As founding chief executive of Fox News in 1996, Mr. Ailes defined the channel in opposition to the traditional journalism of CNN and the liberal bent of MSNBC, and he brought Fox from a distant third to clear dominance, riding to the top along the wave of public dismay that arose over President Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern.
Mr. Ailes’ reign at Fox ended abruptly in 2016, in the middle of the presidential campaign, after an on-air host at Fox News, Gretchen Carlson, alleged that Mr. Ailes had sabotaged her career when she refused to have sex with him. Following Carlson’s accusations, 25 other women, including Fox’s most prominent female anchor, Megyn Kelly, came forward to say that Ailes had sexually harassed them over his five decades in the TV business....
In 1996, Murdoch — who concluded when he first met Mr. Ailes that “Either this man is crazy or he has the biggest set of balls I’ve ever seen” — asked him to launch a conservative alternative to CNN. But Fox News Channel would not tout itself as conservative because, as Mr. Ailes said, “if you come out and you try to do right-wing news, you’re gonna die. You can’t get away with it.”
Instead, Mr. Ailes proposed to build a “fair and balanced” news operation in which reporting would blend with largely conservative talk show hosts.
May 18, 2017
Roger Ailes has died.
WaPo had a big obituary ready to go. Excerpt:
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So there goes the Ailes/O'Reilly/Hannity/Bolling/Guilfoyle/Varney network, aimed at being the "True Trump" alternative to Fox News.
Why did Trump have him killed? What did Ailes know from the campaign?
25 other women, ...say that Ailes had sexually harassed them over his five decades
One dirty joke every two years.
Trump Tower gives up no secrets.
The big question, How did he die?
Without Ailes and Fox, there is no President Trump. Fact.
Another Trumpicide.
A genius TV guy who will never, ever get the credit he deserved. The gaggle of morons the Murdoch boys like have killed Ailes channel dead.
I heard that he gave 50,000 emails to wikileaks. It was only a matter of time after that.
Funny how not getting one's contract renewed can cause sudden awareness of past sexual harassment.
Being around all those good-looking leggy anchorettes gave him a reason to live.
Without them.......
Wait - before he is buried, can the collective Democracy Now! left kick him a few times?
ailes mastered Scott Adams confirmation bias 40 years ago.Read his book.
And sex still sells everything in media.
First heard about Mr. Ailes in the book "The Selling of the President" by Joe McGinniss. Highly recommended.
Did he die of Scalia Disease?
Rene Saunce said...
Wait - before he is buried, can the collective Democracy Now! left kick him a few times?
You mean like you did to Seth Rich?
"Rich's parents have strongly criticized the conspiracy theories, and have urged people to stop posting it. The family has accused conspiracy theorists of politicizing his death for political gain, and called posters of the conspiracy theory "disgusting"."
" The gaggle of morons the Murdoch boys like have killed Ailes channel dead."
Yes and the possibility of an alternative died with Ailes. I assume this was unexpected as he recently bought a big house in Miami.
ARM has become despicable in a way that seems unnecessary after having been a reasonable leftist for several years.
The Seth Rich family may have excellent reasons to not want publicity but that has nothing to do with why he was killed.
I would like to know what he told the police in the hour and a half before he died and I would like to know why they took his laptop is, in fact, it was a "mugging."
Michael K said...
despicable
Seth Rich's parents think you are 'disgusting'.
Who killed Seth Rich? ARM does not care.
Were the DC Police told to stand down? If so, why?
Where is his computer? Where are his thumb drives? Were they indeed taken at the time of the "botched robbery"?
ARM not interested.
Seth Rich - no questions please. All of the dead people in Clinton's wake are just happy coincidences.
"AReasonableMan said...
"Rich's parents have strongly criticized the conspiracy theories, and have urged people to stop posting it. The family has accused conspiracy theorists of politicizing his death for political gain, and called posters of the conspiracy theory "disgusting"."
Sounds like they don't want to be randomly mugged.
AReasonableMan said...
Rene Saunce said...
Wait - before he is buried, can the collective Democracy Now! left kick him a few times?
You mean like you did to Seth Rich?
An unreasonable non-sequitur. No one is criticizing Seth Rich and sullying his name. No one is accusing him of bad deeds. People want to know if he was the source for Wikileaks, and given his access to DNC computers it is a legitimate question. I suppose in your view, that is a crime, but in the larger picture it would clarify a lot if we knew for certain the source of the DNC emails.
"Were the DC Police told to stand down?"
ZOMG y'all are getting to use "stand down" again in your "search for the truth"! It's almost as fun as if you got to say "high seas"!
This Alex Jones stuff is entertaining.
I'm more than happy to investigate Ailes death to see if Democrats caused it. Just like we should investigate Breitbart's suspicious death, Scalia, and the time that the government tried to kill Jim Treacher as well. Seth Rich too.
We all know that ARM and the left fully endorse murdering people for political gain. He certainly crows loudly and happilly everytime someone he doesn't like dies.
But in Ailes case it probably was just his time to go; I've not heard of anything suspicious about his death.... yet.
I do note that Chuck is laughing it up about Ailes dying; naturally. Ailes dared to disagree with the Democrat stranglehold on media, and lifelong Republican Chuck was as I recall always deeply upset that Fox News existed to try to counterbalance CNN and MSNBC, who are Chuck's preferred news sources.
--Vance
Mike said...
No one is ... is sullying his name.
Not his parent's view. In their view you are 'disgusting'.
"Funny how not getting one's contract renewed can cause sudden awareness of past sexual harassment."
When their subtle flirting stops being helpful in advancing their careers, they realize that they've been the victim of sexual harassment, kind of like an epiphany.
Unknown said...
We all know that ARM and the left fully endorse murdering people for political gain.
Would you like to point to where I said this? Or would you like acknowledge, if it was not already evident, that you are a lying piece of shit?
If Seth Rich was a disgruntled Bernie supporter, and he watched in horror as his own party manipulated Hillary's primary win, perhaps we wanted he truth out. If anyone is sullying Seth Rich, it's leftwing hacks for standing in the way of an investigation.
I think Seth Rich might be a hero. shot dead in the back with 2 bullets.
@ Mike- exactly.
Sad to hear about Ailes death. He was a great TV exec, and was almost completely responsible for FOX being No. 1.
I've liked him ever since his dispute with Dick "I'm a weenie" Cavett. Ailes hired Dick for a Cable TV talk show, when no one else would hire him, and despite relatively low ratings, kept him on the air. Despite this, Cavett then went on strike for a raise, and Ailes responded by firing him. LOL.
Let's hope he got 72 virgins.
ARM said: Seth Rich's parents think you are 'disgusting'.
Remind me why you keep bring this up time and time a again as a reason why questions of national importance should not be addressed.
Put on your parent hat, ARM and I'll put on mine.
Angels are messengers (angelos, messenger), which means newsbabes.
Rene Saunce said...
If
If only.
" I've not heard of anything suspicious about his death.... yet. "
I just heard that he fell ten days ago and hit his head. It's too long for an acute epidural hemorrhage but it could have been a subdural.
Sounds like trauma.
No police report? It didn't happen.
"I heard that he gave 50,000 emails to wikileaks. It was only a matter of time after that"
It's nice to see that ARM has taken a break from making racist statements about the Chinese people to move on to making light of of the death of Roger Ailes.
Well ARM: here's a simple test. Scalia's death.
Now, we all know that Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the position, and thankfully the Republicans in the Senate grew a spine on that issue.
But I'm sure you supported Obama and Garland, though I suspect you wanted someone more "left" like Bill Ayers or something.
So here's the question: You no doubt blame Republicans for not rubber stamping Garland. What if we had irrefutable proof that Scalia had been murdered? Would you have supported the Republicans blocking Garland, on grounds that Obama and the left shouldn't profit from their murder?
We all know that you would still criticize the Republicans for not approving Garland, even if it had been proven that Obama had Scalia killed. And even if you yourself have enough integrity to in this scenario say that the Republican party was correct to block Garland, do you think your fellow Democrats would agree? If Obama had made a clean sweep --killing Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas-- do you honestly think that the NYT and Post and people like Pelosi and Schumer would even agree that Obama was wrong? Would they call for Obama to be allowed to fill those vacancies?
We all know the answer, don't we? Democrats would totally be okay with that scenario.
--Vance
"We all know that ARM and the left fully endorse murdering people for political gain."
Oh, I don't think ARM endorses it. He just doesn't give a shit if they do. The subject does not interest him.
Is it possible that Roger Ailes was the only news or entertainment executive who ever tried to leverage his position in pursuit of nookie? Apparently so......He was, visibly, a man of appetites and, also, a man of vision and self discipline. He was very successful in his professional life. Perhaps less so in other areas. I wonder how much of his success was due to his gnawing sense of failure. It will be a long time before anyone will be able to write an honest and fair appraisal of his worth, and, by that time, no one will care.
"Remind me why you keep bring this up time and time a again as a reason why questions of national importance should not be addressed.
Put on your parent hat, ARM and I'll put on mine. "
Hey, remember when Cindy Sheehan had complete "moral authority" because her son had been killed in Iraq? However, the same is not true of Patricia Smith and Charles Woods - they sued Hillary because of Benghazi. Their suffering is just a joke to ARM.
So bullshit on ARMs phony outrage.
Rush starts his show with an Ailes tribute that sets the world's record for boring.
Rush is no good at all at morality. He's only good at larger-than-life.
President-Mom-Jeans said...
It's nice to see ... ARM
I'm glad to hear that you are still alive. After the beatdown you received last month for didling that boy I thought you were a goner.
I hope your injuries are not bothering you too much, but the loss of your testicles is no laughing matter.
Exile, you bring up an interesting point.
Sheehan and that Davis chick who ran for Texas governor --abortion barbie, can't remember her name-- had "Absolute Moral Authority" on the left. The parents of Seth Rich are being granted it--how DARE you disagree with the "he was randomly murdered... by a thief.... who took nothing...and the police seized his laptop.... nothing to see here!"
The left's "Why don't you listen to their parents and leave poor Seth Rich alone and not criticize him!" requires that you believe that Seth Rich's actions are to be criticized. In other words, the idea that Seth Rich leaked DNC stuff is automatically considered a bad thing, and saying so is criticism of Seth Rich.
But it's not. Leaking DNC emails should be encouraged, in my view.
--Vance
Powerful, influential, media-shaper. He was on par with Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather, although he did his work behind the camera.
No, I'm not ignoring the various sexual harassment claims against him. He may have been a jerk in his personal life, who abused his power. But I don't know enough about it.
Godspeed.
People say without Ailes no President Trump. But I read a book published in '69 indicating without Ailes no President Nixon. He sure could pick 'em.
Too bad Joe McGuinness not around.
"without Ailes no President Nixon. He sure could pick 'em."
I would give more credit to Lyndon Johnson.
Of course, he was responsible for electing Kennedy, he and Daley, but the Vietnam War elected Nixon.
Ailes, I believe, was the genius that figured out that there was a gigantic market for center right views, a market comprised of all of the flyover country and significant pockets of the coasts. RIP.
Some rather pathetic comments upstream. The left has lost it entirely: sanity, humor, empathy, sympathy. Gone. All fucking gone.
The left is living in a fantasy. This is Jim Jones territory and I am sorry to see it.
I consider my self libertarian and the libertarians see what had happened to the left.
Here's the Libertarian view.
A real-estate developer from Queens with history's worst comb-over is about the bring the Statue of Liberty to her knees like an ISIS captive. Indeed, whether or not James Comey's memos detailing his version of Trump's perfidies against a free-and-independent FBI—you know, that august institution which has one of the very worst records among any law-enforcement agency of abusing power —The Atlantic's James Fallows has already said that the mere firing of Comey is "worse than Watergate." Think about that for a second. No one disputes the FBI director serves at the pleasure of the president and he can fire him whenever he wants. What "Watergate" revealed was not simply Richard Nixon's willingness to lie and cover up criminal activity committed on his behalf, but an entire apparatus to spy on, pervert, and undermine elected government.
It's a cult.
Fox News was founded to serve an overlooked niche market - half the country. It was the only network that didn't toe the big government Democrat party line. For that, it must be destroyed.
It doesn't matter whether you're left or right; you simply need to be a moderately intelligent human being to hold two thoughts simultaneously: 1. Roger Ailes was an entrepreneurial media genius, and 2. Roger Ailes was a sexual predator of the crudest and most loathsome kind.
" Roger Ailes was a sexual predator of the crudest and most loathsome kind."
As bad as Bill Clinton ? Hard to imagine.
Blogger readering said...
People say without Ailes no President Trump. But I read a book published in '69 indicating without Ailes no President Nixon. He sure could pick 'em."
The goings-on at the '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago had nothing to do with the election of Nixon at all, I guess.
Don't credit Ailes, readering. Credit the Dems and the radicals.
As bad as Bill Clinton? Hard to imagine.
Yes, I think it was Gloria Steinem who said "he may be a sexual predator, but he's our sexual predator.
Oh wait, scratch that, it was someone else talking about Roger Ailes.
The sliming of Ailes ignores the well known phenomenon of attractive women "sleeping" their way to the top.
Ailes may or may not have taken advantage of their eagerness to improve their careers at almost any price.
It is interesting that all the allegations appear after they are dropped as performers.
Not getting the snide and oh so clever remarks. He was a media giant who served the public well with the creation of FOX News. Many current and past employees of FOX, during the Carlson firestorm, were supportive of him and talked about how he helped them personally and professionally. He had many friends and a loving family. A life well lived...RIP.
Earnest Prole said...
2. Roger Ailes was a sexual predator of the crudest and most loathsome kind.
I can't decide if you are a thread-spamming lefty, a weak righty, or what, but this is exactly not true and just the sort of detestable post I have come to expect, most times, of you.
There are rapists, incests, child/mate abusers, these dentists who manipulate their drugged patients, and depending on your views, other categories like pornographers, catcallers, stealthers.
I don't know what any of the allegations against him were, but doubt they measure up to, e.g., Richard Speck, Teddy Kennedy, Carl Panzram, Gerry Studds, Brian David Mitchell, Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Gary Condit, or Jimmy Savile. So your sensibility of judgment is way off, or your use of language, or ability to draw distinctions, or all of the above.
The icing on the cake is your "Think as I think...or you are a toad" style of persuasion. I would rather be a toad, if an immoderately intelligent one, than an earnest prole.
I am also suspicious of the Cosby stories. That's why I recommend that book, "You'll never eat lunch in this town again."
That is Hollywood, which Trump described in his infamous tape. They are not rapes, like Bill Clinton did.
Now, if Cosby used Quaaludes that was very common in the 70s when a lot of this occurred.
His accusers all appeared after he gave a couple of speeches about black family life and its relationship to the pathology we see in the streets.
There are rapists, incests, child/mate abusers, these dentists who manipulate their drugged patients, and depending on your views, other categories like pornographers, catcallers, stealthers.
All of that is true. And if Roger Ailes had treated my wife or daughter the way he treated numerous other women, I would have sent him a large dead fish.
"I heard that he gave 50,000 emails to wikileaks. It was only a matter of time after that."
So in other words, you leftists had him killed, too.
You must be so proud.
rhhardin said...
Let's hope he got 72 virgins.
Virginity is so ephemeral.
So sad... not really.
Inga said...
So sad... not really.
5/18/17, 5:28 PM
I don't suppose you're Jewish, and if you are I don't suppose you study Talmud, so let me just tell you:
There is a wheel that turns in the world.
Precisely how did he treat these numerous other women? On the continuum of "Love that 'do," "Could you show more cleavage this is Sweeps Week," "Baby let's fuck," "Screw or walk," "You should put some ice on that?"
"I am also suspicious of the Cosby stories. That's why I recommend that book, "You'll never eat lunch in this town again."
So is my partner who knew him and his family when he was playing Vegas a lot. She routinely dealt with a lot of stars there, and the only two who never said or did anything out of line were Cosby and Elvis. She was routinely hit on or propositioned by these other stars, in the assuming, entitled way that they all seem to have, but not by those two. She would routinely sneak the entire Cosby family in and out of the hotel, and was invited up to their suite on a regular basis to drink champagne. No qualudes. Nothing even close. Just his family, who were always around, and preeminent in his life.
I know that some here have heard this story before, but she feels very strongly on this subject, and insists that I tell her side of it whenever I can.
Inga said...
So sad... not really.
5/18/17, 5:28 PM
The left are such inhuman scum. Just because you happen to look at the world through a different political lens, you don't even get a moments respect at death. Come on Inga, Ailes was an accomplished person that gave back to humanity at every level of society. How small and insignificant he must make you feel, to be so crude.
" if Roger Ailes had treated my wife or daughter the way he treated numerous other women, "
You mean make TV stars out of them only to be thanked with accusations probably driven by greed and hopes of a big payday ?
You mean make TV stars out of them only to be thanked with accusations probably driven by greed and hopes of a big payday?
On the plus side you haven’t yet called Ailes’ accusers “narcissistic loony toons,” as Hillary called Bill’s victims, but the night is young. Here’s some source material if you want to study up.
There is a wheel that turns in the world.
Actually, the wheel's in the sky...
There is a wheel that turns in the world
Talmud, Shabbat 151b
If Inga wants to condemn her children to death, who am I to stop her?
"Here’s some source material if you want to study up."
Feel free to study Bill and Hillary. It has nothing to do with Ailes.
It's amusing that these people come out of the woodwork once their career has stalled.
It's amusing that these people come out of the woodwork once their career has stalled.
Stalled is not a word I would apply to Megyn Kelly's career, but your mileage may vary.
Stalled is not a word I would apply to Megyn Kelly's career, but your mileage may vary
Agree. It was more like off-the-cliff suicide.
Bad Lieutenant said...
There is a wheel that turns in the world
Talmud, Shabbat 151b
From nuclear spin to galactic swirl, to every day turn, turn, turn.
It was more like off-the-cliff suicide.
“Megyn Kelly's Move To NBC Will Likely Make Her The World's Highest-Paid Female News Anchor” but your mileage may vary.
@Prole: I'm in an indicative mood. Please adjust your verbiage accordingly. Thank you.
I'm in an indicative mood.
Gotcha
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