The best Fox News can hope for is, metaphorically speaking, to turn the sow’s ear into an “ugly purse,” to quote the insult that O’Reilly allegedly hurled at erstwhile O’Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh’s handbag after they shared dinner at the Bel Air Hotel and she rebuffed his attempt to lure her to his room.
Howard Bragman, founder of the Los Angeles-based Fifteen Minutes PR firm, said, however, that Fox News had been making the best of a bad situation.
“I think what they’re doing is kind of basic PR practice—you simply give a statement, but you don’t give fuel to the other side, you try and keep it small, and you don’t respond unless you have to.”
So far Fox News has left the heavy lifting to 21st Century Fox, its corporate parent, and issued a single statement Tuesday night affirming its willingness to work with advertisers to place their commercials in non-O’Reilly programming.
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