Fox News: Gingrich bitter we terminated his contract

Fox News fired back at Newt Gingrich on Thursday after the Republican presidential candidate accused the network of being biased and aiding rival candidate Mitt Romney.

"This is nothing other than Newt auditioning for a windfall of a gig at CNN — that's the kind of man he is," a spokeswoman for Fox News told Yahoo News. "Not to mention, he's still bitter about the fact that we terminated his contributor contract."

Gingrich, speaking to a private meeting at Wesley College in Delaware that Real Clear Politics gained access to, told an attendee that in his experience, "CNN is less biased than Fox this year." Gingrich previously worked for Fox as a contributor, but the network ended his employment once he entered the presidential race.

“I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through,” Gingrich said. “In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than Fox this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of Fox, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of Fox. That’s just a fact.”

The former House Speaker said part of the problem with Fox and other conservative media outlets was he was the "least establishment candidate since Ronald Reagan" and that he would be attending the upcoming White House Correspondents' dinner as a guest of the Time Warner network.

“They know I don’t care about their opinions,” he said. “I don’t go to their cocktail parties. I don’t go to their Christmas parties. The only press events I go to are interesting dinners when the wife insists on it, so we’re going to go to the White House Correspondents' dinner because she wants to. And we’re actually going to go to CNN’s table, not Fox.”

A similar charge was leveled earlier in the campaign by Rick Santorum, who likewise lost his job at Fox after declaring for the race. Santorum accused the network of "shilling" for Romney.

But Gingrich also accused Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of Fox's parent company, of advocating for the former Massachusetts governor.

“I assume it’s because Murdoch at some point said, ‘I want Romney,’ and so ‘fair and balanced’ became ‘Romney,’ ” Gingrich said. “And there’s no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches Fox.”

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