An Atheist in the FOXhole: A Liberal's Eight-Year Odyssey Inside the Heart of the Right-Wing Media by Joe Muto Read Free Book Online Page B

guards, I saw that they were actually posted outside a set of thick, heavy glass doors. One of them pulled a door open as we approached, grunting a little with the effort.
    As we stepped through the doorway, Nina smiled at me and said, “Welcome to your new home.”
    I have to admit—I was impressed.
    The Fox newsroom was built in a space formerly occupied by a Sam Goody record store. It was a massive room, about the size of two end-to-end football fields. It was packed with people—about 250 of them—sitting elbow to elbow at workstations, each equipped with a computer and a small television set with a cable hookup. Most sets were tuned to Fox, though I noticed that some were showing CNN or MSNBC. The volume was up on most of the televisions, and the din from the clashing audio was constant and relentless. I noticed a lot of people eating breakfast at their desks, and the smell of coffee and eggs and fried potatoes and toasted bagels hung thick in the air.
    At the near end of the room was a glassed-in area with a half dozen people staring at a wall of forty tiny monitors, each screen no bigger than a postcard. There was a bank of ten VCRs, each about the size of a large microwave oven, arranged on shelves underneath the monitors. The technicians were jamming tapes into some machines, and snatching them out of others; hitting RECORD on the machines with new tapes and boxing the old ones, labeling them with Sharpies.
    “That’s intake,” Nina said. “The satellite feeds come in from all over—updates from our reporters in the field, international footage from AP and Reuters, local news packages from our affiliates. They get recorded onto tapes, logged into the system, and filed away in the library.”
    “Why are those VCRs so big?” I asked.
    Nina shrugged. “They’re just old, I guess. They’ve had the same equipment here since the network started in ninety-six.”
    Near intake were two large oval tables, each with about a dozen people sitting at them, most of them talking on the phone. I heard a smattering of foreign languages coming from several workers at one of the desks.
    “Those are the two assignment desks—foreign and domestic,” Nina continued. “They keep in touch with all of our sources, gather the information, and spread it to everyone else at the network.”
    We started walking toward the back of the room. The seating arrangement changed to squared-off areas of six desks apiece, bordered on all sides by waist-high cubicle walls.
    “Each show has its own little seating area—we call them pods.” Nina started pointing as we walked past each pod, naming each show in turn. “Here’s the Fox Report . Here’s Studio B . That’s Greta. Then O’Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, and Cavuto.” Each pod had a large sign on the wall behind it identifying the show.
    About halfway down the length of the room was a glassed-in studio with lights suspended from the ceiling, a bulky camera on a tripod, and a shiny, metallic anchor’s desk.
    “Most of the studios are in other parts of the building, but we have one here. This is Studio N,” Nina said as we walked past. “ N as in newsroom , as you probably figured out.”
    “Oh, yeah, I definitely figured that out on my own,” I lied.
    At the very back of the newsroom was another glassed-in area with monitors and VCRs.
    “Is this another intake?” I asked. It looked very similar to the room we’d already seen.
    “This is playback,” Nina said. “The videos that you see on air are all played from here.” A woman behind the glass was sitting in a chair, loading tapes into each machine. There was an intercom in front of her, with a disembodied voice barking commands. The door was propped open, so I could hear what was being said.
    “Playback, ready number three,” the voice said.
    I watched as the woman’s hand moved to the VCR marked #3 , her index finger hovering over the PLAY button.
    The intercom crackled again: “Ready, aaaannd . . . roll