Chris Christie and Roger Ailes Have a Secret Relationship; It Sucks to Work For AOL

Fox News boss Roger Ailes loves Chris Christie and has made no secret of his desire for the New Jersey governor to run for president in 2012. Christie maintains that he's 100% not running this time around, though that hasn't stopped a relationship from blooming between the powerful Republican pair, with Ailes working in some capacity as a "confidential adviser" to Christie, which according to the governor's office, protects correspondence between the two. Gawker reporter John Cook filed an Open Records Act request -- not unlike the ones we've followed in the cases of Osama Bin Laden and Sarah Palin -- "seeking any correspondence between the two men, as well as any records of meetings or phone calls with Ailes from Christie's schedule or call logs." As these things tend to go, the reporter was denied. More details inside a Friday evening edition of Press Clips, our daily media column, also including more dirty on AOL and the week's whiniest lawsuit.

Chris and Roger, In Private: Gawker received a response that said the records "would be exempt from disclosure...based upon the executive privilege and well-settled case law." Cook writes:

What is unusual is his attempt to use it to cover conversations with someone who is, ostensibly at least, a news executive. It amounts to a rather bald admission that Ailes provides Christie with political advice.

And in a nice bit of follow-through, Cook nails Christie with a bit of hypocrisy. When ex-Jersey governor Jon Corzine pulled a similar stunt, hiding emails with his union worker ex-girlfriend from the press, Christie spoke out, citing "the interest of transparency." Read the whole story here.

Slave 4 U: "An AOL Content Slave Speaks Out" in The Faster Times this week about his job in the TV section of the blooming media conglomerate. "I was given eight to ten article assignments a night, writing about television shows that I had never seen before," he writes.

Oliver Miller manages to put a human face to the abusive, glib and manipulative "AOL Way," which is now combined with the Arianna Huffington way, which might not be much better.

Miller's story can be summed up in one brief chat with his boss, which happened, of course, over IM:

"Do you guys even CARE what I write? Does it make any difference if it's good or bad?" I said.

"Not really," was the reply.

If you need the gory details, they're here.

Hard Times Still Hard: Everyone at the Boston Herald was offered a buyout, but they were assured, "We are not going out of business." Not quite comforting.

Boy Fights: ESPN basketball writer Chris Sheridan is suing the New York Post for libel because NBA columnist Peter Vecsey said that Sheridan's (ultimately correct) view of the Carmelo Anthony/New York Knicks trade was the "latest fairy tale" from the "same fountains of misinformation that frequently play make-believe with ESPN's Chris Sheridan." This could be the first time we've ever wished for a sports column, complete with a platitude overdose, about "mental toughness."

[jcoscarelli@villagevoice.com / @joecoscarelli]