The so-called “Fox Mole” has been unearthed. The short-lived column to the website Gawker, which depicted a Fox News Channel employee’s complaints against the work environment, was quickly revealed to have been written by Joe Muto, who had been at Fox since 2004 and was an associate producer of The O’Reilly Factor since 2007. According to Muto, “In the end, it was the digital trail that gave me away.”
Now ousted from Fox, Muto may have to make the $5,000 he was reportedly paid for his column go a long way, given that his first “Fox Mole” column suggests that it’s hard times for former Fox employees looking for jobs. “No one wants me. I’m blacklisted,” it reads. “I work at Fox News Channel.”
By Muto’s own admission, he was on his way out of the insular world that is Fox News. “But I just can’t leave quietly, can I?” he wrote. And, though Fox is threatening legal action against Muto and possibly Gawker, Muto’s observations of life at Fox are here to stay. And, according to Gawker, a “fuller account” of his time at Fox News is on the way. But do Muto’s “revelations” have some worth? Or are they essentially just screeds from a disgruntled employee?
To start, the existing Fox Mole columns are extremely amusing. An image like a “couple strands of cheap single-ply,” draped over the gap in the Fox News bathroom stall, being the only thing stopping you from the unsightly scene of Bill O’Reilly dropping a deuce transcends a critique journalistic ethics. That’s just plain funny. But does the Fox Mole go beyond entertainment?
Above all else, the Fox Mole columns suffer from the fact that they tell us nothing that we didn’t already know. For instance, leaked clips of unaired banter between presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Fox News host Sean Hannity were the highlights of two Fox Mole columns. The clips ranged from Romney talking about his and his wife’s penchant for horseback riding, to Sean Hannity defending Romney’s use of a teleprompter seconds after bashing President Obama for the same thing. Though again amusing, the video says what we already knew: Mitt Romney is rich, and Sean Hannity is the worst sort of sycophantic hypocrite around. Nothing new there.
Perhaps the most substantial segment of the Fox Mole columns is Muto lays out the “final straw” that turned him “rogue.” For this, Muto cites Fox Nation, a conservative news site operated by Fox News Channel, which he calls “an unholy mash-up of the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post and a Klan meeting.” According to Muto, he found the Fox Nation post “Obama Hip Hop BBQ Didn’t Create Jobs” indicative of what he perceived to be Fox News’ “non sequitur, ad hominem attacks on the president; gleeful race baiting; a willful disregard for facts; and so on.”
The post, which can still be accessed on the Fox Nation, details the arrangements of President Obama’s 50th birthday party and features a graphic juxtaposing President Obama with African American celebrities Charles Barkley, Chris Rock and Jay-Z. At the time, the headline and graphic were criticized playing up race despite the fact that the party was attended by various other political figures and celebrities. Muto also points out the racist commenters that often crop up on Fox Nation.
But, again, this sort of questionable racial rhetoric is nothing new for Fox. Does anyone remember when Fox Business host Eric Bolling accused President Obama of hosting “hoodlums in the hizzy” for the White House visits of two black figures, the rapper Common and Gabon President Ali Bongo. Truly despicable stuff. But not a revelation.
So, I’m hoping that Muto’s “fuller account” will go farther and really show the notoriously secretive inner workings of Fox News. In short, tell us more.
Mikey Angelo Rumore can be reached at michealangelorumore@gmail.com.