Tag: joe muto

Former Fox News employee Joe Muto was recently busted for releasing information about the network in columns he wrote anonymously for Gawker, prompting his dismissal from the company. But Muto says the firing only helps his case, because now he’s free to share all the information about the company he wants.

One of the columns bashed Fox website Fox Nation, in which Muto called it “an unholy mashup of the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post and a Klan meeting.” After someone at Fox discovered that Muto’s computer login accessed two of the videos posted on Gawker, he turned himself in and posted a statement about the incident on Gawker.

Muto says that the site has become the “seedy underbelly of the Fox News online empire” and that one incident in particular pushed him over the edge towards becoming a mole.

“The post that broke the camel’s back might be familiar to some of you, because it garnered a lot of attention and (well-deserved) ridicule when it hit last August,” he wrote on Gawker. “The item was aggregating several news sources that were reporting innocuously on President Obama’s 50th birthday party, which was attended by the usual mix of White House staffers, DC politicos and Dem-friendly celebs. The Fox Nation, naturally, chose to illustrate the story with a photo montage of Obama, Charles Barkley, Chris Rock, and Jay Z, and the headline “Obama’s Hip Hop BBQ Didn’t Create Jobs. The post neatly summed up everything that had been troubling me about my employer: Non sequitur, ad hominem attacks on the president; gleeful race baiting; a willful disregard for facts; and so on. It came close on the heels of the Common controversy, which exhibited a lot of the same ugly traits.”

Muto goes on to say that rather than quit his job, he wanted to stay on and gather as much information as he could to expose the company and its employees–particularly the higher-ups–for what they are.

“So why not just leave Fox News?” you might ask. Good question!,” he writes. “I’ve asked myself that same thing many times. And I am leaving. Sooner rather than later, I’m guessing. But I can’t just leave quietly, can I? Where’s the fun in that? So I’m John McClane-ing this shit. I’m inside the building, crawling through the air vents, gathering intel, and passing it along to Carl Winslow. (Note: Please don’t misunderstand, and take my Die Hard metaphor as a threat of violence. Like most left-wingers I abhor actual violence, but am still hopelessly enthralled by the Hollywood machine that glorifies it. Also, that was a 20th Century Fox movie. Synergy!)”

Fox News says they are exploring legal action against Muto. Meanwhile, rumors are circulating around the web that Muto will get a book deal from all of this.