Murdoch "Despises" Falafel Bill O'Reilly?

Michael Calderone:

In Michael Wolff’s forthcoming biography of Rupert Murdoch, "The Man Who Owns The News," the author writes that the media mogul has seemed to turn away lately from his cable news network, and isn’t fond its top-rated personality, Bill O’Reilly.

"It is not just Murdoch (and everybody else at News Corp.’s highest levels) who absolutely despises Bill O’Reilly, the bullying, mean-spirited, and hugely successful evening commentator," Wolff wrote, "but [Fox News chief executive] Roger Ailes himself who loathes him. Success, however, has cemented everyone to each other."

"The embarrassment can no longer be missed," Wolff wrote, in another section of the book. "He mumbles even more than usual when called on to justify it. He barely pretends to hide the way he feels about Bill O’Reilly. And while it is not that he would give Fox up—because the money is the money; success trumps all—in the larger sense of who he is, he seems to want to hedge his bets."

Of course, if Wolff's account is true, then Murdoch (and Ailes) are missing the point. FOX's problem is not O'Reily's boorish behavior...it's not even the drama of his off-set lifestyle. FOX's problem is that it has defined itself as the delivery vehicle for GOP talking points and propaganda. That's why the network has no credibility, and the men responsible for that are Murdoch and Ailes, no matter how hard they may try throw Bill O'Reilly under the bus their failures.