“There are
two parts to all news channels,” Ailes said. “One is the news — that’s Shep Smith, Bret Baier, what we do during the daytime. Every channel also does talk shows, opinion shows. You have to separate those in your mind because they are different.”
“Rachel Maddow has a talk show, Sean Hannity has a talk show. They have different points of view,” Ailes explained. “
The only difference between Fox and the shows on CNN and MSNBC is we invite liberals to participate constantly.”
“Geraldine Ferraro was a contributor to Fox News for 10 years. [We have] Bob Beckel, Juan Williams. Dennis Kucinich is a frequent guest on Fox News.”
Ailes described a programming philosophy that distinguishes his network from its competitors — one that revolves around news judgment, not with whether something is news or not.
“When Abu Ghraib happened during the Bush administration, we carried that — full pictures, full board — 17 times,” he said. “Now, The New York Times had it, I believe, 44 times, on their front page. When I went to an editorial meeting one morning and said to the head of our news division, ‘Why aren’t we doing Abu Ghraib today?’ He said, ‘there’s no news.’
“I said, ‘well the Times has got it on their front page,’ and he said, ‘
that’s because it’s a political agenda for the Times. For us, we’re waiting for more news. Every time there’s news, we put it up full screen and lead the news shows with it.’ It’s just a different philosophy. Don’t cover it up, but don’t push it if there’s no news.”
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Ailes slams Fox critics, defends press freedom at Ohio forum | The Daily Caller