Fox News Channel

You might have seen the promo. "So Thrilling. So Explosive. So Brash. So Bold. So Fresh. So Fox." And now it must be said of the Fox News affiliate in Los Angeles: So diminished. So wretched. So . . . so. Executives at Channel 11 announced the layoff of roughly one-quarter of the news staff a couple of weeks ago, a "Black Friday" bloodletting that had veteran reporter John Schwada regretting the loss of "a lot of good young people, with energy and dreams."

RUPERT MURDOCH and Roger Ailes had just announced their intention to create a 24-hour cable news channel from scratch, vowing to launch within a year and take on industry leader CNN. As they walked out of the news conference in the fledging network's Sixth Avenue headquarters in January 1996, Ailes turned to the News Corp. chairman. "I said, 'Rupert, they're laughing at us,' " the Fox News chairman and chief executive recalled in a recent interview.

Fox News Channel has selected White House correspondent Bret Baier to replace Brit Hume as anchor of its weekday 3 p.m. newscast. Hume is cutting back to part-time work at Fox and was anchoring his last newscast Tuesday. Baier will start his new job Jan. 5. Baier is familiar to viewers of the show as Hume's occasional substitute and from his work as Fox's top person in the White House. He said he plans "on continuing to maintain the prestige of the program in every way I know how."

If the battle between Fox News Channel and the Obama administration is still going on, it has moved behind closed doors. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was saying little Thursday about his meeting this week with Fox news executive Michael Clemente. Asked whether the tiff was over, Gibbs said, "I have nothing to add to that." The White House meeting Wednesday, first disclosed by the website FishbowlDC and confirmed by an aide to Gibbs, comes after the administration said publicly that the network operates more like a wing of the Republican Party than a news organization.

The on-screen and behind-scenes feuding between rivals Fox News and MSNBC, which has erupted in recent months like two kids squabbling, has gotten so loud that their parents are trying to tell them to knock it off. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp., which owns Fox News, and Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric Co., which owns MSNBC, met up at the Microsoft CEO summit in Redmond, Wash.

No one ever accused Bill O'Reilly of being a wilting flower. So when the Fox News Channel commentator and interviewer appeared midway through a Barack Obama rally at a Nashua high school Saturday, his presence was evident. Tall, with camera crew in tow, O'Reilly marched forward to get a good look. Journalists have been known to seek the best angle. But it was after Obama's speech that O'Reilly threw some elbows. And not so figuratively, either.

NEW YORK -- Fox News Channel has fired the host of its weekly "Fox News Watch" show that discusses the performance of the news media. Eric Burns, the show's host, said Monday that he was told in a phone call last week that his contract would not be renewed. He said he was not given a reason. The show airs Saturday evenings and, along with CNN's "Reliable Sources," is one of two cable news programs that focus on the media.

Just a year ago, Fox News Channel was considered a pariah in many Democratic circles. But it appears that the cable news network is no longer in the doghouse. Consider this week: On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a long-awaited appearance on "Fox News Sunday," a booking that host Chris Wallace had been seeking for more than two years. (The show airs on both the Fox broadcasting network and its sister cable channel.) On Wednesday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.

Fox News tough guy Sean Hannity assured us this week he would press Sarah Palin for real answers -- no going easy on the woman who could be the next vice president of the United States. "No topic," Hannity intoned, "is off limits." A couple of nights earlier, Fox's hard-talking lawyer, Greta Van Susteren, promised to take us to unknown places in her exclusive interview with Alaska's so-called First Dude, Todd Palin. "You will see this," Greta declared, "nowhere else!" No, you won't.

Roger Ailes, the savvy and hard-charging television executive who transformed the Fox News Channel from an upstart enterprise to the top-rated cable news network, sealed a deal Wednesday to remain in his post for another five years. Ailes' new contract extends the key role he plays in News Corp. as chief executive of Fox News and chairman of the Fox Television Stations. "Roger has done a remarkable job building Fox News into a force in journalism," News Corp.