The Real Fox News Mole

joining us today is Joe mu know he is the author of the book and atheist in the foxhole liberals eight-year Odyssey inside the heart have the right wing media he is the the one we kept hearing about as the Fox News mall Joe great to talk to you today hey get a beer so let's just start with how'd you end up working at Fox News army know it was my first job right out of college the I A you know was urs you know I was a basically a confuse college senior had no idea what I wanted to do it myself and II sir just sending out a flurry about locations and Fox News was the one that responded so you know I was it came down to working for them or are sleeping in my parents basement for the rest my life so after I was box I said you know if I hate it al you know bailout after three months and try for something else but much to my surprise I found myself not hating it so you didn't hate it but you but you were like a progressive guy right you kinda knew going in Fox News is known as kinda like the right-wing media outlet and I'm I'm a progressive guy I i donate the Democratic candidates sometimes but that didn't affect your enjoyment of the job right we know there is a lot of bone I rolling and and teach grating I guess at at certain points but you know what a day to day basis I was in I didn't feel you know so conflicted that I couldn't wake up in the morning and and and go to work at least at first you know the first couple years I could always order separate what I was doing from what the network as a whole it sir so eventually you ended up working do is it directly for the Bill O'Reilly program right I was an associate producer for The O'Reilly Factor alright so you start doing that and then does that make your outlook on on your employment box you start to change it wasn't working for bill in particular that that made me change my viewpoint it was I think was the a clean break turned that the network took after Obama was elected you on up until that point I was you know slightly uncomfortable with that band as you know once Obama was elected net that whole thing kept going on I became increasingly uncomfortable until I finally you know decided I could be a part of it so I wanna go through a couple things there's just so much in your book so many incredible stories and anecdotes one that you tell us this we hear about box being fair and balanced right and that kinda the public to a model of the above the network is there anyone who works inside Fox News either who is right wing left-wing a political who doesn't recognize that it is a wreck deliberately right-wing network night everyone's pretty much in on the joke you know like yesterday we used to joke about a week maybe I go to a real fair and balanced segment today you know it's to republicans debating each other I um even even the most conservative producer on on the staff with knew that our job was not to be fair and down the middle our job is to sort of throw this read me to our conservative viewers gotcha and when you were working for Bill O'Reilly did I i cant really sum up all the stories you tell in the book because there's just so many good ones and people should really look at it but one that I found just fascinating was that bill reilly there was a system in place where you guys would %uh essentially print send out the the notes for that day's show or whatever the day's headlines were directly to Bill O'Reilly's home printer is home computer and he couldn't understand that the technology being used was like a remote printing thing so eventually he was just told hey we're faxing it to you when he was under the impression he just had a fax machine because he just couldn't understand what it meant to remote print I might I think it's very funny that you picked up on that one details this it's a small detail the book but it's very telling he he is a a a total luddite which is you know in this day and age you really do need to be super connected but he depends on its tax or keep them up to speed so instead of explaining text up to him we just sort of given the simplest explanation I it took us it was probably nine months to explain Twitter to him it's just he just did not understand what that was when I was interviewing David Silverman the president American Atheists just after one of his appearances on The O'Reilly show he said hey you know what um I was there and there's a whole bunch of people like obviously these people behind the scenes who are progressive in a lot of fun or even atheists but there's actually someone who is like up a primary anchor like on-air person who's pretending to be this right winger and is actually like a left-wing atheist he didn't tell me who it was is do you know about that is that true and an actual atheist that I mean thats news to me i i kno couple anchors who are who are you know closet liberals and a whole lotta bankers were moderates but sort of play up there conservative this on-air right just to it just to be distinct advance their careers basically on but a person is actually yes that's actually needs to me i i'd be interested to see you he says that is yet he did he didn't tell us so I you kind of pic picked up on something else I wanted to ask you are there any above the main talent at Fox News that are playing a character or a role like you said that is going to just make them do better on box and it doesn't really represent their personal views ok sure on megan kelly I think would be one the most prominent ones she is she went from you know a few years ago she was our Supreme Court analyst and she went to sort of this you know fiery contentious conservative anchor just a matter of a few years and and rumor was that you know the suits kinda boulder sides that book your you're beautiful you're gone you're late you up ahead which you have you have a big future here but you gotta you gotta play up your persona little bit I make it service so there's there's a lot of people like that you know that's the fastest way to create rest of us speaking at megan kelly there was this internal thing for a while circulating that she had had an affair with brit hume something she denied on the Howard Stern Show that she's the night a couple of times what do you know about that is that you believe the denial do you know anything about it I think brit hume started that it's the that a river and sell always there are hand fighter I don't know i'd I don't see it the you know I'd knowing britt hume unknowing herod that that gives me the heebie jeebies just think the keeper and together and if she wanted to advance your career there's a lot more important people she could sleep with and that pre great year are that being said her career did advance pretty fast but you know I I would attribute that to be on you know playing up her increasing her on-air conservatism rather than her you know sleeping with I any executives rankers from the point of view love journalistic standards right aside from this kind of broader right-wing bias that we've all talked about uncovered in progressive media we talk about the false balance we talk about the using Republican talking points so broadly speaking we know I love that stuff individually though kinda but the nitty-gritty on an individual story on an individual guest you have anything that you would consider kind of like the most disturbing thing you experience there in terms of journalistic standards for bias there was that there was one incident that I was actually partially involved in that I i still feel bad about this day was that woman surely should rot who had been caught on tape telling a story about spat supposedly showed that she was biased against white people alright the story had been taken out of context by bright bar and other people who does the video and it told the exact opposite now that story on I think came to light first and Roger Wright or something and it was handed to me about 30 minutes before air time and they said hey or were running with the story we need to track to get a transcript W transcript what she said and ice at I said oh crap is a lot do so I I headed off to enter it I don't miss out normally I would have research that I would have looked into it I would call for comment but we we got it we got it so soon before air time that I just you know had an intern transcribe it um ed we went there with that and is is it turns out we're completely wrong that context we never call the woman to get a quote um and she ended up getting a I think they asked for her resignation on right away it was you know it wasn't there think back that to me was journalistic malpractice and you know box as a network you know pounced on this quickly I think Glenn Beck was probably the first what Guerrero it but were there ever were there along those lines were there ever meetings when there would be like a morning production meeting or whatever the case is an a story is being discussed in Canada angle that will be taking his go is being discussed and it said pretty clearly listen the facts actually favor the progressive side on this and then there's like a concerted effort to say okay let's exclude this and let's bring in this guest lets brain in this very specific way so even though everybody knows this is really a story that makes conservatives look bad we're gonna deliberately flip it all around