After the death last week of Fox News founder Roger Ailes, Monica Lewinsky set out not to write “another obituary” for the media mogul, but “instead an obituary for the culture he purveyed.” Specifically, she cites in her op-ed for The New York Times, “a culture that affected me profoundly and personally.” In other words, Lewinsky had more dirty laundry to air besides that famous blue dress.
It was Fox News’s “ceaselessly, 24 hours a day” coverage , she said, of her “relationship” with Bill Clinton, which included sex in the Oval Office, that “worked like magic” to smear her character. She noted how Fox executive editor John Moody once said, “The Lewinsky saga put us on the news map… Monica was a news channel’s dream come true.”
But to Lewinsky, “Their dream was my nightmare:”
My character, my looks and my life were picked apart mercilessly. Truth and fiction mixed at random in the service of higher ratings. My family and I huddled at home, worried about my going to jail — I was the original target of Kenneth Starr’s investigation, threatened with 27 years for having been accused of signing a false affidavit and other alleged crimes — or worse, me taking my own life. Meantime, Mr. Ailes huddled with his employees at Fox News, dictating a lineup of talking heads to best exploit this personal and national tragedy.
Lewinsky accused Fox of covering the story “in the gutter” and how “it seemed, no rumor was too unsubstantiated, no innuendo too vile and no accusation too abhorrent.” It was this style that was “pioneered” by Ailes and picked up by other cable news channels like MSNBC, she said.
This Ailes-led lynch mob, Lewinsky proclaimed, is what ruined her reputation, not just her personal actions:
Just as television news was devolving into a modern coliseum, the internet came along and compounded this culture of shame and vitriol. Remember: The story of my affair was not broken by The Washington Post, The New York Times or the networks, but online by the Drudge Report. The comments on television and online were excruciating. I ceased being a three-dimensional person. Instead I became a whore, a bimbo, a slut and worse. Just days after the story broke, Fox asked its viewers to vote on this pressing question: Is Monica Lewinsky an “average girl” or a “young tramp looking for thrills”?
Yet, Lewinsky sees a bright side in the shakeup at Fox News and the death of Ailes that perhaps the “culture of exploitation” at the network is dissipating. She specifically named Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly as the “brave women” whose departure is fostering a core change at Fox. Lewinsky noted Bob Beckel’s recent firing over racist comments and wondered, “Would this have happened in the Ailes era?”
Lewinsky states that she is not advocating against a conservative media outlet, but hoping Fox can become one that is “credible.”
“If we’ve learned nothing else from the 2016 presidential election, it’s that we must find a way to foster robust and healthy discussion and debate,” she wrote. “Our news channels should be just such places."
So, Lewinsky bids a fond adieu to Roger Ailes and believes with him out of the way and the Murdoch brothers in charge, maybe — just maybe — “we’ll get” fair and balanced news.
