“The reason we [Fox News] don’t step in and give a reality check to our audience is because that’s terrible for ratings.”
Joe Muto, the “Fox News Mole,” who got fired as a producer on Bill O’Reilly’s show after posting anonymously on Gawker, in an interview with HuffPost Live.
If you’ve been wondering about (or worrying about) the Fox Mole, he is alive and well and still living in Brooklyn (maybe he’ll be on the next season of Girls).
Muto has a sharp piece up on Slate critiquing Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO show The Newsroom. Muto details what Sorkin gets right and what he gets wrong about cable news.
Muto also references his own “quiet, dignified” exit from eight years at Fox as a producer for Bill O’Reilly. I can’t imagine working for O’Reilly for eight minutes. Not enough Prozac in the world….
It’s not good to piss off Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, and Fox News. The Fox Mole, Joe Muto, reports that they are going after him for grand larceny! He was served with a search warrant that resulted in his iPhone, laptop, and notebooks being taken.
Muto tweets, “I should have done something more innocuous, like hacked a dead girl’s phone and interfered with a police investigation.”
Having complained about Fox’s bias toward Mitt, Newtie is now unwelcome at Fox, where he was a paid contributor before he ran for president.
So too is Rick Santorum, who had complained in March that Fox was “shilling for Romney.” Fox also revealed that Santorum’s contract with them was only in the five, not the six, figures. They apparently did this to hurt his negotiating position with another network.
So Roger Ailes won’t be rehiring Newtie and Frothy.
What about Sarah Palin, whose contract continues through 2013? Now Ailes has upset her, saying, “Sarah Palin had no chance to be President. The one I didn’t hire was Romney. I thought he had a chance [to be President] … I hired people I thought would get ratings.”
Palin huffily responded, “I wonder if he is aware that the same thing was said about me when I ran for city council, mayor, and eventually governor. No doubt many people who are told they can’t do something will work that much harder, and they succeed.”
As for the Fox Mole, Joe Muto, his fifteen minutes continues. He’ll be on CNN on Sunday.
Fox News’ Park Avenue law firm, Epstein Becker & Green, sent Nick Denton, the publisher of Gawker, a threatening letter about their relationship with Joe Muto, the Fox Mole.
At the top of the letter, it says NOT FOR PUBLICATION. So of course Denton published it.
The Fox Mole, Joe Muto, used his work computer to send out the video Gawker used, so it wasn’t all that hard to track him down.
Since he was a low-level employee, he didn’t have a non-disclosure agreement. But Fox News is threatening to go after him criminally and civilly.
The Fox Mole, the disgruntled Fox News employee who had begun posting on Gawker, is now a disgruntled ex-Fox News employee. He is Joe Muto, an associate producer on Bill O’Reilly’s show, who had been at Fox since 2004.
After a meeting with Dianne Brandi, Fox News Executive VP for Legal and Business Affairs, Muto was escorted from Fox News HQ by security.
Fox says, “We are continuing to explore legal recourse against Mr. Muto and possibly others.
Ah, Joe, we hardly knew ye.
Embattled Farmers 