An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal's Eight-Year Odyssey Inside the Heart of the Right-Wing Media (41 page)

Meanwhile, I had leaked some photos of a bathroom, and a video of Mitt Romney talking about his fancy horses.

My roommates came downstairs a few minutes later and exchanged worried glances as I laughed and laughed and laughed at the television.

   EPILOGUE   

What Have We Learned?

I
guess it’s still an open question as to what, if anything, this whole sordid ordeal accomplished. I got a tiny bit of Internet notoriety. Fire-crotched celebu-chef Bobby Flay basically called me an asshole during a
Today
show segment discussing my firing. I got my picture in the paper, something I hadn’t accomplished since my hometown
Cincinnati
Enquirer
profiled my dentist when I was eleven and sent a photographer while I was in the chair getting my teeth cleaned.

I certainly didn’t bring Fox down from the inside, as I’d half-jokingly vowed to myself eight years earlier. If anything, it was stronger than ever. Mere weeks after my firing, Fox announced that they had re-upped O’Reilly’s contract, along with Sean Hannity’s. My public temper tantrum hadn’t done anything to slow down either of them.

I did get an opportunity to write a book, as the brilliant, attractive people at Dutton decided against all odds that the barely coherent ranting I’d scrawled out for
Gawker
deserved to be expanded to 100,000 words or so. I’m very grateful for the opportunity, not only for the money it put in my pocket to help me stave off eviction and starvation, but also for the therapeutic effects. Writing for several months gave me the opportunity to reflect on my eight years at Fox.

I came to the conclusion that if I could change one thing about Fox News, I’d like to see them remove the veil.

I’d want Roger Ailes to come out and say, “You know what? This whole ‘Fair and Balanced’ thing is total bullshit. We’re a conservative network. We totally admit that. We’re going to take a conservative stance on the news most of the time, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as we’re up front about it. It’s harmful to the discourse, and harmful to our viewers, when we pretend we’re the fair ones and everybody else is biased. I see that now, and I admit my mistake.”

He’ll never do that, of course, and it’s a shame. There are a lot of good people at Fox News Channel—hardworking, talented journalists who just want to do their jobs and could not care less about putting a partisan spin on things.

About a month after I left,
Fox & Friends
played a video on their show. Four minutes long, it was a slickly produced package featuring sound bites and graphics, and absolutely throwing the kitchen sink at President Obama—hitting him on everything from the debt to unemployment, to food stamps, to gas prices. It played like an attack ad that had been created by the Republican National Committee. There was a massive uproar after the video aired, with repeated cries that Fox News had finally shed its last vestige of objectivity.

For the first few hours after it aired, Fox seemed poised to stand behind the video, featuring it prominently on the
Fox Nation
website. Then they reversed course and disavowed it, with an opaque statement that read, in part: “The package that aired on
Fox & Friends
was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the senior executive level of the network.”

The associate producer in question was a guy named Chris, a guy who I came up with, a guy who started as a production assistant on the overnights around the same time I did. A good producer, and an honest one. And Fox was letting him twist in the wind, with a statement that left the door open to the interpretation that he had been acting alone when he put the piece together.

But that’s not how Fox operates. Something that long and elaborate would have taken at least three or four long days in the edit room to put together, days when a producer would be unable to do any other work. So unless
Fox & Friends
changed their operating procedures drastically in the month or so that I had been gone from the network at that point, I believe that Chris’s work on the package had to have been authorized by a senior—or even the executive—producer of the show. Someone had pulled Chris off his regular duties, and said, “Spend all your time the next few days making this tape and we’ll air it when you’re done.” I believe there’s no way that he was acting alone, but that became the narrative: the rogue Fox News producer who created an Obama hit piece! Reports surfaced that CNN—the high-paying promised land we’d all fantasized about as young PAs—had offered Chris a job shortly before the incident, but rescinded the offer following the controversy.

Chris, to his vast credit, maintained his silence throughout the ordeal, apparently possessing a discipline that clearly eluded me.

In a way, though, I’m glad the incident happened. It just reaffirmed my decision to leave. It made me happy that I had gotten out when I did, no matter how ignominious my exit strategy.

Ironically, the video incident may have been a net positive for Obama. The backlash that Fox received seemed to chasten them, and they were on their best behavior for the rest of the election year. Sure, almost every host on the network railed against the president on a nightly basis, but there were no more shenanigans as outlandish as the
Fox & Friends
attack ad—with one exception: In early October, Sean Hannity hyped a new “bombshell” video he had unearthed. It turned out to be a video from 2007 featuring then-Senator Obama speaking with—
gasp
—a slightly more black-sounding accent!

Hannity was rightfully laughed at by all corners of the media world, his failure becoming emblematic of Fox News’s overall failure in 2012 to ultimately influence the election results—as indicated by the president who will have been re-sworn in by the time you read this.

—

So why did I do it? Why didn’t I just leave quietly? Why make a big stink on my way out the door, destroying friendships, soiling my good name, napalming every last bridge I’d built?

Good question. I’m sure a therapist will be asking me the same thing in twenty years.

In all seriousness, I have a few theories, if you’ll forgive the indulgence of psychoanalyzing myself. One theory: It was my last-ditch attempt to karmically inoculate myself, to make up for eight years of working for the enemy. In the same way that I gave money on the street to the DNC guy collecting for John Kerry, or bought Bill Clinton’s book, or ordered all that Obama merchandise, I thought that if I could pull some sort of dumb prank on my way out the door, I’d be somehow able to erase any bad vibes I’d garnered over the years. By becoming the Mole and sticking a finger in the eye of my employer, I’d thought I’d be pulling some sort of cosmic mulligan, publicly telling the world “never mind” about the previous eight years.

Another theory: Maybe I wasn’t really out to hurt Fox News. I was subconsciously trying to hurt
myself
, to self-flagellate for all the wasted years I spent at a company I knew, going into it, I would never be happy within.

When I took the job, I never thought it would last that long—it sort of took on an inertia of its own after a while. And I did dabble in looking around for other jobs over the years, sending out résumés here and there, but I eventually grew comfortable with my discomfort with Fox, if that makes any sense.

I certainly never expected to go out like I did. I don’t know that I’d describe it as a blaze of glory. More like a Roman candle of mildly amusing infamy?

There was at least one other good thing to come from it all—it brought Jenny and me closer together. We’d already dropped the L-bomb several months before, on a rocky, windswept beach on Lake Michigan, where we were attending my brother’s wedding. I knew I loved her, which is why I was so scared of how she’d react. I’d already lost a job, and friends, and my reputation; if I lost her, too, I wouldn’t have been able to deal with it anymore. I would have spiraled completely out of control.

But that’s not what happened. She became my rock, telling me I had screwed up, but it wasn’t the end of the world. She comforted me at my lowest points, assuring me I wasn’t a bad person. She admitted she was scared by the legal ramifications, by the shambles I’d made of my career, by the horrible things people on the Internet were saying about me—but that she still loved me.

And against all reason, all common sense, all instinct that said she should have run screaming in the other direction from a jobless, prospect-free, minor Internet celebrity with twenty-eight hundred Twitter followers and little else to show for his efforts—against all those things, on a warm August evening on the terrace of my Williamsburg apartment—Jenny agreed to marry me.

I was as surprised as everyone else.

Something tells me Bill O’Reilly won’t be sending a wedding present.

But I might keep a spot for him at the buffet, just in case.

Acknowledgments

I am greatly indebted to many without whom this lump of wood pulp and ink (or, more likely, plastic and pixels) you’re now holding in your hands would not be a reality.

First, I’d like to thank my indefatigable and talented editor, Jill Schwartzman. Her early enthusiasm for the project helped give me the confidence to go forward with the most frightening and exhilarating undertaking of my entire life. It was Jill—along with the brilliant assistant editor Stephanie Hitchcock—who read the dismal early drafts and improved the book immeasurably with an unlimited supply of advice, guidance, and hand-holding.

For that matter, thanks to the entire Dutton team, including Brian Tart, Ben Sevier, and Christine Ball. Special thanks to publicist Amanda Walker, production editor Erica Ferguson, copy editor Joy Simpkins, proofreader Lavina Lee and lawyer Elisa Rivlin.

Next, I owe a great deal of gratitude to my agent, Anthony Mattero, a tireless advocate and someone I was lucky enough to have in my corner throughout this entire process. He’s a straight shooter who gives his profession a good name, and—along with his boss, the legendary David Vigliano—a formidable negotiator.

Thanks to my friend Claire Kelley, a fellow Ohioan and a fellow Domer, who helped me early in the process to navigate the then-unfamiliar world of publishing. I would have been wandering in the dark without her.

I’m indebted to my friends Matt and Marcia Bunda, who offered support, advice, and their old cell phones after the district attorney seized mine. In fact, thanks to all the friends who reached out to me after I disgraced myself on a national stage. Your kind words have not been forgotten.

I’m thankful to John Cook, who in January 2013 took over for the departing A. J. Daulerio as
Gawker
editor in chief, a well-deserved promotion. I’m continually impressed by him and the entire
Gawker
team for their preternatural ability to stir up controversy and attention. Thank you also to the delightfully named Gaby Darbyshire and to
Gawker
overlord Nick Denton.

Thanks to my lawyer Florian Miedel, who was steadfast in the face of my periodic freak-outs and repeatedly assured me that I would not be going to jail—at least not before I finished writing the book.

Thanks to my roommates, whom I call Rufus and Ari here. They’ve put up with reporters and legal messengers pounding on the door, a crack-of-dawn police raid, and several months of me, unkempt and unbathed, keeping weird hours and even weirder dietary habits while writing. I’m going to miss them terribly.

There are several Fox employees, both past and present, who were gracious enough to reach out and share their recollections and anecdotes with me. I won’t name them here, for obvious reasons, but I’m grateful all the same.

Thanks to my family: my parents, Joan and Tony; my sister, Teddy; my brother, Stephen; my sister-in-law, Maureen; and all my aunts, uncles, and cousins for their unconditional love and support, as well as their surprisingly forgiving reaction to my having soiled the family name.

To Jenny, the love of my life, know this—I could not have done it without you. If it weren’t for you, I would have long ago lost my mind, split town, and gone aimlessly hitchhiking, Incredible Hulk–style, across the country. I can’t wait to start my life with you.

And finally, as weird as it may sound, thanks to Bill O’Reilly, the entire
O’Reilly Factor
staff, and all the people I worked with over eight years at Fox News. I know this book is not terribly flattering at times for some of you, but I hope deep down you’ll agree that it’s honest, and more than a little funny. I only wish that someday we can meet at Langan’s (or Rosie’s if it’s still standing) and have a beer and laugh about all of this. Till then, best of luck. And one more time: Got ’em.

1
Now would probably be a good time to thank him profusely for the loan he gave me to stave off eviction when I very publicly destroyed my career at the young, impressionable age of thirty.

2
It was a Catholic high school, so this was totally copacetic. It was all boys, too, which was probably advantageous academically, minimizing distractions in class, but was undoubtedly damaging socially. I spent my entire first year of college dealing with the culture shock, having trouble getting acclimated to an environment where students no longer received spontaneous applause from the rest of the class after farting audibly.

3
I still maintain that I was truly ahead of my time when I dressed as Luke Skywalker for Halloween in 1995; but the knowledge of my ultimate vindication still doesn’t erase the sting of shame that lingers when I picture the cringing looks of homeowners who greeted me, a thirteen-year-old with acne and a lightsaber, shouting, “Trick or Treat!”

4
Lorne, that offer still stands, by the way. Though now that I have eight years in television under my belt, I’m going to have to insist that you provide me with gloves for the toilet cleaning.