#18 || THE DEFECTION OF A ROGER AILES WARRIOR
TRANSCRIPT
Note: Reckonings is produced to be heard, not read. The audio includes emotion and emphasis unavailable on the written page. Transcripts may contain errors, and corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print.
Stevie: Wanna hear something amazing?
So I was doing research for this episode, which takes on the state of our news media today
-
And when I asked an expert on MEDIA BIAS what he would do to deal with that problem, he said: SUPPORT INDEPENDENT MEDIA,
which are essential to a vibrant democracy
-
And WHY that’s amazing is because THIS was going to be the episode / where I ask you / for the first time / to support THIS indepenedent medium
-
So, feed two birds with one scone: keep Reckonings going and, you know, strengthen our democracy
at: patreon dot com slash reckonings
That's P A T R E O N dot com / slash reckonings
Thanks
-
And before we dive in:
This episode has quite a bit of high-profile conservative name-dropping
I’m not gonna stop every time and explain who everyone is, but since the story starts with these two characters, I will say:
-
Roger Ailes was the CEO of Fox News for 20 years.
Megyn Kelly was one of the TOP RATED anchors on Fox News / during his tenure.
And with that, here we go
Joe: i remember going to front desk and saying i'm here to meet with roger wiles
they said, really?
i was led up by security guard to executive dining room
i got on the elevator, megyn kelly is getting off
i was bedazzled--
overwhelmed by all this
-
most of the building is kinda ugly inside, just cubicles
but the executive dining suite
you feel like you're in a ship's cabin
it's very ornate
and all of a sudden i hear all this noise, and it's roger and his wife elizabeth
and then roger and his wife and i sat down and had lunch
roger ate fried chicken, i think i had some kind of fish
i think i've reached the top here, you know?
Stevie: That’s Joe Lindsley.
While he was working on a conference to promote conservative thought on college campuses, HE met Marty Singerman – Rupert Murdoch’s first American employee, also known as his CONSIGLIERE.
Marty was impressed with Joe, and said he had great plans for him.
-
And so when Marty called, jumped at the opportunity
-
I’m Stevie Lepp and this is Reckonings.
Joe: from the very first seconds we're laughing and joking
there was no awkwardness at all
roger said he needed an editor-in-chief for some newspapers
he said, i hear you're a journalist? yes
are you conservative? yes
and i started to quote something from the founding fathers
and he was like oh that's great whatever
let's move on
let's talk about these newspapers
-
he had copies of the newspaper there
widest newspaper in the world…
i was a little kid - this could be mine!
-
so that's what i was thinking
meanwhile he was telling me
He bought the paper to keep an eye on the local politicians
he was concerned they were gonna be raising the property tax in putnam county
he wanted to have a voice
and figured owning a newspaper was the best way to do it
-
and the next day a town car was sent to pick me up and take me to cold spring
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as long as i can remember even as a little kid
i felt that i always was destined for some great and noble mission
-
i remember when i was in 9th grade maybe
i told some friends at track practice
and we were talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up
and i didn't really know but i said: i guess run Fox News
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and as i'm in this car…thinking
i'm thinking, this is incredible
i have arrived!
Stevie: Cold Spring is a village along the Hudson River, about an hour north of New York City
It’s where Roger Ailes and his wife Elizabeth had their second home, and where the Putnam County paper / Roger had just hired Joe to be the editor of / was based
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Roger wanted Joe to start immediately.
He didn’t have time to pack up his stuff or even find a home in Cold Spring.
So the Ailes sent movers to his place in Westchester, Pennsylvania to pack for him, and for his first couple months, he lived in the pool house on the north end of their 9,000-square-foot estate.
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Two weeks into his new job / on a Friday afternoon / Elizabeth invited Joe up to their main house for a drink:
Joe: i entered into the mansion
and as i enter into the living room
roger is there to greet me
overlooking the hudson valley
amazing view….
so roger and i sat looking at view as sun set
and we just began talking
-
he talked to me about his day/week at fox
he was sort of venting to me about his frustrations with people at fox
he basically said his job is a circus manager
whether managing personalities of gretta, bill o'reilly
some contributors thinking they're not getting enough airtime for whatever reason
salary demands
backstabbing…
bill o'reilly was getting nervous because glenn beck
he wanted beck silenced
-
at one point introduced me to their german shepherd
who was trained to kill
pretty much
introduced me to their young son
kid had a glow in the dark item from school
and wanted to show it off
and i stayed in my seat in living room
and they were like no come with us
now in dark bathroom with chairman, with killer dog…
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when beth told me
when she was encouraging me
to come up to the house for a drink
she told me:
this isn't just about the newspapers, this is about you learning from roger
his son is 12 years old, he needs someone to give his knowledge to
you're being groomed for greater things
you need to spend as much time with him as possible
-
Very earlier on, Ailes called me
he called me Ailes junior
he said to my dad: i've never met anyone more like me than Joe
Stevie: The protégé part of the job was never made explicit.
It kinda just happened.
-
Even though FORMALLY / Roger made Joe the editor of the newspaper he’d bought on the side, INFORMALLY / he took Joe under his wing at Fox
He started having Joe help write his speeches, and accompany him on business trips, and sit next to him at the head of the table at executive meetings
Roger ALSO started leaning on Fox staff to make themselves available as dates / for Joe, and bringing him on family vacations, and to church with them on Sundays
-
Things settled into a weekly rhythm:
Joe: I would finish my newspaper for the week
producing my paper
and Val the chauffeur would pick me up
and bring me to yankee stadium
and i'd meet roger
and usually it was Geraldo and Bill O'Reilly and Ainsley Earheart and Henry Kissinger
-
and Roger would introduce me as the smartest conservative he knows
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and actually i like to watch the game
so very often it was Kissinger and O'Reilly and i sitting in the seats in the outside watching the game
while everyone was indoors mingling
-
whether it was a game or a banquet dinner
which would happen now and then – MAYBE CUT
i'd often be in the city on thursday evenings - MAYBE CUT
-
i wasn't really allowed to go out for security reasons
as Roger always said - MAYBE CUT
and i had to go back in their secure convoy to new jersey
-
I’d stay at the Ailes’ suburban house
On Thursday nights
and then on friday morning
the driver / security man would pick us up
and we'd drive across the GW bridge while roger was on the 8am conf call
and i would just listen into that
and we'd get to office
and we'd have a chef-prepared breakfast
even though we'd already had breakfast at the house
Stevie: Between the excess food and having no time to exercise, Joe started gaining weight
He didn't realize it at first, until people told him he was starting to LOOK like Roger
But what really put on the pounds, was somewhat of a secure compound / Joe gained access to at Fox:
Joe: in the inner sanctum of executive offices
there was the secret danish closet
which was a vault
perhaps the most secure part of fox news
is for danishes? for danishes, ya
and through that door was a cavern of danish glory
and every day there were new danishes deployed on the countertops
only a handful of people had access to this vault of pastries
and i was one of them
which was a sign: i had really arrived - MAYBE CUT
-
we would sit and uh eat
chef would bring breakfast
chef would bring lunch
we'd eat danishes
we'd look at a wall of TV screens with MSNBC and NBC and Fox
-
and we'd stare at the screens and make comments about what looked good and didn't look good
like oh she looks good on CNN maybe we should get her over to Fox
she's not looking so good maybe we should get her off Fox
and if roger saw something he didn't like, he would call somebody up and say change that
in between snacks
and that was most of the day
-
during the 2pm board meetings
a select variety of the danishes would emerge from the vault and be put in the conference room
-
roger would make fun of people and call people 3-legged ballerinas or whatever
-
we made fun of everyone
the generic liberal - not even embodied in a person
-
after these meetings i'd go back to roger's office
and he would tell me
he would say all his executives are a bunch of wussies pretty much
he's surrounded by all these yes-men and yes-women
and that's the world he created
-
but i challenged him
why do you hire these people?
-
and i began thinking: maybe this is why he was seeking me out as a protégé
Joe: Increasingly we began to talk as if there was a crisis looming for the nation
and that perhaps civil war was imminent
and obama was never gonna leave office
and he would make the TSA into a secret army
that would take over america
-
and especially
and we'd have dinner parties at the house
people like rush limbaugh, chris christie, and carl rove would come for dinner
-
what are we gonna do?
-
sometimes we would sit in the
there's a turn overlooking hudson valley
and a storm would come in
you can watch the storm roll up the hudson river
and we'd sit there in the dark watching the storm
ailes would say - this storm, this is a metaphor for what's happening in america
we were being attacked, despite trying to save America
-
and every time i would leave their house
they would wish me well and say be careful
make sure there's not a garbage truck following you...
-
at the same time, while feeling quite terrified, i felt very important
i felt like i was in the scariest and coolest revolutionary movie
when i would walk from my apartment to the newspaper office
i felt like i was a commanding general
right now on a secret mission
preparing for the battles ahead
-
and roger would tell me
he was old
the nation was going to need me to survive and lead us out of the coming struggles
-
he would ask me to change my coverage based on
who was bad and who was good
and who needed to win and who needed to lose
and use headlines as weapons
--
i saw it as i'm a journalist and he's not
um
i'd want to run ideas by someone
does this make sense?
are we on edge of civil war?
is obama tyrant?
or is he a guy who's policies we disagree with?
and i had no one to run ideas by
i had this idea of secrecy
i couldn't talk to people about that stuff, i couldn't say it over the phone
-
i would look at the hudson
kinda look at the hudson
and i would be reminded of the importance of my mission
and that would okay - pull together, don't think about these stupid questions, forge ahead
Stevie: Back to those dinner parties for a sec:
think about it: they were talking among friends
The same way you would at an intimate dinner party
-
Which suggests that Roger and Rush and Joe and whoever else was sitting at the table BELIEVED what they were saying:
That America was under ATTACK
And that they needed to save it.
And they acted on that belief.
In small ways: like tightening security at the office
And in big ways: like giving play to the idea of BIRTHERISM on the most watched cable news network / in the country
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And that belief seemed to be confirmed by everything they saw
Cold Spring’s liberals were NOT HAPPY about Roger Ailes’ acquisition of their local paper, so they launched a RIVAL paper, and poached sympathetic members of Joe’s staff
Which he and Roger saw as part of the great battle against them
So to shore up their defenses, they hired some new staff, including Joe’s sister LAURA for a summer internship.
-
On her last night in Cold Spring, Laura/she asked to have dinner alone with Joe. They went to a local spot called Whistling Willie’s:
Joe: it was a little tavern…
we were sitting outside
pleasant summer evening
laura was having cider
i was having a beer
-
and she said: i just want you to think about the way you guys eat
it's disgusting
she said just think about the way you guys eat
you sit there in your dining room overlooking the world
stuffing yourselves with food
and you sit and you talk about people
negatively about everyone
and that's what your life is
and just think about that
-
i was angry at her for even criticizing my life and ailes, but
with such an idea planted
every mealtime
subsequently became an opportunity to question the entire enterprise
Stevie: Joe still worried about Obama’s secret army and the rival paper and the looming battles ahead
But he also started worrying about how he and Roger criticized people / and how Roger would ask him to change his coverage based on who was good and who was evil / and about how he felt SUFFOCATED by what he increasingly saw / as Roger’s paranoia
Things came to a head with an article in the New Yorker.
They were reporting on Roger’s purchase of the Putnam County paper, and had interviewed Joe as part of the piece:
-
after the interview, roger calls me and says,
we need to do damage control in this interview
seems like you talked too much
he was really afraid it was going to be a horrible hit piece
-
i said this is ridiculous
in my mind
i decide to challenge
Mr. Ailes
-
i said do you believe in the commandment thou shall not lie?
he said of course
if mr. murdoch asked you to lie?
he said of course
-
he said tell me you've never lied
i said no i have lied
i've even lied on your behalf i think
but i'm done with that
-
and all of a sudden he belts out: what is truth?
-
and he said: we made you
you're nothing without us
i can destroy you
i can destroy your facts with my narrative
he said there are no facts
-
and from threat mode he goes into nice friend mode
he says:
we need you, we need you man
and then the conversation ended
hey, what are you doing for dinner?
-
and i said i've got plans, i'm on my own
Stevie: So Joe started to taste what it was like to be on the OPPOSITE side of the battle / from the Ailes.
Roger seemed to trust him less,
and Beth started to micromanage him more.
They had security cameras installed at the office,
and sometimes he felt like they were having him followed.
-
It got to the point where he called for a meeting / with Roger and Beth:
Joe: very notably they wanted to meet at the office not at the house
so we'd reached a level / no longer friendly environment
and we meet in sherlock holmes room of office at the newspaper
and i sit down
and then i just said i've had enough of this
-
i said
according to your logic
you have the president of the united states after you
and you sit here demeaning innocent people
-
you can't treat people like garbage
you can’t just crap all over people
-
and then i just said
i called for this meeting to announce that i'm resigning
-
when i said i resign, i felt so free!
and roger looked crestfallen
just absolutely sad
-
and he says:
do you think i've lived a bad life?
And i said
that's for you to consider
-
i got in my jeep and drove
that was it
-
a few weeks before on saint patricks day on second avenue
and this old man had been singing this song
called "i will go"
i said oh, great song
-
i downloaded it
put it on repeat
it's scottish war song, drums beating
i roll down my windows
-
and this seemed to be the end of the movie
i'm fleeing down same road benedict arnold…
cross bear mountain bridge to freedom
Stevie: Benedict Arnold was a general in the Revolutionary War,
who initially fought for America / but then defected to the British Army.
In the US, his name is synonymous with treason.
After Joe fled, the Ailes considered him a traitor
Roger tried to blackball him in Washington media circles, and threatened him with lawsuits, and even tried to dig up dirt on his dad’s business
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Joe began searching for an identity separate from / “Ailes Junior.”
After two years under Roger’s thumb,
he started hanging out with people his age again
And going to music shows
And eating better / and exercising.
He lost 50 pounds in two months, and for an entire year, banned himself from having strong opinions on anything – including a favorite color
-
Joe needed a break from the world of news, and he started managing a Celtic rock band.
He went on tour with them to Ireland, and at one point while there, he was driving around, getting things ready for their big show that night:
Joe: running around trying to do a million things
I calculated that i was between two villages
i'm this beautiful coastal cliff-side road
and all of a sudden i didn't know where i was
everything just faded
i didn't know what anything was…
so i stopped the car
i couldn't go on!
and i'm just staring looking at the sea
-
and i became terrified
how am i gonna get out of this?
i was exactly in the middle of nowhere
-
and there was a little church on the hill there
and i went to the church
thinking that might give me some comfort
and it was even worse!
and i let out this great yell in the church
-
at that point
i had never
taken the time
to examine why it was that ailes had said he'd never met anyone more like him than me
-
all day
you could surround yourself
with your enemies
perceived or real
and that keeps you occupied
everything is occasion for crisis, confrontation, argument
-
we could have sat around and said we didn't like Obama's policies, but instead he was a tyrant who would never give up power
and it made us feel like heroes
and it gave an importance to our lives
-
everything was tinged by the potential threats
and even when ailes and i were at olive garden
which we enjoyed cuz breadsticks
we assumed that frank and irma at the table the next door were listening / assassins
-
my whole idea of journalism was couched in confrontation
everything was battle between good and evil
cuz that's how we saw whole world
-
i knew something was missing
i knew that the course that Ailes and i were on
seemed glorious but deep down we knew there was this isolation and sadness
-
that's why we make president to be sinister figure out of james bond
because you can focus on that rather than own unhappiness
so you fill your life with extra drama / negativity
so you don't have to think about or address the unhappiness
-
that sadness has a power over you, when you don't address it or acknowledge it
i realized this is the deepest way Ailes and I were most alike
-
i felt very close to God in that moment when i yelled
while it might seem sacreligious
was my soul being somehow
forcing its way into honesty
-
the next step is i have to write this story
I need to write this
truthfully
unvarnished
Stevie: Eventually a French couple passed by / and helped Joe get back to the band.
But the armor had cracked
Joe needed to see himself HONESTLY, and go public with his story:
Joe: I wrote this book because it poured fourth
and as i began to write
i began to open up
i began to be honest about – the turmoil within
i began to talk about struggles and loneliness and isolation
I began to realize what it meant to be honest
i realized i wanted this to be something that Roger Ailes read
-
i wanted him to read this book
i wanted him to hear my story
and to realize why i left
and hope that it would offer him some solace
and his own awakening or reckoning
-
the night that i finished my final draft
the draft that i'm like - this is it, i've got it
i went out to celebrate with friends in new orleans
and i woke up to a flurry of text messages
at 6am
saying that roger Ailes was dead
Stevie: do you think he would have read the book?
Joe: i think
very secretly
yes
he would have
Stevie: how do you think he would have reacted?
Joe: well
i think
it's um
i go back to the conversation i had the day he was on the front page of the NYT
-
the NYT had a front page story about roger
it was a big piece i think they had 3 or 4 writers on it
and there were people close to rupert murdoch who spoke poorly of Ailes
in the piece
-
you know painting him as paranoid and crazy
and that really got to him
it got to him, it got under his skin
it weakened him
-
that day
we had a war room..
it was roger and me
and various people calling in, about how to respond to the piece
and it was a strange day, very somber
we were sitting there eating pizza and drinking scotch
and he started to open up and to confide in me about his own sadnesses
-
but i was not capable at that time to have those conversations
so i just said that's fine…
and so that moment was lost for him to open up to a friend
i didn't let him have that moment to share what he was trying to say
-
he was looking for a friend to talk to
and I didn't know how to be a friend and how to communicate with that
Stevie: what do you wish you would have said?
Joe: just to listen!
to shut up and
instead of saying everything is fine..
to say: ya i'm here, tell me some stories
-
i think had that gone conversation gone otherwise maybe things would have shook out quite differently
who knows
maybe that's just a dream you know?
maybe we would have began to have a transformation
change the things are at Fox
who knows how that conversation
had i been willing to listen to his story
who knows what the effect could have been
Stevie: These days there’s a lot of talk about post-truth and fake news
Our democracy is struggling in a moment where the HONEST facts have less influence over public opinion
But there’s another kind of HONESTY / that’s implicated here – and that is: HONESTY WITH ONESELF
-
Roger and Joe were not HONEST with themselves about their feelings of isolation and sadness
They used conspiracies and criticisms and copious quantities of carbohydrates to AVOID being honest with themselves
If they had just been willing to see truths about themselves, would they have been less inclined to fabricate lies about the world?
-
Joe says Roger was almost SCARED of the truth.
Which is ironic and devastating for someone with SO MUCH POWER over it
But that might also be why he took Joe on as a protégé – to have someone with similar inclinations who could act as a mirror
-
And THAT might be the biggest thing Joe Lindsley has to reckon with: not holding up a mirror to Roger Ailes
And his biggest TRANSFORMATION might be: learning to hold up a mirror to himself
Actually he kept referring to OUR INTERVIEW as the kind of conversation he never would have been able to have / even a couple years ago
Joe: When I was in the world of ailes
i didn't know these kinds of conversations were possible
i didn't know you could examine the soul at this level
-
there's always a problem to fix
a point to be made
a dummy to convince with brilliance of your own arguments
-
you live like that you'll never be joyful
-
i still have to wrestle with some demons but
i can smile now
i find happiness in life
i don't really hold angry political positions on anything
-
surely need to pay attention to national politics
and things can be very dire and maybe they are
but we need to live with people around us
and live our lives
and turn off TV more often
and turn off the news
-
And use that time to talk like humans
get to know each other
and get to know our neighbors
-
that's the resistance we need
-
how many people invite
tucker carlson and rachel maddow - into their living rooms more than neighbors?
Stevie: Joe Lindsley went public with his story FOR THE FIRST TIME this past September, / in a Politico article that announced the release of his memoir
I just gave you a suuuuuuper simplified version, so for much more detail, check his memoir out.
It’s called: Fake News / True Story
-
He also just signed a deal to tell his story in an upcoming SHOWTIME mini-series about Roger Ailes,
It wiill be called: Secure and Hold: The Last Days of Roger Ailes
-
In the future, Joe would love to go BACK into journalism in a different way.
He dreams of launching a one-page newspaper in his city of New Orleans – where one side of the paper features a local investigative story, and the other side features a local POSITIVE story
-
And speaking of doing journalism in a different way, the idea of PAYING for it is kinda different, right?
Especially when you can get it for free
So let’s do something different
-
If you’re enjoying the show, PLEASE help keeping it going
Head to patreon.com/reckonings
Again+that’s P A T R E O N dot com slash reckonings
-
Big thanks go to: Helena de Groot, Vika Aronson, Phil Groman, Patricia Adler, Jim Naureckas at FAIR, Joshua Benton at the Nieman Journalism Lab, Kelly McBride at the Poynter Institute
AND to YOU for listening all the way to the end
There’s a little something waiting for you on the other side of the credits, so stick around
I’m Stevie Lepp, and you’ve been listening to Reckonings
Stevie: What was it like a key?
Joe: The passcode, I think I can say the passcode
Stevie: Okay what was the passcode to the Fox danish...?
Joe: 1,2,3,4
Stevie: okay, interesting. do you think the passcode is still 1,2,3,4?
Joe: once they hear your podcast...
Stevie: they'll change it to 5,6,7,8?
Joe: Ya probably, the next logical one :)
Note: Reckonings is produced to be heard, not read. The audio includes emotion and emphasis unavailable on the written page. Transcripts may contain errors, and corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print.
Stevie: Wanna hear something amazing?
So I was doing research for this episode, which takes on the state of our news media today
-
And when I asked an expert on MEDIA BIAS what he would do to deal with that problem, he said: SUPPORT INDEPENDENT MEDIA,
which are essential to a vibrant democracy
-
And WHY that’s amazing is because THIS was going to be the episode / where I ask you / for the first time / to support THIS indepenedent medium
-
So, feed two birds with one scone: keep Reckonings going and, you know, strengthen our democracy
at: patreon dot com slash reckonings
That's P A T R E O N dot com / slash reckonings
Thanks
-
And before we dive in:
This episode has quite a bit of high-profile conservative name-dropping
I’m not gonna stop every time and explain who everyone is, but since the story starts with these two characters, I will say:
-
Roger Ailes was the CEO of Fox News for 20 years.
Megyn Kelly was one of the TOP RATED anchors on Fox News / during his tenure.
And with that, here we go
Joe: i remember going to front desk and saying i'm here to meet with roger wiles
they said, really?
i was led up by security guard to executive dining room
i got on the elevator, megyn kelly is getting off
i was bedazzled--
overwhelmed by all this
-
most of the building is kinda ugly inside, just cubicles
but the executive dining suite
you feel like you're in a ship's cabin
it's very ornate
and all of a sudden i hear all this noise, and it's roger and his wife elizabeth
and then roger and his wife and i sat down and had lunch
roger ate fried chicken, i think i had some kind of fish
i think i've reached the top here, you know?
Stevie: That’s Joe Lindsley.
While he was working on a conference to promote conservative thought on college campuses, HE met Marty Singerman – Rupert Murdoch’s first American employee, also known as his CONSIGLIERE.
Marty was impressed with Joe, and said he had great plans for him.
-
And so when Marty called, jumped at the opportunity
-
I’m Stevie Lepp and this is Reckonings.
Joe: from the very first seconds we're laughing and joking
there was no awkwardness at all
roger said he needed an editor-in-chief for some newspapers
he said, i hear you're a journalist? yes
are you conservative? yes
and i started to quote something from the founding fathers
and he was like oh that's great whatever
let's move on
let's talk about these newspapers
-
he had copies of the newspaper there
widest newspaper in the world…
i was a little kid - this could be mine!
-
so that's what i was thinking
meanwhile he was telling me
He bought the paper to keep an eye on the local politicians
he was concerned they were gonna be raising the property tax in putnam county
he wanted to have a voice
and figured owning a newspaper was the best way to do it
-
and the next day a town car was sent to pick me up and take me to cold spring
-
as long as i can remember even as a little kid
i felt that i always was destined for some great and noble mission
-
i remember when i was in 9th grade maybe
i told some friends at track practice
and we were talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up
and i didn't really know but i said: i guess run Fox News
-
and as i'm in this car…thinking
i'm thinking, this is incredible
i have arrived!
Stevie: Cold Spring is a village along the Hudson River, about an hour north of New York City
It’s where Roger Ailes and his wife Elizabeth had their second home, and where the Putnam County paper / Roger had just hired Joe to be the editor of / was based
-
Roger wanted Joe to start immediately.
He didn’t have time to pack up his stuff or even find a home in Cold Spring.
So the Ailes sent movers to his place in Westchester, Pennsylvania to pack for him, and for his first couple months, he lived in the pool house on the north end of their 9,000-square-foot estate.
-
Two weeks into his new job / on a Friday afternoon / Elizabeth invited Joe up to their main house for a drink:
Joe: i entered into the mansion
and as i enter into the living room
roger is there to greet me
overlooking the hudson valley
amazing view….
so roger and i sat looking at view as sun set
and we just began talking
-
he talked to me about his day/week at fox
he was sort of venting to me about his frustrations with people at fox
he basically said his job is a circus manager
whether managing personalities of gretta, bill o'reilly
some contributors thinking they're not getting enough airtime for whatever reason
salary demands
backstabbing…
bill o'reilly was getting nervous because glenn beck
he wanted beck silenced
-
at one point introduced me to their german shepherd
who was trained to kill
pretty much
introduced me to their young son
kid had a glow in the dark item from school
and wanted to show it off
and i stayed in my seat in living room
and they were like no come with us
now in dark bathroom with chairman, with killer dog…
-
when beth told me
when she was encouraging me
to come up to the house for a drink
she told me:
this isn't just about the newspapers, this is about you learning from roger
his son is 12 years old, he needs someone to give his knowledge to
you're being groomed for greater things
you need to spend as much time with him as possible
-
Very earlier on, Ailes called me
he called me Ailes junior
he said to my dad: i've never met anyone more like me than Joe
Stevie: The protégé part of the job was never made explicit.
It kinda just happened.
-
Even though FORMALLY / Roger made Joe the editor of the newspaper he’d bought on the side, INFORMALLY / he took Joe under his wing at Fox
He started having Joe help write his speeches, and accompany him on business trips, and sit next to him at the head of the table at executive meetings
Roger ALSO started leaning on Fox staff to make themselves available as dates / for Joe, and bringing him on family vacations, and to church with them on Sundays
-
Things settled into a weekly rhythm:
Joe: I would finish my newspaper for the week
producing my paper
and Val the chauffeur would pick me up
and bring me to yankee stadium
and i'd meet roger
and usually it was Geraldo and Bill O'Reilly and Ainsley Earheart and Henry Kissinger
-
and Roger would introduce me as the smartest conservative he knows
-
and actually i like to watch the game
so very often it was Kissinger and O'Reilly and i sitting in the seats in the outside watching the game
while everyone was indoors mingling
-
whether it was a game or a banquet dinner
which would happen now and then – MAYBE CUT
i'd often be in the city on thursday evenings - MAYBE CUT
-
i wasn't really allowed to go out for security reasons
as Roger always said - MAYBE CUT
and i had to go back in their secure convoy to new jersey
-
I’d stay at the Ailes’ suburban house
On Thursday nights
and then on friday morning
the driver / security man would pick us up
and we'd drive across the GW bridge while roger was on the 8am conf call
and i would just listen into that
and we'd get to office
and we'd have a chef-prepared breakfast
even though we'd already had breakfast at the house
Stevie: Between the excess food and having no time to exercise, Joe started gaining weight
He didn't realize it at first, until people told him he was starting to LOOK like Roger
But what really put on the pounds, was somewhat of a secure compound / Joe gained access to at Fox:
Joe: in the inner sanctum of executive offices
there was the secret danish closet
which was a vault
perhaps the most secure part of fox news
is for danishes? for danishes, ya
and through that door was a cavern of danish glory
and every day there were new danishes deployed on the countertops
only a handful of people had access to this vault of pastries
and i was one of them
which was a sign: i had really arrived - MAYBE CUT
-
we would sit and uh eat
chef would bring breakfast
chef would bring lunch
we'd eat danishes
we'd look at a wall of TV screens with MSNBC and NBC and Fox
-
and we'd stare at the screens and make comments about what looked good and didn't look good
like oh she looks good on CNN maybe we should get her over to Fox
she's not looking so good maybe we should get her off Fox
and if roger saw something he didn't like, he would call somebody up and say change that
in between snacks
and that was most of the day
-
during the 2pm board meetings
a select variety of the danishes would emerge from the vault and be put in the conference room
-
roger would make fun of people and call people 3-legged ballerinas or whatever
-
we made fun of everyone
the generic liberal - not even embodied in a person
-
after these meetings i'd go back to roger's office
and he would tell me
he would say all his executives are a bunch of wussies pretty much
he's surrounded by all these yes-men and yes-women
and that's the world he created
-
but i challenged him
why do you hire these people?
-
and i began thinking: maybe this is why he was seeking me out as a protégé
Joe: Increasingly we began to talk as if there was a crisis looming for the nation
and that perhaps civil war was imminent
and obama was never gonna leave office
and he would make the TSA into a secret army
that would take over america
-
and especially
and we'd have dinner parties at the house
people like rush limbaugh, chris christie, and carl rove would come for dinner
-
what are we gonna do?
-
sometimes we would sit in the
there's a turn overlooking hudson valley
and a storm would come in
you can watch the storm roll up the hudson river
and we'd sit there in the dark watching the storm
ailes would say - this storm, this is a metaphor for what's happening in america
we were being attacked, despite trying to save America
-
and every time i would leave their house
they would wish me well and say be careful
make sure there's not a garbage truck following you...
-
at the same time, while feeling quite terrified, i felt very important
i felt like i was in the scariest and coolest revolutionary movie
when i would walk from my apartment to the newspaper office
i felt like i was a commanding general
right now on a secret mission
preparing for the battles ahead
-
and roger would tell me
he was old
the nation was going to need me to survive and lead us out of the coming struggles
-
he would ask me to change my coverage based on
who was bad and who was good
and who needed to win and who needed to lose
and use headlines as weapons
--
i saw it as i'm a journalist and he's not
um
i'd want to run ideas by someone
does this make sense?
are we on edge of civil war?
is obama tyrant?
or is he a guy who's policies we disagree with?
and i had no one to run ideas by
i had this idea of secrecy
i couldn't talk to people about that stuff, i couldn't say it over the phone
-
i would look at the hudson
kinda look at the hudson
and i would be reminded of the importance of my mission
and that would okay - pull together, don't think about these stupid questions, forge ahead
Stevie: Back to those dinner parties for a sec:
think about it: they were talking among friends
The same way you would at an intimate dinner party
-
Which suggests that Roger and Rush and Joe and whoever else was sitting at the table BELIEVED what they were saying:
That America was under ATTACK
And that they needed to save it.
And they acted on that belief.
In small ways: like tightening security at the office
And in big ways: like giving play to the idea of BIRTHERISM on the most watched cable news network / in the country
-
And that belief seemed to be confirmed by everything they saw
Cold Spring’s liberals were NOT HAPPY about Roger Ailes’ acquisition of their local paper, so they launched a RIVAL paper, and poached sympathetic members of Joe’s staff
Which he and Roger saw as part of the great battle against them
So to shore up their defenses, they hired some new staff, including Joe’s sister LAURA for a summer internship.
-
On her last night in Cold Spring, Laura/she asked to have dinner alone with Joe. They went to a local spot called Whistling Willie’s:
Joe: it was a little tavern…
we were sitting outside
pleasant summer evening
laura was having cider
i was having a beer
-
and she said: i just want you to think about the way you guys eat
it's disgusting
she said just think about the way you guys eat
you sit there in your dining room overlooking the world
stuffing yourselves with food
and you sit and you talk about people
negatively about everyone
and that's what your life is
and just think about that
-
i was angry at her for even criticizing my life and ailes, but
with such an idea planted
every mealtime
subsequently became an opportunity to question the entire enterprise
Stevie: Joe still worried about Obama’s secret army and the rival paper and the looming battles ahead
But he also started worrying about how he and Roger criticized people / and how Roger would ask him to change his coverage based on who was good and who was evil / and about how he felt SUFFOCATED by what he increasingly saw / as Roger’s paranoia
Things came to a head with an article in the New Yorker.
They were reporting on Roger’s purchase of the Putnam County paper, and had interviewed Joe as part of the piece:
-
after the interview, roger calls me and says,
we need to do damage control in this interview
seems like you talked too much
he was really afraid it was going to be a horrible hit piece
-
i said this is ridiculous
in my mind
i decide to challenge
Mr. Ailes
-
i said do you believe in the commandment thou shall not lie?
he said of course
if mr. murdoch asked you to lie?
he said of course
-
he said tell me you've never lied
i said no i have lied
i've even lied on your behalf i think
but i'm done with that
-
and all of a sudden he belts out: what is truth?
-
and he said: we made you
you're nothing without us
i can destroy you
i can destroy your facts with my narrative
he said there are no facts
-
and from threat mode he goes into nice friend mode
he says:
we need you, we need you man
and then the conversation ended
hey, what are you doing for dinner?
-
and i said i've got plans, i'm on my own
Stevie: So Joe started to taste what it was like to be on the OPPOSITE side of the battle / from the Ailes.
Roger seemed to trust him less,
and Beth started to micromanage him more.
They had security cameras installed at the office,
and sometimes he felt like they were having him followed.
-
It got to the point where he called for a meeting / with Roger and Beth:
Joe: very notably they wanted to meet at the office not at the house
so we'd reached a level / no longer friendly environment
and we meet in sherlock holmes room of office at the newspaper
and i sit down
and then i just said i've had enough of this
-
i said
according to your logic
you have the president of the united states after you
and you sit here demeaning innocent people
-
you can't treat people like garbage
you can’t just crap all over people
-
and then i just said
i called for this meeting to announce that i'm resigning
-
when i said i resign, i felt so free!
and roger looked crestfallen
just absolutely sad
-
and he says:
do you think i've lived a bad life?
And i said
that's for you to consider
-
i got in my jeep and drove
that was it
-
a few weeks before on saint patricks day on second avenue
and this old man had been singing this song
called "i will go"
i said oh, great song
-
i downloaded it
put it on repeat
it's scottish war song, drums beating
i roll down my windows
-
and this seemed to be the end of the movie
i'm fleeing down same road benedict arnold…
cross bear mountain bridge to freedom
Stevie: Benedict Arnold was a general in the Revolutionary War,
who initially fought for America / but then defected to the British Army.
In the US, his name is synonymous with treason.
After Joe fled, the Ailes considered him a traitor
Roger tried to blackball him in Washington media circles, and threatened him with lawsuits, and even tried to dig up dirt on his dad’s business
-
Joe began searching for an identity separate from / “Ailes Junior.”
After two years under Roger’s thumb,
he started hanging out with people his age again
And going to music shows
And eating better / and exercising.
He lost 50 pounds in two months, and for an entire year, banned himself from having strong opinions on anything – including a favorite color
-
Joe needed a break from the world of news, and he started managing a Celtic rock band.
He went on tour with them to Ireland, and at one point while there, he was driving around, getting things ready for their big show that night:
Joe: running around trying to do a million things
I calculated that i was between two villages
i'm this beautiful coastal cliff-side road
and all of a sudden i didn't know where i was
everything just faded
i didn't know what anything was…
so i stopped the car
i couldn't go on!
and i'm just staring looking at the sea
-
and i became terrified
how am i gonna get out of this?
i was exactly in the middle of nowhere
-
and there was a little church on the hill there
and i went to the church
thinking that might give me some comfort
and it was even worse!
and i let out this great yell in the church
-
at that point
i had never
taken the time
to examine why it was that ailes had said he'd never met anyone more like him than me
-
all day
you could surround yourself
with your enemies
perceived or real
and that keeps you occupied
everything is occasion for crisis, confrontation, argument
-
we could have sat around and said we didn't like Obama's policies, but instead he was a tyrant who would never give up power
and it made us feel like heroes
and it gave an importance to our lives
-
everything was tinged by the potential threats
and even when ailes and i were at olive garden
which we enjoyed cuz breadsticks
we assumed that frank and irma at the table the next door were listening / assassins
-
my whole idea of journalism was couched in confrontation
everything was battle between good and evil
cuz that's how we saw whole world
-
i knew something was missing
i knew that the course that Ailes and i were on
seemed glorious but deep down we knew there was this isolation and sadness
-
that's why we make president to be sinister figure out of james bond
because you can focus on that rather than own unhappiness
so you fill your life with extra drama / negativity
so you don't have to think about or address the unhappiness
-
that sadness has a power over you, when you don't address it or acknowledge it
i realized this is the deepest way Ailes and I were most alike
-
i felt very close to God in that moment when i yelled
while it might seem sacreligious
was my soul being somehow
forcing its way into honesty
-
the next step is i have to write this story
I need to write this
truthfully
unvarnished
Stevie: Eventually a French couple passed by / and helped Joe get back to the band.
But the armor had cracked
Joe needed to see himself HONESTLY, and go public with his story:
Joe: I wrote this book because it poured fourth
and as i began to write
i began to open up
i began to be honest about – the turmoil within
i began to talk about struggles and loneliness and isolation
I began to realize what it meant to be honest
i realized i wanted this to be something that Roger Ailes read
-
i wanted him to read this book
i wanted him to hear my story
and to realize why i left
and hope that it would offer him some solace
and his own awakening or reckoning
-
the night that i finished my final draft
the draft that i'm like - this is it, i've got it
i went out to celebrate with friends in new orleans
and i woke up to a flurry of text messages
at 6am
saying that roger Ailes was dead
Stevie: do you think he would have read the book?
Joe: i think
very secretly
yes
he would have
Stevie: how do you think he would have reacted?
Joe: well
i think
it's um
i go back to the conversation i had the day he was on the front page of the NYT
-
the NYT had a front page story about roger
it was a big piece i think they had 3 or 4 writers on it
and there were people close to rupert murdoch who spoke poorly of Ailes
in the piece
-
you know painting him as paranoid and crazy
and that really got to him
it got to him, it got under his skin
it weakened him
-
that day
we had a war room..
it was roger and me
and various people calling in, about how to respond to the piece
and it was a strange day, very somber
we were sitting there eating pizza and drinking scotch
and he started to open up and to confide in me about his own sadnesses
-
but i was not capable at that time to have those conversations
so i just said that's fine…
and so that moment was lost for him to open up to a friend
i didn't let him have that moment to share what he was trying to say
-
he was looking for a friend to talk to
and I didn't know how to be a friend and how to communicate with that
Stevie: what do you wish you would have said?
Joe: just to listen!
to shut up and
instead of saying everything is fine..
to say: ya i'm here, tell me some stories
-
i think had that gone conversation gone otherwise maybe things would have shook out quite differently
who knows
maybe that's just a dream you know?
maybe we would have began to have a transformation
change the things are at Fox
who knows how that conversation
had i been willing to listen to his story
who knows what the effect could have been
Stevie: These days there’s a lot of talk about post-truth and fake news
Our democracy is struggling in a moment where the HONEST facts have less influence over public opinion
But there’s another kind of HONESTY / that’s implicated here – and that is: HONESTY WITH ONESELF
-
Roger and Joe were not HONEST with themselves about their feelings of isolation and sadness
They used conspiracies and criticisms and copious quantities of carbohydrates to AVOID being honest with themselves
If they had just been willing to see truths about themselves, would they have been less inclined to fabricate lies about the world?
-
Joe says Roger was almost SCARED of the truth.
Which is ironic and devastating for someone with SO MUCH POWER over it
But that might also be why he took Joe on as a protégé – to have someone with similar inclinations who could act as a mirror
-
And THAT might be the biggest thing Joe Lindsley has to reckon with: not holding up a mirror to Roger Ailes
And his biggest TRANSFORMATION might be: learning to hold up a mirror to himself
Actually he kept referring to OUR INTERVIEW as the kind of conversation he never would have been able to have / even a couple years ago
Joe: When I was in the world of ailes
i didn't know these kinds of conversations were possible
i didn't know you could examine the soul at this level
-
there's always a problem to fix
a point to be made
a dummy to convince with brilliance of your own arguments
-
you live like that you'll never be joyful
-
i still have to wrestle with some demons but
i can smile now
i find happiness in life
i don't really hold angry political positions on anything
-
surely need to pay attention to national politics
and things can be very dire and maybe they are
but we need to live with people around us
and live our lives
and turn off TV more often
and turn off the news
-
And use that time to talk like humans
get to know each other
and get to know our neighbors
-
that's the resistance we need
-
how many people invite
tucker carlson and rachel maddow - into their living rooms more than neighbors?
Stevie: Joe Lindsley went public with his story FOR THE FIRST TIME this past September, / in a Politico article that announced the release of his memoir
I just gave you a suuuuuuper simplified version, so for much more detail, check his memoir out.
It’s called: Fake News / True Story
-
He also just signed a deal to tell his story in an upcoming SHOWTIME mini-series about Roger Ailes,
It wiill be called: Secure and Hold: The Last Days of Roger Ailes
-
In the future, Joe would love to go BACK into journalism in a different way.
He dreams of launching a one-page newspaper in his city of New Orleans – where one side of the paper features a local investigative story, and the other side features a local POSITIVE story
-
And speaking of doing journalism in a different way, the idea of PAYING for it is kinda different, right?
Especially when you can get it for free
So let’s do something different
-
If you’re enjoying the show, PLEASE help keeping it going
Head to patreon.com/reckonings
Again+that’s P A T R E O N dot com slash reckonings
-
Big thanks go to: Helena de Groot, Vika Aronson, Phil Groman, Patricia Adler, Jim Naureckas at FAIR, Joshua Benton at the Nieman Journalism Lab, Kelly McBride at the Poynter Institute
AND to YOU for listening all the way to the end
There’s a little something waiting for you on the other side of the credits, so stick around
I’m Stevie Lepp, and you’ve been listening to Reckonings
Stevie: What was it like a key?
Joe: The passcode, I think I can say the passcode
Stevie: Okay what was the passcode to the Fox danish...?
Joe: 1,2,3,4
Stevie: okay, interesting. do you think the passcode is still 1,2,3,4?
Joe: once they hear your podcast...
Stevie: they'll change it to 5,6,7,8?
Joe: Ya probably, the next logical one :)