Roger Ailes Pulls Fast One on Juan Williams

By Chris Ariens 

In his new book, “Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate,” our later this month, Fox News contributor Juan Williams writes about his firing last October from NPR and how that was received at Fox News HQ in New York:

“Just after 8:00 a.m. [the day after Williams was fired from NPR with what he calls a ‘dismissive late-afternoon call’], I got a call from Bill Shine [Fox News executive vice president of programming]. He told me that Fox CEO Roger Ailes wanted to see me in his office at 10:00 a.m. Since I had talked with Hannity the night before, anxiety and pent-up anger and depression had all pulled at my emotions. I had not slept. At times I had cried over what had happened and over the potential destruction of my career – all because I had spoken my mind.

“When I walked into Roger Ailes’s office, accompanied by Shine and Michael Clemente, the senior vice president for news, Ailes greeted me with a smile and said,

Advertisement

‘Well, we can’t have you working here.’ As my jaw dropped, he broke into a laugh. He waved his hand and said he was offering me a new three-year contract with an increased role at the network. Ailes asked me how much I made at NPR and said he’d make up every dime so I wouldn’t have to go home and tell my wife and family we’d lost money because of NPR’s actions. He also said he wanted to see how America’s left-wing media and politicians reacted to a serious journalist being silenced this way.”

(h/t Playbook)

Advertisement