• by April 8, 2004

HERE'S THE RETRACTION, PLUS A BIT OF POLITICAL ACTION -- Like many of you, we sure hope today is the last time the Riff has to discuss the political actions - or lack thereof - of Fox News Channel chief Roger Ailes. In fact, we wouldn't be bringing it up again today except that the Fox News Channel press department asked - actually they demanded - that we "retract" the quote we hypothetically attributed to Ailes in Tuesday's column.

Here's what we published: "We could almost hear Ailes defiantly intone, 'I'm going down there to kick some ass' when confronted by a Nielsen executive on a recent train trip down to D.C."

Here's what Fox News Channel's Robert Zimmerman had to say about it: "The quote is wholly inaccurate."

Zimmerman added that he was hip to the Riff's approach to media industry commentary and that he understood not everything in the column is meant to be taken literally. He said he even understood that the quote was written as supposition, but he said Fox News Channel was concerned that some readers might not take it that way. We have to admit that we didn't actually overhear Ailes utter those words, so we cannot attest to their veracity, but a well-regarded source of the Riff's says that is exactly what Ailes said to him and we've never known him to lie before. But since we can't actually prove that, we'd like to ask all our readers to please consider the quote officially retracted. Erase it from your memory banks, remove it from your hard drives and chew and swallow any hard copies you may have printed of the aforementioned column, because Ailes, through his press aide, asserts it just ain't true. And, of course, we believe him too.

What we did not necessarily believe was Zimmerman's assertion that Ailes has absolutely not been active in politics - in any shape or form - since he joined Fox News Channel. "No connection," declared Zimmerman. Again, it would be difficult for the Riff to prove or disprove any behind-the-scenes political activities Ailes may or may not have been involved in, only those that are a matter of public record. So we did what any self-respecting news organization would do and turned to one of those sources: public disclosures of campaign contributions. As it turns out, Ailes has been an active contributor to at least one political action committee. Not surprisingly, it was the News America Holdings Inc.-Fox Political Action Committee. On Dec. 29, 1997, Ailes contributed $5,000 to the PAC, which that year, in aggregate, supported both Republicans and Democrats. Those politicians included U.S. Sen. John S. McCain, R-Arizona; U.S. Rep. Mary Bono, R-California; U.S. Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Indiana; U.S. Sen. Thomas A. Daschle, D-South Dakota; U.S. Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-New York; and U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Michigan.

You can read it on page 2 of the four-page Schedule A for the PAC for that year or see Ailes' name here.

The Fox political action committee continues but Ailes hasn't contributed since December 1997. His name isn't listed on any FEC records since 1997, which means he hasn't either given any political candidates money or it hasn't met the $200 threshhold of reporting as required by law. As president of CNBC in June 1994, Ailes contributed $250 to the National Association of Broadcasters Television and Radio Political Action Committee. As a consultant in 1990, Ailes contributed $500 to Susan Molinari for Congress and in 1989 $1,000 to Pete Dawkins for Senate.

EVEN MORE RECENT POLITICAL ACTIONS -- Roger Ailes' boss Rupert Murdoch doesn't seem to have a problem letting his political allegiances be publicly known. Just one day after moving his journalistic hobby shop News Corp. to the United States Murdoch pronounced that George Bush was on his way to an easy victory in this year's presidential election.

"He's going to walk it," Murdoch told Sydney radio station 2GB. "The economy's doing extremely well and there is an international crisis. You've got to understand, America was attacked. 9/11 changed America."

Non-News Corp. news outlets, as you might imagine, have had a field day with those remarks. Our favorite, comes from the well-respected U.K. paper, The Guardian, which alleged:

"Fox television has proved a steadfast supporter of the Bush administration. Its chairman, Roger Ailes, a former Republican media consultant, is reportedly to issue daily guidelines to correspondents. Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard magazine has provided a forum for highbrow neo-conservative intellectuals, as well as an informal sounding board for White House officials."

The British paper did its own investigation of public records and figured out that, "So far, in this election season, the tycoon and members of his family have donated $28,000 to Mr Bush's re-election campaign, as well as to Republican candidates for the US Senate and Congress, according to the Political Moneyline website."