Executive out at Fox News after 20 years
Ailes built network from scratch, led it to top of ratings.
Roger Ailes is out as chief executive at Fox News Channel, his career at the network he built from scratch and ran with an iron hand for nearly 20 years over with stunning swiftness following allegations that he forced out a former anchor after she spurned his sexual advances.
Network parent 21st Century Fox said Thursday that Rupert Murdoch, the company’s executive chairman, would run Fox News and its sister Fox Business Network until a successor is found.
In the statement on the resignation, Murdoch and 21st Century Fox didn’t address the widening scandal but lauded Ailes for his contributions. Ailes didn’t comment in the statement, and no details were given on a settlement agreement.
“I am personally committed to ensuring that Fox News remains a distinctive, powerful voice,” Murdoch said. “Our nation needs a robust Fox News to resonate from every corner of the country.”
Fox is heading into a general election campaign in its customary spot at the top of the ratings, but it will do so without the man who set its editorial tone.
Ailes, 76, built a network that both transformed the news business and provided a television home to conservatives who felt left out of the media, changing the national political conversation.
Ailes’ downfall began with the July 6 filing of a lawsuit by Gretchen Carlson, who charged that he sabotaged her career because she refused his suggestions that they have sex and complained about a pervasive atmosphere of sexual harassment at Fox. Ailes has denied the charges. The parent company hired a law firm to investigate.
In a statement, Carlson’s attorneys credited her “extraordinary courage” with causing “a seismic shift in the media world.”
Several Fox employees jumped to Ailes’ defense, but notably not Megyn Kelly, one of Fox’s top personalities. In rapid succession, it was reported that Kelly was among other women who had told investigators about harassment — again denied by Ailes — and that corporate heads Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, determined Ailes had to go. The company has no plans to make the results of its investigation public.
Within two weeks of the court filing, Carlson’s lawyers also said more than 20 women had contacted the firm saying Ailes had harassed them or other women they knew.
Ailes was a prominent Republican media consultant who ran CNBC before Murdoch asked him to create a cable news network to compete with CNN at the same time rival MSNBC was starting.