blog-stained wretches

Fox News Staffers Paid to Leave Positive Internet Comments on Mean Blog Posts

President of Fox News Channel Roger Ailes and Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis attend Melissa's book
Roger Ailes. Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

The people love Fox News! Isn’t that right, hoi polloi? According to the new book Murdoch’s World by NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, the cable network engaged in some shady online street-teaming, spreading the good word in website comments sections. One job of the infamous bruiser squad that is the Fox News public relations department was “to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them” using fake names and IP addresses to cover their tracks in the mid-to-late aughts. “One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants,” Folkenflik writes, according to Media Matters, citing four former Fox News employees. “Another had one hundred.” BombIraq123, BombIraq122, BombIraq121 … 

Fox News Staff Left Positive Internet Comments