As Mascot and Martyr, Sarah Palin Debuts On Fox News
Posted by Michael Scherer Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Time blog
It's been said before, but let me say it again: Fox News creator Roger Ailes is a genius. His peers in the executive suites of rival networks, newspapers and media conglomerates still hire talent for their abilities. Ailes knows you can also hire talent for who they anger, who they unite and what they represent.
At the start of his show Tuesday night, Fox anchor Bill O'Reilly announced that Palin's new job at Fox News had already “thrown the left wing media into a conniption.” He played clips from his network's two competitors, MSNBC (“How can she be a pundit? She doesn't know anything!” asks Chris Matthews) and CNN (“One more ignorant right winger at Fox News,” says Paul Begala). O'Reilly then offered his studied bafflement. “You are a politician, you are a mom, you are an American,” he said, turning to Palin at his table for the first time as a corporate peer. “What's the threat?”
Even before Palin answered, the genius of Ailes had crystallized on the screen. The set up was unmistakable. Ailes had not hired another talking head in Palin. He had hired a mascot for Fox News, a living breathing symbol of all that the network hopes to be: a place for the forgotten, besieged, suburban and rural American middle, long victimized, often dismissed, beset on all sides by elites and liberals, haters and foes. Palin took her cue perfectly. “They don't like the message,” she said. “They don't like the commonsense conservative solutions that I think I represent, and I articulate as I explain what I believe are some solutions to the great challenges facing America.”
(Read more here.)
Time blog
It's been said before, but let me say it again: Fox News creator Roger Ailes is a genius. His peers in the executive suites of rival networks, newspapers and media conglomerates still hire talent for their abilities. Ailes knows you can also hire talent for who they anger, who they unite and what they represent.
At the start of his show Tuesday night, Fox anchor Bill O'Reilly announced that Palin's new job at Fox News had already “thrown the left wing media into a conniption.” He played clips from his network's two competitors, MSNBC (“How can she be a pundit? She doesn't know anything!” asks Chris Matthews) and CNN (“One more ignorant right winger at Fox News,” says Paul Begala). O'Reilly then offered his studied bafflement. “You are a politician, you are a mom, you are an American,” he said, turning to Palin at his table for the first time as a corporate peer. “What's the threat?”
Even before Palin answered, the genius of Ailes had crystallized on the screen. The set up was unmistakable. Ailes had not hired another talking head in Palin. He had hired a mascot for Fox News, a living breathing symbol of all that the network hopes to be: a place for the forgotten, besieged, suburban and rural American middle, long victimized, often dismissed, beset on all sides by elites and liberals, haters and foes. Palin took her cue perfectly. “They don't like the message,” she said. “They don't like the commonsense conservative solutions that I think I represent, and I articulate as I explain what I believe are some solutions to the great challenges facing America.”
(Read more here.)
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