Alex Pineda Profile
Martin Weiss
JOUR 574
April 12, 2021
By Martin Weiss
The second episode of Showtime’s “The Loudest Voice” was devoted to one of the most harrowing episodes in United States history — the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Rodger Ailes biopic illustrated what it was like in the Fox News newsroom. Broadcasting live while the second plane hit the World Trade Center, Ailes snapped into action, barking orders and demands.
In an effort to diversify the broadcast on the biggest news day of his life, Ailes was shown footage of people jumping from the Twin Towers — those who chose certain death instead of the living hell waiting stories below. Despite pleas from colleagues, Ailes decided to run the video. “Run it,” he says. “We need the whole world to see what these animals have done to us.”
While dramatized, conversations like this happened in newsrooms across the country on that day, and continue on. One must understand news is created first by those who act. Then by those who interpret those actions and distill it into television talking points for high-paid anchors in powerful positions — speaking to millions of Americans.
With the recent partisan divide growing through Donald J. Trump’s election and presidency, both Fox News and CNN have become cultural lightning rods. One man, Alexander Pineda, has experience producing for both and can provide unique insight into the processes of both — and why he decided to leave Fox for CNN.
The real-life Ailes was a titan of television news and after a summer internship, Pineda had unique access to him. After some internships at Fox News and his Hofstra graduation, he was named a full-fledged Ailes Apprentice — an apprentice program for minorities interested in news, hand-picked by Ailes himself. For Pineda, a Latinx first-generation college graduate born to a single mother in Rochester, New York, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“That program was Rodger Ailes’ baby. If I wanted to shadow, or if I wanted a meeting with someone… I had a mentor,” Pineda said, adding a moment later, “Anything I wanted to do in the building, if I wanted to learn something — it was going to happen.”
Until the Republican National Convention of 2016.
“I was out (with Fox coworkers) and someone introduced me as an Ailes apprentice. That person laughed and said, ‘Ha! That doesn’t mean shit anymore,’ and he was dead-ass right. It meant nothing. Before, if you said that, you were a golden child.”
Ailes had been accused of sexual assault by Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News anchor. The allegations begat more of the same. Ailes eventually became one of the faces of the #MeToo movement — hashtag activism against sexual abuse and sexual assault, especially in the media industry.
Pineda tells a story now about being one of those Ailes Apprentices:
“I had a meeting with Rodger Ailes. My direct bosses didn’t have that meeting… Essentially, it made Fox News your playground.
“At the end of my meeting with Rodger Ailes, he tells me, ‘Don’t do anything to mess up my program.’ And those words really stung me. Because it was possible I could have done something to mess up his program. Anything… If I would have done anything crazy, the headline would have been ‘Ailes Apprentice did X’… Those words always stuck, and when I found out that Rodger Ailes was sexually harassing women for 20 years, all I could think was: ‘Damn. This man was telling me not to mess up his program. Whole time, it was his actions that doomed it.’”
Pineda’s ‘Golden Boy’ status was removed by no fault of his own, and his opportunity of a lifetime — he thought — would never realize.
“On a selfish note, it was tough. If that doesn’t happen, I’m a reporter now … My plan when I got into the apprentice program was: I’m going finish my master’s, finish the program, do great work, and (get placed) at a Fox-owned and operated station somewhere in the country. I would have been a reporter in top market… that’s what I thought was going to happen, and that all came crumbling down.”
Pineda completed grad school while working at Fox. There he met Alex Freeman, his former coworker. Freeman worked side-by-side with Pineda at the Fox News affiliate department.
“I don’t agree with Fox’s political spin, but working in that (department) we were able to focus on hard news and then it got sent out to affiliates so we didn’t have to really deal a lot with the spin.” Freeman said about their job.
He also was promoted to “Fox & Friends,” one of the most-watched cable news programs on television.
“Fox & Friends” is one of the most arduous television programs to produce. Pineda worked on the weekday version of the program from 2016 to 2019, helping create five hours of live programming Monday through Friday.
“It’s one of the hardest-working teams in television… all live. It’s a beast of a show to work on. I get to CNN, and people are complaining about working on three-hour shows. I’m used to doing five. If I hadn’t gotten the job on Fox & Friends, CNN would not have been in a rush to hire me.”
Freeman agreed. “I knew Alex didn’t lean that way (politically)… I knew that on the professional side of things, if he goes to what is a very prominent news program…. He’s going to learn and be able to leverage that for additional opportunities in the future, and that’s exactly what he did.”
Ironically, the very show that schooled Pineda in news production drove him away from the network.
“I stopped working at Fox & Friends because I did not want to work to get Donald Trump re-elected. And, for the record, I did not want to work to get Joe Biden elected, either, and, for the record, I do not believe I did that. I don’t do advocacy journalism… Fox & Friends was Donald Trump’s favorite show. We knew he was watching. It was something always celebrated in our newsroom, and that was something that always made me uncomfortable.”
One event, in particular, soured Pineda totally. Early reports from the 2018 G-7 Summit said Trump had said he had some regret for his actions in the trade war with China. The White House would later reverse his position hours later. Pineda, working with a reporter on remote broadcast, prepared the segment with all of the different beats of the story.
“The EP calls me and tells me to tell the reporter not to say (the official White House position) that again. So, I have to call the reporter and tell them they don’t want you to say that again… and that to me was like… ‘Come on man, are we doing the news or what?’”
And that’s why Pineda decided to leave.
“Most of the shows are going to book (a reporter) and say do your hit — where Fox & Friends is going to tell the reporter what they want to report.”
Why would a self-respecting newsman like Pineda work in such a manufactured environment? Money. The position on Fox & Friends came with a $30,000 raise. But after a while, not all money is good money.
His former coworker completely understood Pineda’s position. “When you’re a news professional, it’s a job. You don’t have to agree with everything but you know what your job is and you’re going to do it. Alex has a hell of a work ethic, so he was going to be fine there. “ said Freeman.
A CNN recruiter had reached out to Pineda a few months before the G-7 incident. Pineda reached back out, and within a month had secured a new job — producing CNN Newsroom.
“(At CNN), we do our best to capture the true picture of how America feels. There was a time not too long ago, where all anybody cared about was old white men. That’s just not the world we in anymore.”
