The New York Times 6/11/2015 Interview by
You wrote in December 2013, in a media-criticism column for The Guardian, that no one reads The Times Magazine anymore. So thanks for joining us in this private setting. You know, the first article I ever published was in The Times Magazine, in 1974.
In your new book, “Television Is the New Television,” you are very bullish about the enduring power of television. Does any of your optimism extend to print media? It could. I mean, everybody in print media says that digital is the future. I think that if those mooks are saying, “Digital is the future,” that would be a fairly strong indication that digital is probably not the future.
You don’t hold the forecasting abilities of the print-media industry in much regard, in other words. There’s a real interesting contrast between the television industry and the print industry. Print thought, Oh, we’re screwed, and we better just capitulate. Television was pretty well prepared for this. These guys came along and said, “We’re going to eat your lunch,” and television said, “Hmm — try.” They sued everybody into oblivion. Television never let anyone have anything for free.
What is your daily media diet like? I wrap my coat around my bathrobe and I walk to the corner and I buy The Times, The Journal and The FT. I used to buy The Post, but then they wrote terrible things about me. My personal mission is to bring The Post to its knees.
You’ve been critical of the media’s reaction to the Brian Williams kerfuffle. Essentially, you believe that his punishment by the media has vastly outweighed his crimes. Yes. I guess, in a general fashion, I just find more and more that the media consensus is always wrong. Whatever they say is going to happen, whatever the consensus is about what should happen, is wrong.
So you believe that NBC is victimizing both its viewers and itself in order to conform to what you would say is a needlessly high-minded standard? I don’t think the standard exists. Williams is not a journalist; he’s a performer. Nobody does any reporting — it’s the evening news, for goodness’ sake.
If you were in charge of NBC News and Williams were caught telling exaggerated or made-up stories on your watch, what would you do? I would do what Roger Ailes would do. Through Roger’s eyes, the issue is: What does my audience want? So, why should I have to run my business on the basis of what media people say I should do — people who don’t want me to succeed?
If I were to ask you a question like, “Well, doesn’t NBC have a quote-unquote ‘obligation’ to uphold the highest of journalistic standards,” I’m guessing you would laugh at me. I would laugh at you.
Hillary Clinton has been largely unavailable to the media. Do you think she has an obligation to take questions from the press? I certainly don’t. Again, this is one of those things. Why does the press always become the center of its own story?
Do you really think the media is that irrelevant in terms of Hillary Clinton’s ability to get elected? Well, no — I think the news media is central to her ability to get elected. I think Hillary is highly vulnerable because her campaign probably rests on her success in not having the media kill her. That may be true about everybody’s campaign, but I think it is much more true about hers.
Do you think Hillary Clinton would be well served to follow the “What would Roger Ailes do” credo? I think we would all be well served to follow that credo. That’s what we should be thinking: What’s good for my own business? We’re in a business that’s dying everywhere. We said, “We’ll make everything for free.” On a very real level, you have a responsibility to make your own business work. And it’s a responsibility that I feel very hotly, because in our business — where I make my money and you make your money — somebody screwed that up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/magazine/michael-wolff-thinks-we-could-all-learn-from-fox-news.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share