Giuliani on Fox News Channel. Photo: nytimes.com
Today’s Times turns our attention to the ethically fraught friendship between Rudy Giuliani and Fox News Channel honcho Roger Ailes: Giuliani had employed Ailes as a media consultant, lobbied for him later, and officiated at his wedding. Once, Rudy even gave him an issue of Wine Spectator! It could thus be reasonably inferred that Roger owes him one. Cue the chart that conclusively proves that Giuliani is getting disproportionate amounts of screen time on FNC: 115 minutes to date, compared to Mitt Romney’s 91. There are two underlying assumptions we find a little strange about the Times’ alarm over this. First, the thesis that a Republican front-runner, whoever he may be, needs to be best buddies with Ailes to skew FNC’s sympathies toward him; and second, that these sympathies can be “skewed” to begin with — which accidentally validates FNC’s claims of impartiality in matters that don’t involve Rudy. Sure, Romney may have gotten only 91 minutes on Fox News; John Edwards had six.
