A few years ago, Mr. Ailes might have been free to defend himself with the unquestioned support of his like-minded longtime patron, Mr. Murdoch, who has stood by him as Mr. Ailes has brought in huge revenue ..
.. But Mr. Murdoch’s sons have different political and corporate sensibilities than their father.
The tension and banter on the Fox News morning show always seemed to be weirdly authentic—until now.
Dissension in the ranks has always been a secret recipe of Fox News, a key to the network’s watchability: Beneath the “Fair and Balanced” sheen and the conservative point of view, the network has been surprisingly tolerant of infighting on the air. You don’t generally hear the anchors on MSNBC calling each other out. Yet on Fox, this happens with some regularity.
.. These episodes are not mistakes or accidents; Ailes has always understood, perhaps better than most, that conflict is entertainment.
.. Ailes called her a “man hater” who needed to learn “to get along with the boys.”
.. It was 2012, and Kilmeade had made a low-grade sexist crack about the introduction of women into a military band: “Women are everywhere. We’re letting them play golf and tennis now, it’s out of control.”
Carlson, ever smiling, rose from the couch and walked off the set. “You know what?” she said. “You know what? You read the headlines, since men are so great.” The camera followed her for a few feet, capturing Kilmeade smiling, the crew laughing, and Carlson continuing to wear a painted grin.
.. The presidential candidate is reportedly considering a return to the networks once his run is over. It just might work.
Trump “has become irked by his ability to create revenue for other media organizations without being able to take a cut himself,” the story reads. “Such a situation ‘brings him to the conclusion that he has the business acumen and the ratings for his own network.’”
.. Of the more than 13 million people who backed him in the presidential primary, surely some would be attracted to a channel he creates. Just as Trump has found a base that’s dissatisfied by the major political parties, he might be able to attract an audience who feel underserved by the major networks.
.. Philip Napoli, a Rutgers University professor who studies media, thinks a Trump channel could draw an audience, at least at first. The Trump camp’s relationship with Fox News—the back-and-forth between war(s)and peace—proved something: “You can further segment the conservative-news audience, [and] there’s a sizeable segment” Trump could use “to position a network in opposition to Fox News.”
.. It’s difficult to see Trump giving up the limelight. Discussions of a network “would mark perhaps the most reasonable and logical step that the candidate has taken in the year since he launched his candidacy,”
..For one, Trump voters tend to be older and whiter than the general population, just like cable-news viewers. Napoli can envision Trump “cannibalizing” the Fox News audience and, in the angry aftermath of a Hillary Clinton victory, being a “voice for all these disaffected and disappointed voters who didn’t get what they wanted.” Napoli suggested that partisan media becomes more popular when the targeted audience’s party isn’t in power, which would work to Trump’s advantage. As a Republican-friendly network, Fox News would no doubt give airtime to frustrations with another Democrat in the White House. But that might not be enough rage for Trump supporters.
.. People who watch Fox News tend to like politics, Levendusky explained, but many Trump supporters have expressed they are tired of politics entirely.
.. Napoli said politicians have been trying for decades to circumvent journalists:
.. Trump’s potential TV channel, Napoli said, seems to be “part of the ongoing process … to try to marginalize actual journalists.”