BROOKE GLADSTONE: Here's a bogeyman one anti-deregulation group is sure will terrify the public into action.

ANNOUNCER: Rupert Murdoch. He already owns Fox Network, Fox News, Fox Sports, FX, a newspaper, all these TV stations. But he wants more. So on June 2nd, Republicans on the FCC plan to get rid of an important regulation -- so Rupert Murdoch can buy more TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, giving him control over much of the news you hear.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Rupert Murdoch is the liberals' Captain Hook, the Fox News Channel his Jolly Roger, and Fox News founder Roger Ailes is his sardonic sidekick, Smee who brought aboard wily Bill O'Reilly and Sean "Pot Shot" Hannity.

SEAN HANNITY: And I think the ends justifies the means in the minds of a liberal because their views are so superior to the views of everyone else. But you bring Hillary into this--

BROOKE GLADSTONE: For four months New Yorker writer Ken Auletta immersed himself in Fox News and put Ailes under the microscope.

KEN AULETTA:Roger Ailes has an aura of success. In politics as a media consultant to Nixon, as a media consultant to Bush, Sr., as a media consultant to Ronald Reagan. He was successful at creating CNBC and helping put it on the map. In addition to that, Roger Ailes treats everything like a political campaign, so he creates this sense of excitement -- that it's us against the world. In this case it was "we" - "us" - meaning we, conservatives, are going to fight the liberal bias in the media, and for once conservatives are going to have a voice in what he called a fair and balanced news network.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You liken him to General Patton. Can you give me an example of some Patton-like behavior?

KEN AULETTA:When he walks down to the newsroom from his Fox office to the basement where 600 or so Fox News employees work, he will always put on his jacket; make sure his tie kisses his shirt collar. Because he said that's what the troops expect of the old man. [LAUGHTER] That's a general talking.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now you said that the point here, at least part of the point, was to give conservatives a television voice and boy, did it! When Fox launched, it had access to 17 million homes. Now it has access to how many?

KEN AULETTA: Well it has access to about 80 million homes, and even though it's on fewer cable boxes than CNN by probably 8 or so million viewer, viewer homes, its audience is now considerably larger than CNN. In the last year and a half Fox News has become the number one watched cable news network.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You suggested that CNN may have taken its cues from news radio when it began and that Fox took as its model talk radio.

KEN AULETTA:Talk radio is full of anger. It gives people a chance to vent their anger. You saw this come to life with the Clinton impeachment case. But what Roger saw was that this was their vehicle to put Fox News on the map, and, and then after that came the 2000 election, and Fox News covered that as if it were World War III.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And then when we actually had a war--

KEN AULETTA:The American flag in the, in the left corner of the screen-- and it became America's network. I had fair number of stories about soldiers in Iraq -- American soldiers saying to people -- are you with Fox News? And, and saying when they said no, we're with the Washington Post they said well we're not going to talk to you. We would talk to you if you were Fox News. So Fox News has made major inroads and sold its message that they are the pro-American station! Now that means that if you're a journalist and you criticize or you raise questions about whether American military -the military had planned for policing Iraq and whether they had covered not just the oil ministry but whether they have covered the museum in Baghdad to prevent looting, suddenly you're accused of being unpatriotic! Now, you know, that's not unpatriotic. That's, that's reporting 101.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:You spent a four month immersion in Fox. How did you feel at the end of it, with all that anger and all that winking and all that yelling?

KEN AULETTA: Well, I-- I mean sometimes I laughed, and, and, and sometimes I, I, I secretly applauded and said, you know, they're doing good; and sometimes I-- I agree with them that they were exposing -- there are some hidden biases in the press, and liberal biases -- particularly on social issues - abortion, you know, gay rights, etc. So if you have a counterweight to that, that's not a bad thing. But in answer to your question, I often, as I was in effect embedded with Fox News for four months, I often wanted to scream at the set and -- just as a journalist and say-- my God! This is not fair and balanced! But when they say We report; you decide -- it's really too often - We report - we decide. [LAUGHTER] In the piece, I cite some examples of, of bias, and I confront Roger Ailes with it. For instance I say to him, do you think putting "Axis of Weasel" under every French official who appears on Fox News -- you think that's fair and balanced? And he says well we shouldn't, we shouldn't do that. But then did they stop doing that? No. [LAUGHS] And then when he, he crit-- at one point he criticized O'Reilly -- but did O'Reilly stop being rude to people? No.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So would you be willing to speculate on what the impact of Fox News will be?

KEN AULETTA:Well, we've already seen its impact! I think we see it in the defensiveness of CNN, and their hiring of Connie Chung which is --they've since stopped. We see it on MSNBC which basically has right wing talk show hosts in the evening to try and compete with O'Reilly and, and Sean Hannity. The president of NBC News said to me, and it's in that piece, that in fact Fox constantly raising the question about liberal media bias has forced us to look at whether we are, we do have media bias! By the way, I think that's a healthy thing! But Fox News does not examine itself, in my judgment, as to whether they're - they have outright biases, and in fact in a-- use them in a much more aggressive way than the so-called "liberal networks" that they castigate.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think they help set the tone for the country?

KEN AULETTA:You cheapen the discourse when you yell at people. You cheapen the discourse when you don't explain your opponent's position -- when you just assert that they're creeps or weasels or, or unpatriotic. That's not democratic discourse. It's not civil. And I think it coarsens not just television and not just journalism but, but the civic culture and democracy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: If you held a knife to Roger Ailes' throat, would he ever admit that Fox News is not fair and balanced?

KEN AULETTA: No. [LAUGHTER]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay, thank you very much.

KEN AULETTA: My pleasure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ken Auletta writes On Media for the New Yorker. [MUSIC FOR FOX NEWS COMMERCIAL]