Successes and excesses
He coarsened politics and the news media before imploding in a sexual scandal
Roger Ailes liked to create story lines at Fox News with clear-cut bad guys and good guys, victims and saviors. Ailes, the founder and former chairman of the network, died Thursday at 77. He was long a hero to many Republicans and conservatives, widely admired within the television industry for his achievements, and enjoyed by reporters for his capacity to charm.
He saw opportunity where others didn’t and redefined what cable news would be. And he inspired intense loyalty from many who worked for him.
Few have had more influence on the worlds of media and politics over the past 50 years. No one did more to erode the boundaries separating the two in that period, coarsening each in the process.
By the end, Ailes earned billing as the heavy of his story, disgraced by the tawdry accounts of many women that he demanded sexual acts in exchange for career advancement. PROFIT MACHINE Ailes built a profit-generating marvel on an insight with his patron and boss, Rupert Murdoch: a diet of political red meat, with side dishes of cultural outrages, humor, sex appeal and some straight-ahead reporting would ultimately translate into a big audience for cable. The grievance and alienation among conservatives was real. Ailes recognized it, fed it, and nurtured it.
He came from the world of entertainment — the Mike Douglas
Show on TV, the Hot-L Baltimore on Broadway — and brought that showman’s sensibility to successful presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
After helping to create CNBC, Ailes built a fortune by infusing Fox News with both entertainment and political values. Despite a slogan of “fair and balanced,” and despite having capable journalists in his employ, Ailes sought to present his right-of-center fans with a largely unchallenging view of the world. His hosts often devoted weeks to stories for which there was little substance, such as the threat posed by the New Black Panthers, whose membership appeared to range in the lower two digits, or outrage over the War on Christmas, which drew life from increasingly innocuous holiday greetings.
In online parlance, Ailes had expert trolling skills.
There are two easy ways to assess the integrity of any news outlet. Does it admit facts that cut against the point it is seeking to make? And does it admit when it makes mistakes? Under Ailes, Fox was grudging on the first count and infamous for failing to do the second.
He didn’t simply approach the news conservatively. He approached it as a political player, meddling in campaigns, hiring prospective presidential candidates, and pounding messages helpful to the cause. THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE The lasting nature of his DNA is seen in how the network contorts itself to cover the crises swamping the Trump White House. Fox does cover major developments, but it is often late to the game. And its hosts instead quickly pivot to focus on the wrongs committed by sources and news outlets, a cause of tension for some of its news staffers, including Chris Wallace and others, who are left trying to underscore the importance of the latest news.
Ailes was, of course, ousted not because of any programming failings but as part of the fallout of former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson’s lawsuit accusing him of punishing her for rejecting his sexual advances. Other women came forward, including Megyn Kelly, whose experiences influenced her decision to leave the network. There are two dozen lawsuits against Fox News, on complaints of sexual harassment, racial bias and others.
In later years, Ailes dubbed his network “the most powerful name in news” — power being a quality few news organizations seek or claim. Yet he sought to project power on and off the air, controlling what women wore on screen, instituting a “leg cam” to linger on his female hosts. He had phones and corridors bugged at Fox News.
Murdoch this week announced plans for a brand new newsroom designed to promote collaboration and the values of “openness and transparency.” It involves gutting the warren of secondfloor offices from which Ailes ruled. Murdoch and his sons at 21st Century Fox say they want a new day. Bill O’Reilly and many top executives have been forced out. But Fox News’ top lawyer, publicity executive and programming chief remain. All are defendants in lawsuits and stand accused of facilitating and hiding Ailes’ behavior.
For two decades, Ailes was a runaway success. Those successes enabled not only his excesses in what his put on the air, but also his abuses off it.