Fox News Channel

An O.G. in the Usual Gang of Idiots: The Times' Neil Genzlinger profiles MAD magazine's fold-in creator Al Jaffee and finds the 87-year-old writer/illustrator still up on youth culture. (Of course he is: The guy did a mind-blowing cover for Vice magazine's Comics Issue, after all.)

Fox Season: Time's James Poniewozik wonders about FOX News Channel's future since "I get a sense that the haven for conservative hosts, and viewers alienated by liberal news, needs to figure out its next act."

How Many Doors?: Vanity Fair's Rich Cohen talks to VF.com's Claire Howorth about interviewing Madonna in the May 2008 issue of the magazine."It was the longest day in history... I had to go through countless doors to get to Madonna. I did the interview at the same time they were shooting the satellite down, and it felt just like that. I had one shot, one chance." Was Cohen intentionally echoing VF editor Graydon Carter's infamous "seven rooms" theory of access?

First Defense: Slate's Jack Shafer warns you how not to look the fool--The April Fool tomorrow.(Flashback, here's the origins of April Fools Day according to The Simpsons.)

Tuesday, March 4, around 8 p.m., Bill O’Reilly bounded across a chilly studio on the first floor of the News Corp. building on Sixth Avenue toward the desk at the back of the room.

There, the members of the Fox News Super Tuesday II political team—Brit Hume, Juan Williams, Bill Kristol, Nina Easton and Fred Barnes—were wrapping up another back-and-forth session, chewing over the night’s early returns. Mr. Kristol made an observation about the rationality of voters. A producer announced a break.  read more »

Recently, Shepard Smith stood in his office at Fox News and gestured at a football, on his bookshelf, signed by Giants quarterback and fellow University of Mississippi alumnus Eli Manning.

“I’ve met him a number of times,” said Mr. Smith. “He’s a private guy. He’s likes to stay to himself. Eli, as a friend, would be weird. I like him being my quarterback.”

It was Friday afternoon and Mr. Smith—the host of Fox News’ Studio B, anchor of the The Fox Report, and possibly the highest-paid on-air talent in cable news history—was giving NYTV a tour of his office. Ole Miss madness was the decorative theme. A Rebels welcome mat warmed the entrance. Commemorative Ole Miss coins sat alongside bowl-game souvenirs. A framed photograph of Mr. Smith and his younger brother, pregaming under the oak trees on the Ole Miss campus, hung on the wall.  read more »

An unlikely showdown could be developing between Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and a leading Republican presidential contender.

Last week, Fox sent out letters to the campaigns of each of the leading Republican presidential candidates, ordering them to stop using footage from Fox presidential debates in their campaign ads and on their web sites.

Today, Talking Points Memo reported that Mitt Romney’s campaign has decided to defy the order—and has sent a letter to FNC lawyers, explining as much. TPM suggests that Mr. Romney may be seeking to curry favor with conservative bloggers, many of whom oppose Fox on the issue.

How will Fox respond to Mr. Romney’s defiance? 

 read more »