With an article in today’s edition, Washington Post becomes the latest media outlet to reflect on Fox News Channel’s 15th anniversary, a milestone that has been covered extensively both on the network and off. Among other things, the article examines how FNC has given its competitors a new model for success, or as CEO Roger Ailes puts it, “changed the face of journalism”:
Among the things that set the channel apart was an underlying belief that news needed to double as entertainment. Even his sharpest critics agree that Ailes’s skills as a TV producer are unsurpassed. He made the graphics flashier, the segment titles more arresting and pushed the pacing to match that of a multi-tasking public.
He had a discerning eye for talent, signing Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Shepard Smith and Greta Van Susteren. And he pushed his new team to alter the role of the on-air journalist.
Advertisement“The reporter and the host became personalities,” said Tom Goldstein, director of media studies at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. “They became almost more important than the stories.”