In the media world at large, Thursday’s big story was The New York Times report that Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes was named in court documents as the News Corp. executive accused of attempting to protect Rudy Giuliani by pushing then-News Corp. employee Judith Regan to lie to investigators about her relationship with Bernard Kerik.
News Corp.’s outlets, however, didn’t seem all that interested. None of the media empire's various arms appear to have covered the news on their own. (The Wall Street Journal eventually posted an Associated Press story on its Web site Friday afternoon.)
Media Matters, the liberal press watchdog, hasn’t picked up any more reactions or chatter from networks or publications under the News Corp. umbrella, other than the initial statement that company spokespeople gave to the Times, which basically declares the news a nonstory. A Nexis search of coverage by News Corp.-owned outlets since the news broke netted zero results.
Adweek’s inquiries to News Corp. representatives yielded a slightly fuller version of the quote published in the Times story: “These issues were resolved in 2008. Further, Ms. Regan is on record in a letter to News Corporation attorneys stating that Mr. Ailes did not intend to influence her with respect to a government investigation. The matter is closed.”
None of that's really a surprise. But if MSNBC President Phil Griffin, for example, was accused under the same circumstances, it’d be difficult to imagine such radio silence from Fox News and the New York Post.
Meanwhile, the Post’s rival New York Daily News seemed to struggle to restrain itself, pouncing on Ailes’ alleged entanglement in the attempt to cover up what the paper termed a "seedy" extramarital affair "in a love nest overlooking the smoking ruins of Ground Zero."
