Read Online An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal's Eight-Year Odyssey Inside the Heart of the Right-Wing Media by Joe Muto - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joe Muto
Tags: Non-Fiction, Politics
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competition—“is going to beat us to it.”
Carrie held firm. “No, we wait. What if the report is wrong? Do you want to explain to Roger why we ran with a bullshit rumor about a major celebrity?”
Kurt didn’t like it, but he was outranked. “Fine. I’ll light a fire under the desk’s ass and see if they can confirm it.” He picked up the phone receiver and dialed. “But if CNN beats us on this, I’m going to anger-shit my pants. I’m literally going to shit.”
“No one is going to shit themselves,” Carrie said.
“I bet Brando did,” a tech guy chimed from the front row. Carrie ignored him.
“So is this fat fuck dead or what?” Kurt was barking into his phone as Carrie flipped the switch on the console in front of her that allowed her to speak to the anchor Jon Scott.
“Jon, we’ve got word that Marlon Brando may be dead. I’m just giving you a heads-up. We’re going to alert it as soon as we can.”
I could see Jon on the main monitor, listening to Carrie through the tiny earpiece on the right side of his head. He nodded and began pecking at the laptop in front of him. When he answered, his voice boomed from the two large, clear-sounding speakers at the front of the control room. “Are we going to go into the alert straight out of the break?”
Carrie flipped the switch again. “Negative. We’re back in less than a minute, and we’re still waiting on confirmation. But I’ll get in your ear if we get it confirmed while you’re on air.”
Next, Carrie picked up the phone and dialed. “Jim,” she said—Siegendorf, I realized—“tell whatever PA we have working on this hour to drop everything and pull footage of Brando in The Godfather . Also, see if we have any good b-roll of him handy. Red carpet stuff, interviews, whatever you got.” She listened to the receiver, nodding her head as Siegendorf spoke, then replied: “Well, I’d prefer young and handsome if you can dig any up, quickly . But we’ll take old and chubby if you’ve got it.” She listened for a moment more, this time shaking her head. “No, I don’t think we’ll need the full obit package just yet. Get it ready to go, though. We may run it later in the hour.” She clicked the receiver back into place.
That was my first brush with a not-so-well-kept dirty little secret of the news industry: Fox had hundreds of slick, preproduced four-minute obituary videos filed away and ready to go at a moment’s notice for almost every prominent celebrity and politician over the age of sixty. Every once in a while if a shift was particularly slow, I’d give myself a morbid thrill pulling the obit compilation from the tape library and watching a few of the pieces. Fox was hardly alone in this practice—my understanding is that all the networks and cable channels have similar compilations. But Fox stood out with the unique spin it gave certain figures. My favorite was Bill Clinton’s, whose obit is hilariously Foxified, spending almost half the running time on Lewinsky and other bimbo eruptions. Meanwhile, the Dick Cheney obit makes him out to be a heroic freedom fighter, practically Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rolled into one.
While Carrie was ordering up Brando’s obit package, Kurt Karos was finishing his call with the assignment desk, throwing in a few more fat fuck s for good measure before hanging up.
“All right, they’re working on it,” he announced to the room. “They think that the Associated Press might move something on it shortly. If that’s the case, we’ll have to work fast, because then the other guys will have it, too.”
“We have an alert ready to go,” the director said. “And we’re back in thirty.”
We came back from commercial with the anchor throwing to a reporter for an update on the Iraq War. Midway through the reporter hit, Kurt’s phone rang. He picked it up, listened for a second, then yelled out in excitement.
“We’ve got it! We got confirmation!”
Carrie
Carrie held firm. “No, we wait. What if the report is wrong? Do you want to explain to Roger why we ran with a bullshit rumor about a major celebrity?”
Kurt didn’t like it, but he was outranked. “Fine. I’ll light a fire under the desk’s ass and see if they can confirm it.” He picked up the phone receiver and dialed. “But if CNN beats us on this, I’m going to anger-shit my pants. I’m literally going to shit.”
“No one is going to shit themselves,” Carrie said.
“I bet Brando did,” a tech guy chimed from the front row. Carrie ignored him.
“So is this fat fuck dead or what?” Kurt was barking into his phone as Carrie flipped the switch on the console in front of her that allowed her to speak to the anchor Jon Scott.
“Jon, we’ve got word that Marlon Brando may be dead. I’m just giving you a heads-up. We’re going to alert it as soon as we can.”
I could see Jon on the main monitor, listening to Carrie through the tiny earpiece on the right side of his head. He nodded and began pecking at the laptop in front of him. When he answered, his voice boomed from the two large, clear-sounding speakers at the front of the control room. “Are we going to go into the alert straight out of the break?”
Carrie flipped the switch again. “Negative. We’re back in less than a minute, and we’re still waiting on confirmation. But I’ll get in your ear if we get it confirmed while you’re on air.”
Next, Carrie picked up the phone and dialed. “Jim,” she said—Siegendorf, I realized—“tell whatever PA we have working on this hour to drop everything and pull footage of Brando in The Godfather . Also, see if we have any good b-roll of him handy. Red carpet stuff, interviews, whatever you got.” She listened to the receiver, nodding her head as Siegendorf spoke, then replied: “Well, I’d prefer young and handsome if you can dig any up, quickly . But we’ll take old and chubby if you’ve got it.” She listened for a moment more, this time shaking her head. “No, I don’t think we’ll need the full obit package just yet. Get it ready to go, though. We may run it later in the hour.” She clicked the receiver back into place.
That was my first brush with a not-so-well-kept dirty little secret of the news industry: Fox had hundreds of slick, preproduced four-minute obituary videos filed away and ready to go at a moment’s notice for almost every prominent celebrity and politician over the age of sixty. Every once in a while if a shift was particularly slow, I’d give myself a morbid thrill pulling the obit compilation from the tape library and watching a few of the pieces. Fox was hardly alone in this practice—my understanding is that all the networks and cable channels have similar compilations. But Fox stood out with the unique spin it gave certain figures. My favorite was Bill Clinton’s, whose obit is hilariously Foxified, spending almost half the running time on Lewinsky and other bimbo eruptions. Meanwhile, the Dick Cheney obit makes him out to be a heroic freedom fighter, practically Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rolled into one.
While Carrie was ordering up Brando’s obit package, Kurt Karos was finishing his call with the assignment desk, throwing in a few more fat fuck s for good measure before hanging up.
“All right, they’re working on it,” he announced to the room. “They think that the Associated Press might move something on it shortly. If that’s the case, we’ll have to work fast, because then the other guys will have it, too.”
“We have an alert ready to go,” the director said. “And we’re back in thirty.”
We came back from commercial with the anchor throwing to a reporter for an update on the Iraq War. Midway through the reporter hit, Kurt’s phone rang. He picked it up, listened for a second, then yelled out in excitement.
“We’ve got it! We got confirmation!”
Carrie
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