The Fox News brand remains strong despite the controversial exit of media giant Roger Ailes, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy told
CNN’s "Reliable Sources" with Brian Stelter Sunday.
Ruddy said the allegations against Ailes are serious, but he does not think that "detracts from the fact that Rupert Murdoch had the brilliance to see a tremendous market opportunity and he had the guts to take on the liberal media establishment."
Ruddy noted that Ailes, the founding chairman of Fox and its long-time CEO, "turned out to be the greatest TV mind of our time" who had built "the greatest TV channel of our time."
Ruddy insisted that Fox, for the time being, will "continue to be No. 1, despite any of this stuff, because Americans are turning to them because they don't feel they're getting, [as] Paul Harvey used to say, 'the other side of the story.' We're still waiting for the other side of the story from CNN or The New York Times."
Conservatives, said Ruddy, still do not believe they are getting the full story or news coverage from the liberal media, and there are "so many things that the media says they just can't touch, they won't talk about."
"We have a lot to talk about, because Hillary Clinton's running for president, and a lot of people — by that [I mean] people like yourself and other people in the media establishment — aren't really talking about her as much as they're talking about stuff at Fox," Ruddy told Stelter.
The Ailes scandal is "taking place in a very heated election," said Ruddy, asserting that outlets like The New York Times and CNN would never give coverage like this to another, more liberal network like CBS, if it was embroiled in this type of scandal.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other sources have reported that Ruddy is on the short list of candidates being considered to take Ailes' place.
Stelter asked Ruddy if he might take the job if offered.
Ruddy dismissed such reports, saying he was happy to be at Newsmax and had no plans to leave Newsmax, reminding Stelter that Newsmax is already a huge success online.
"There was a recent comScore report [that] we are the third most-viewed political news site in the nation, after your network — CNN's website, Politico, and then it was Newsmax," said Ruddy. "It wasn't Fox News."
Newsmax has been in operation for 17 years and reaches, according to comScore, about 50 million Americans online each month.
Ruddy said that is a testament to the company's tradition of "providing fair and interesting news coverage that Americans aren't getting."
"Your question to me is if somehow Newsmax is going to benefit from some of the things happening at Fox now," said Ruddy. "My answer to you is, We don't need to benefit, we are already doing extremely well and having a huge impact."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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