Chris Wallace’s Fox News colleagues produced a nice little video for the veteran newsman as he accepted the National Press Foundation’s Sol Taishoff Award for Broadcast Journalism Wednesday night. At the conclusion of the spot was Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes who decided to have a little fun with his segment. “Congratulations to Chris, winning an award is an amazing thing at Fox News,” Ailes began. “You’re a great questioner, great journalist and frankly, every guest who comes on hates you, which is good because it makes people watch.”
He then got specific. “President Clinton, for instance, you made him angry, and President Obama, and many, many of the Republicans won’t even come near you, but that means you’re really pretty good at what you do.”
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Ailes also noted how Wallace was coming up on a decade working at the network. “It’s possible that you’ll make 10 years–the jury’s out,” Ailes said grinning, warning Wallace against developing a case of “diva-itis.” He finished with a tidbit about Wallace’s wife. “When you did the cookbook with your wife–by the way you married well–but when you did the cookbook and started [pushing] that on the show, it was sort of irritating,” he said.
Wallace gave this rebuttal: “I want to thank my dear wife Lorraine, a.k.a. Mrs. Sunday, as Roger sort of unfortunately mentioned, she feeds me soup on Sunday after the show, she also feeds me chicken on Saturday nights before the show, as all of you will learn in her new book called, ‘Mr. Sunday’s Saturday Night Chicken,’ which will be on sale in May–I’m not kidding,” he said. “She said if I didn’t thank her, she said forget about coming home, and quite frankly I can’t think of anything worse in the world than not being able to come home to my dear wife Lorraine.”
He also had nice words to say about Ailes, calling him the best boss that he’s ever worked for. “And he’s not here, so I’m not just blowing smoke,” Wallace said.
