HE WAS TRUMP … LONG BEFORE TRUMP
Roger Ailes was mired in controversy and a sexual harassment scandal at the end of his life, but few would deny he forever changed the news business and the national political climate when he launched Fox News Channel in 1996, guiding it from its infancy into an iconic brand and ratings juggernaut.
Ken Chandler, executive editor of Newsmax Media and a veteran of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said Ailes “totally transformed” TV news.
“Ailes discovered that there was a niche that wasn’t being served and they were conservatives, who actually make up half the country,” said Chandler, a former editor-in-chief of the Boston Herald.
“Before Fox News, Middle America had long felt it was being ignored by traditional networks. … And then along came Fox News, and for the first time, conservatives had a station that they felt was fair and balanced and represented their views and their values.”
Ailes, 77, died yesterday morning, 10 months after he was ousted from the network he created amid a sexual harassment scandal.
When Chandler was editor-in-chief of the New York Post, every time the Post published a story about Fox, Ailes would call, he recalled, and “quite often complain that we hadn’t given it enough prominence” or that it “was too critical.”
“He just felt very passionate about what he was doing,” Chandler said.
Ailes’ background in both television and politics fueled his reputation as a “media genius,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who appears frequently on Fox News and the Fox Business Network.
“Fox News is the gold standard by which everyone is measured in cable news and that is a big part of his legacy,” O’Connell said. “But what’s more amazing is how he was a pioneer, trailblazer and media genius who shaped America’s media landscape for the past 30 years.”
Before Murdoch hired Ailes to launch Fox News, he was president of CNBC and rolled out the “America’s Talking” cable channel, which eventually — and ironically — turned into MSNBC. Fox would overshadow his earlier creations.
“Dislike the guy or like the guy, know him or not know him, what you can’t dispute is that he was the undisputed king,” O’Connell said.
Merrill Brown, who helped launched MSNBC.com, said Ailes “singularly deserves credit and responsibility for the creation of Fox News — which changed the nature of cable news.”
“The influence of Fox News — its look, its feel — is seen everywhere,” Brown added. “CNN looks much more like Fox News than what CNN looked like in 1995.”
And for better or worse, Brown said, “people are mimicking it — ideological news is now a staple of our news diet. There’s never been as influential a media property built on ideology as Fox News.”
But then, Brown added, there was the other, darker side of Ailes, who was ousted last summer after former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. Other women came forward, including star anchor Megyn Kelly, claiming Ailes had sexually harassed them, too. The scandal would eventually claim Ailes’ biggest star, Bill O’Reilly, who was canned in April amid allegations of sexual harassment.
Ailes, 77, died yesterday morning from complications of a subdural hematoma after falling and injuring his head at his Palm Beach mansion. His legacy may be forever tainted by scandal, but his undeniable impact on the industry will survive him.