I figured Ailes, a smart man, knew that Morris, a network contributor at the time, was a joke. “Our best guess is 64 seats, sir.” Ailes, mouth set like a bulldog and eyes staring through the back of my head, said, “Dick Morris says it could be one hundred. The number, of course, was how many seats I forecast Republicans to win that night. Sammon teed me up, and I started racing through time zones and expected times for calls and generic ballot trends until Ailes interrupted to say, “What’s your number?” As the execs went around the table offering the boss their updates, I rehearsed my lines in my head. I knew about as much about the TV business as a horse knows about making a saddle. I had never been to New York as an adult until I started going up for Fox. ![]() Bill O’Reilly was the avatar for these folks: suburban New York, Roman Catholic, traditional values but not necessarily socially conservative - the New York Post, not the New York Times. Razzing people over their teams, their neighborhoods or whatever was at hand was the language of belonging on Ailes’s crew. And like Ailes, he never missed a chance to crack on someone, usually in an avuncular way. Shine didn’t talk too much, but he made the words count. He grew up on Long Island, the son of a police officer. His top lieutenant, Bill Shine, carried it off perfectly. Men and women alike tried to match Ailes’s tough-guy energy. The language of Fox News in those days was definitely locker-room swagger. ![]() The mood was jocular, and Ailes was having fun doing what he liked best in the world: busting balls. The smell of aftershave and coffee was making me queasy. There was even one guy who dyed the temples of his hair white like Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos. So there I was, exhausted, tweaking on taurine and looking around the room at people who had been with the company from the beginning. 29, 2006 photo, former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes poses at Fox News in New York. After six cycles of working with that crew at Fox, we really learned how to make it hum by the end of my time at the network. Then the election night team uses the practice calls to test the graphics, lighting, anchor and guest positions, and communications. If you’re making 100 calls, the hours between 9 p.m. The Decision Desk makes calls based on the pretend results to simulate the workflow and pinch points of the big night. How many Republican votes in 2004 in Ozaukee County? When did the incumbent win his first term? What did the last polls say? Didn’t her husband used to have that seat?Īfter four straight days and nights of data obsession and rehearsals, I had to now appear to be a normal human in front of a room full of New Yorkers to whom I assume I appeared to be a sweaty bumpkin.īy the way, TV networks rehearse election nights with dummy numbers. Plus, these were the five-inch by eight-inch little life rafts that I could hold on to as I tried to run the rapids of the many, many calls we were going to have to make that night. ![]() They all had to be perfect (they still weren’t), but I couldn’t make my colleagues look foolish quoting my bad data. I had been up all night finishing the cards that we would use on the desk and the anchors would use on-air for quick reference guides on each race. ![]() It felt like a steam bath in there, and I was running on about two hours of sleep and too many energy drinks.
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