Both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were contracted as Fox News contributors before declaring their candidacy for president last year. Then they both ran their mouths about the network being pro-Mitt Romney.

We know that chances of Santorum returning to Fox now that he’s dropped out of the race are slim. As for Gingrich, he definitely won’t be going back. And that’s straight from Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who was spoke to a room of journalism students at UNC Chapel Hill yesterday.

In at-times irreverent responses, Ailes referred to CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien as “that girl that’s named after a prison” and threw a jab at Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, asserting that the candidate has only criticized Fox News’ coverage because he’s “trying to get a job at CNN because he knows he isn’t going to get to come back to Fox News.”

Ouch.

Here’s what Gingrich said Wednesday while talking with Tea Party people in Delaware:

“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 Herald-Sun, Washington Post]