http://nymag.com/news/media/roger-ailes-fox-news-2011-5/ A long article, but rather excellent and not particularly biased sounding.
To long to read at the moment, really doubt it will change my bias against fox "news". Worst "news" station ever! #2 on the list is MSNBC.
A very good article indeed. It changes my perspective a bit with respect to Fox being moderate. They also seem to be more agenda driven than I had previously thought.
The article didn't slam fox news. It depicts Roger Ailes as a rather brilliant fellow, details the issues between Fox and Beck, and I thought it was rather interesting how some of the Fox regular pundits were recruited by CNN first. It also details how the White House underestimated Fox as an actual news organization and their inept attempt to go to war with Fox.
Fox is the mouthpiece for conservatives and has been for years, so I don't understand how anyone can think Fox news is even remotely moderate. Republican candidates know that if they stray from the current doctrine, they will get blasted on multiple shows all day. Overall it was a very good article giving an inside look at the machinery at Fox News, though there is nothing in this article that should surprise people familiar with politics and national media.
I completely disagree with your last line. The Whitehouse underestimated two things: how news media will almost always support each other and the success of Fox News's entertainment shows at galvanizing the conservative base using Obama as the catalyst. Fox's actual news productions had a much smaller impact.
It's a bit wordy in our current sound-bite culture. Plus, since the New Yorker didn't put 'FauxNews' in the title, they lost a bulk of their readership's interest before they even started reading the article. It lacked the brevity and demagoguery that is necessary to holding the audience's interest in our current hyper-everything political debate. All in all, my advice to the author would be to dumb it down.
Fox News is the best network news organization out there. Easily. Sure it's conservative, but it's nice to have a balance to all the uber-liberal news organizations.