An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal's Eight-Year Odyssey Inside the Heart of the Right-Wing Media (18 page)

“Do you think you can ‘psych people up’ without deafening the entire newsroom?” Nina asked.

“You got it, boss lady,” I said, easing the speaker volume down a few notches.

“That’s better,” she said, retreating to check in with the PAs in the other edit rooms on either side of mine.

She needn’t have bothered, though. It was June 13, 2005. We’d just gotten word that the verdict in the Michael Jackson molestation trial would be revealed within the hour, and the entire Fox News operation had ground to a screeching halt. In fact, it felt like the
entire world
had ground to a screeching halt, as every news channel—even the networks—had switched over to live coverage, blowing out their regular programming for wall-to-wall Jacko coverage.

Fox had been following every contour of the increasingly bizarre proceedings for months, breathlessly reporting each new development in the testimony and documenting every one of the pop star’s courthouse entrances and exits. Michael, always the showman, did his part to make the lengthy trial a spectacle: showing up every day in a different faux-military, Dracula-by-way-of-Sgt.-Pepper outfit; entertaining fans outside the courthouse by dancing on the roof of his SUV while holding an umbrella, like a demented Gene Kelly; and constantly expressing indignance that anyone would
dare
find anything untoward about a world-famous fortysomething multimillionaire having pornography-and-alcohol-soaked sleepovers with thirteen-year-old boys.

In short, it had been an entertaining clusterfuck, and I was sad to see it go. We all were—not that you’d know it from the carnival atmosphere of the newsroom that day. I wasn’t the only one playing DJ with Michael’s back catalogue.

Not to be flippant about child molestation, of course. It’s a horrible thing, and on the small chance that there is actually a hell, I’m sure there’s a particularly nasty circle of it reserved for those who hurt kids. But working in the news tends to coarsen you, and gallows humor becomes a coping mechanism. I was just shy of one year on the job, and I’d already been subjected to hours of raw footage from Al Qaeda beheading videos, suicide bombings in Israel, insurgent attacks on U.S. troops. I’d seen the heartbreaking Southeast Asian tsunami aftermath, with bodies laid out in horrifyingly long rows, and absolute devastation filling every inch of the frame. I’d endured the seemingly never-ending, simultaneous death watches for Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo, the woman in a vegetative state whose case became a macabre tug-of-war between pro-life congressmen and a husband who wanted her to die with dignity. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not complaining; I knew I’d signed up for this stuff. Mayhem and misery were practically in the job description. My point is simply that sometimes the only way to cope with all the awfulness of the world is to laugh at it. You just had to joke about all the horrible things. It was either that or break down crying. It was utterly absurd that an eccentric pop star standing accused of doing unspeakable things to children could ever be considered a lighthearted romp of a story, but compared to the other things we’d been dealing with lately, it sort of was. Hence, the semi-party taking place in the newsroom.

As the news choppers tailed Jackson’s caravan of SUVs winding its way toward the courthouse, a small group of PAs and editors—with no work to do, thanks to the live coverage—had gathered in my edit room.
³²
We were discussing the best song to play after the reading of the verdict. The consensus was that “Man in the Mirror” was a properly somber, introspective choice in the case of a guilty judgment—though at least one wag in the room
³³
suggested we go more for dark comedy and play either “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” or “Beat It.”

We had more trouble deciding on a song in the case of an acquittal. Was it right, we debated, to pick something celebratory? Why didn’t Jackson’s repertoire include any tunes that would properly express our ambivalence, the fact that we were extremely disappointed in him and yet somehow also relieved that a man who had provided us with so many years of entertainment—batshit though he may be—would not have to rot away in prison, slowly and sadly getting even stranger looking after being permanently cut off from his supply of white pancake makeup and wigs that looked like they came from an Asian ladies’ beauty supply shop?

Cameras weren’t allowed into the courtroom, but there was a live audio feed. As the jury forewoman read off the counts—all of them “not guilty”—the newsroom was completely silent, save the sounds of the juror’s voice and the occasional gasp from a producer. Cameras outside the courthouse captured the assembled fans cheering and celebrating; a crazed-looking elderly woman released doves from a cage, one by one, as each “not guilty” rang out.

When the juror finished reading, I opened the playlist on my computer and cranked the volume on the song that I’d decided was the only one appropriate for the situation, wherein a very rich, famous, and powerful man potentially got away with a horrible crime.

You’ve been hit by, you’ve been struck by, a smooth criminal!
Jacko sang, as I told my editor to cut a video of the crazy dove lady.

My producer would be wanting that.

—

With the move to daytime, I felt like a new man. There’s something invigorating about working a regular nine-to-five, something that had been lacking with the evening and overnight shifts. Getting up every morning, fighting your roommate for the shower, elbowing your way onto an already overcrowded subway car, pushing through a caffeine-deprived mob to get to the coffee shop counter—the mere act of getting to your desk became an accomplishment in and of itself, a tiny triumph to start the day.

Most important, my career felt like it was back on track. And I was thinking of it as a
career
now, not just a job. I’d pledged from the beginning that I would stay at Fox only long enough to eventually hop somewhere else, but somewhat to my chagrin, I wasn’t feeling any motivation to leave. Sure, I wasn’t making any
money
—but would I really get paid more somewhere else? And certainly I was sometimes disagreeing with the network’s content, occasionally watching segments on our air that made me grit my teeth in anger—or, more likely, shake my head with bemusement. But if I went to CNN or MSNBC, would I really agree with everything said on those channels?

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, my decision to stay baffles me. I don’t know if it was overrationalization or Stockholm syndrome–style brainwashing or what, but in the course of about a year, I’d gone from a die-hard liberal crusader to a cog in the wheel of the most powerful name in conservative media,
and I was perfectly okay with that fact
. I think the most likely explanation was that I was simply comfortable. The job was challenging, and occasionally stressful, but unlike many of my friends who’d graduated from the Notre Dame film and television program, I was actually working in the industry. True, it wasn’t quite what I envisioned my career would be—but how many of my fellow graduates could honestly say they were getting their work in front of millions of people on a daily basis? Not many, I was willing to bet. But I was! (Anonymously, to be sure, since none of the Fox News programs had credits at the end, but still
 
. . . )

There was always a niggling voice in the back of my head, whispering that I’d betrayed my progressive roots. I did my best to pacify that voice. Small things, to be sure, but symbolically important enough that I could feel I hadn’t completely gone over to the dark side.

For example, I’d marched in the giant protest the weekend before the 2004 Republican National Convention convened at Madison Square Garden. It was on a Sunday, and I’d just pulled an all-nighter at work. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into a bed, any bed, and sleep the day away. But I forced myself to take the subway down to the staging area, walking the entire route in the August heat. It was not, as I’d feared, entirely a hippies-and-bongos affair (though that element was present in very large numbers) but a gathering of hundreds of thousands of average, peaceful people, people who, I realized mid-march, would probably peacefully beat me to death with their
BUSH LIED/SOLDIERS DIED
placards if they knew who I worked for.

I found small but satisfying ways to rebel on the job, too. In bold defiance of my directive, I’d include late-night Bush jokes on the list I submitted to the
Fox & Friends
producers. They never used any of them, but I hoped that they at least felt a twinge of shame when they passed them over in their rush to get to the hilarious Leno jokes about Bill Clinton chasing bimbos.

And sometimes when a producer asked for a file footage montage of President Bush, I’d make sure to include at least one shot that made him look unpresidential: tripping on the steps as he dismounted his helicopter, grinning like a goofball after making a bad joke, and—my favorite—taking a walk while inexplicably holding hands with the Saudi crown prince. It wasn’t the most mature thing I’d ever done on the job, but it was so oddly gratifying. And I never got caught . . . except once.

The producer called me from the control room immediately after one of my videos rolled, a quick shot showing the leader of the free world taking a lover’s stroll with an elderly Middle Easterner in full robes and turban.

The producer was laughing, fortunately. He was amused. I think he knew exactly what I was trying to do.

“Muto, do me a favor and make the Bush video a little less colorful next time,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I have no idea how that shot got in there.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better pray Roger wasn’t watching, or the next phone call you get is going to be from him. And trust me on this—he won’t be laughing.”

April 11, 2012—12:37
P.M.

I was back at my desk on the seventeenth floor, significantly calmed down. It seemed I might actually be okay. The incriminating iPad was safe with Rufus. There’d been no News Corp. storm troopers waiting at my desk for me. Even Tim Wolfe, the producer in the desk next to mine, didn’t seem suspicious that my lunch break had lasted about three times longer than normal.

Could I actually be getting away with this?

   CHAPTER 8   

Crime Does Pay, But Not Particularly Well

O
n my first day as a crime fighter, I showed up in an outfit guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of lawbreakers everywhere: khaki pants, a baggy, ill-fitting button-down shirt, and a cheap tie.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
I did, after spending several hours prowling the men’s accessories department of the Burlington Coat Factory on Sixth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street in Manhattan. Ties were cheap there, most less than ten dollars a pop, and I picked out six new ones to supplement the one or two I already had in the closet at home.

My rationale: Even though it had been made explicitly clear to me that my new gig—the video production assistant for Fox’s new weekend crime show—was
not
a promotion, I figured that maybe if I dressed the part, I could
will
a promotion into being. So the faded jeans and open-collar shirts I’d favored as a newsroom PA were out; it was dress pants and ties for me from now on.

“Who’s that handsome young go-getter in the sharp polyester tie?” an executive would probably say. “How is it possible we’re still only paying him twelve dollars and seventy-four cents an hour? Give him a raise immediately, and put him in charge of his own show!”

It was January 2006. I’d been at Fox a year and a half, and I felt I was a rising star, my ego—and pride at being recognized for my talent—easily supplanting whatever misgivings I had about advancing at a company I wasn’t sure I wanted to be working for in the first place.

Before I reported to my show’s home base on the seventeenth floor, I swung by the newsroom to show off my new duds to Camie.

She was highly amused.

“All you need to add is an oversize blazer and you’d look like a high school freshman going to his first dance!” she squealed with delight. “I keep expecting you to pin a corsage on me.”

My pride was stung. “You’re just jealous because I’m up on seventeen now with all the anchors, and you’re stuck down here,” I said.

“Yeah, well, enjoy your new weekend show,” she shot back. “I’m sure your girlfriend just
loves
it that you’re gonna be stuck here ’til ten every Saturday night.”

She had me there. Jillian had not reacted well to the prospect of having her weekends ruined again, barely a year after my reprieve from the dreaded overnight shift.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!” she’d fumed when I told her, a few hours after Nina had told me.

“And it’s not even any more money? That’s insane, Joe. These people are taking advantage of you!”

She had a point, I realized, but I certainly couldn’t let her know that.

“Yes, but it’s more
responsibility
,” I explained. “It could lead to a promotion down the line.”

“Well, I still think it’s bullshit,” she said, folding her arms.

“Hey, we’ll still have Fridays together, baby,” I said soothingly, rubbing her arm.

She rolled her eyes and walked away.

Jill’s completely salient and reasonable points notwithstanding, I was enthused about the gig. I’d be helping to launch a brand-new show. I’d separated myself from the newsroom scrum, where two dozen PAs struggled in virtual anonymity, hoping to distinguish themselves and get off one of the career-dead-end newswheel shows. And as the only production assistant on the show, I’d have complete control over my domain—sole responsibility for every piece of videotape that ran during my hour.

I settled into my desk on the seventeenth floor. For the first time since I’d started at the network a year and a half ago, I had a space that was mine and only mine. This was a huge difference from the unassigned “hot desk”–style seating in the newsroom, a long-running game of musical chairs in which you’d take whatever seat was available in the morning when you showed up, fighting your fellow PAs for the choicest workstations.