It may be ridiculous, but if you watch Fox now, you'll frequently hear suicide bombings described as "homicide bombings," right?

I'll tell you, it's interesting. On that same day [that Fox management distributed a memo suggesting suicide bombings be called "homicide bombings"], the White House had made the same suggestion -- well, the Bush administration, whether it was the White House or the Pentagon or whatever. That's the background to it.

By the next day, enough people [at Fox] were saying, "What about this?" So the next day's memo kind of reluctantly said, "Well, you could use either one." But by then, everyone -- and again, we're talking about young people who don't have any perspective on this; all they know is that you do what they're told -- they know what management's feeling about this is. So ... it's "homicide bombings." And that's the beginnings of a new P.C.

So people at Fox know what management's political views are -- and they know that management wants to see those views reflected on their television screens?

Yes, but it's not because the people on the second floor -- Roger Ailes and so forth -- come down and say, "This is what we want." It kind of filters down. And very often, the people overreact and take it upon themselves and do things that even management wouldn't expect them to do.

In the case of the California judge who ruled unconstitutional [the words] "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, I was sitting there watching our anchor report the story. He was reading the teleprompter, and he was saying, "Because we want you to have as much information [as possible] about this important story, we want you to be able to go right to the source. We're giving you the address and phone number of the judge."

Everybody knew that was a call to harass this guy. Even the poor anchor sees this. I mean, this is the way I saw it because I know the guy. But the point of it is, the guy running the newsroom, he had the control room type up this graphic with the guy's address and phone number on it. And I'm told ... that when the people on the second floor saw this they said, "Oh, jeez, we can't do that." And they had it taken off. It was this guy down here kind of freelancing, sucking up, thinking he knew what management wanted. And they stopped it.

When [United Nations weapons inspector] Hans Blix was giving his report to the Security Council on what they had uncovered or not uncovered [in Iraq], he began by saying, "We have not found any weapons of mass destruction." He continued to say: "But we think they're hiding them, we want them to be more open and show us, and blah blah blah." Well, you know how it's done on the screen: They'll say Blix: "the first sentence," and then Blix: "the second sentence," and so on. It was going to run through the whole thing.

When [the Fox supervisor running the newsroom] saw this -- "We have not found weapons of mass destruction" -- I'm told by people in the control room that he went in there and said, "We can't, we're not going to put that on the air like that." But it was too late, it was already in the system, and it went on. And again, it was not because management told him not to, and I don't think they would have said don't put it up. They're smarter than that. But this guy -- he still runs the newsroom. Maybe they think, well, he was trying to please them, so he gets to stay there.

Are you aware of times where the reverse happened -- that is, where things were happening on the air and someone in management sent a message saying, "I want this to slant more Republican"?

No, I can't say that I've ever known them to do that. But what they have is a middle management that is all too willing to just play ball. They know what they can do, what they should do, what they shouldn't do and so on.

There's just an atmosphere of -- I don't want to say "fear," but for some of the young people there that's what it is. You know, I'd rail against this. I never made any bones about it. Right in the middle of the newsroom, I'd say, "Did you see what we did?" The typical thing would be for people to say to me, "So we're not fair and balanced? Like you didn't know that? What are you getting all upset about?"

What else do you remember from the editorial note?

When the war was just beginning or we were just sending troops over there, one of the daily memos made reference to protesters and said that we're going to be seeing a lot of protesters -- I think they used the word "whining," yes, whining -- about American bombs and American soldiers killing Iraqi citizens. "Whining" -- you've got your clue, a hint. They're whining. Yeah, tell that to the families of American soldiers that were going to die there.

That was in the memo?

I'm not sure of the exact words, but it was to that effect. So that day I'm down editing lead-ins to tape pieces, and a producer comes down while the editors were putting [one of the reports] together. And the producer says, "No, we can't run that." Why? Because somewhere in the middle of it there was a few seconds of footage of some Iraqi children in a hospital. And he said, "Well, we don't know why they were there." They could have just cut out that clip, but he said to kill the whole thing. This was a report from a reporter on what went on that day. But simply because of that memo, they just killed the story.

Were there other times when you believed the editorial note had a direct influence on the political slant of Fox's news coverage?

I came in one morning, and the first thing I saw on the monitor was our anchor doing a story [about reaction to Sen. Trent Lott's suggestion that America would have been a better place if then-segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond had been elected president when he ran in 1948]. And it was clear that Fox, through the anchor, was anti-Trent Lott. So I went right to the memo, and sure enough the memo said we should make sure our viewers know that this wasn't even the first time Lott has made such remarks. And I thought, "Wow, I don't understand." So I go to the wires, and sure enough, there it is: Bush has condemned what he had said, and Bush wanted to get rid of Lott as the majority leader.

So it was an unexpected Fox approach to the story -- at least until you figured out that it also just happened to be the Bush administration's approach?

That's right.

Did you complain about the bias you saw at Fox?

I reserved my right to rail against what I saw every day practically, and there were times when I would take an anchor to task in front of other people. And I was wrong in doing that, with people I considered friends. But it was just so, so ... I had just never seen anything like this.

Very often among many of the anchors there, their idea of "fair and balanced" is you have on liberal or Democrat "A" and conservative or Republican "B." You spend most of your time challenging or dismissing rudely what the liberal has to say and lobbing softball questions to the conservative. You'd be sure to give them equal time or give the liberal a little more time even.

You see it day in and day out. For many of these people, the young people, it's par for the course. This is what they see and they let it go. It's hard for me not to comment on things. I've been sitting here for the last six months watching this debate about who's biased and who isn't and whether Fox is this or that. And when I saw this thing about Chris Wallace, I thought, "This is it. This is the last straw."

Wallace said that Fox has received an unfair "rap" as slanting its coverage in a Republican direction. But lots of people associated with Fox have said that. What was it about Wallace's comments that set you off?

The whole idea of throwing him into this debate. Here's a guy who's presumably going to be paid, what? A seven-figure salary, high six figures? What else is he going to say? That's not the guy you should be talking to. Why don't you talk to the people who have to work in this ... people who can tell you at least privately at least what really happens? You're not going to get the straight story from the people making a million dollars there, not even off the record.

Are your former colleagues at Fox -- both the million-dollar anchors and the people working in the newsroom -- conscious and aware that they're slanting coverage to the right?

I think many are. A lot of them [aren't.] That anchor that I argued with, I think he sincerely believes that Fox and his work are "fair and balanced. " He would quote from some letters from people who accused him of being liberal. But you've got to understand. When 99 percent of your audience is conservative, you're going to get some raving lunatic conservatives writing in who say you're too liberal.

Even the people who know better ... well, look, you're working for somebody. I probably should have quit there right away. I stayed on, I had a job, but I reserved my right to yell and scream and not care whether I was considered a malcontent or whatever. And I would not write something that was supposed to be objective that wasn't. You just don't do that.

Well, maybe you don't.

Well, you don't in journalism. But now, journalism, a lot of it is viewpoint. Salon, I'm sure, it's, you know, "This is what you can expect from there." But at least you know what you can expect. Fox, you know, you can expect a Republican slant. But just admit it, you know?

And the denial is your biggest frustration?

Yes, it is. Hearing the mantra, you know, "Fair and balanced. We report, you decide." I mean, come on. Don't make me laugh.

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