Roger Ailes has fallen from power after the whistle was finally blown on his years of reported sexual harassment of women subordinates – but he’s still a hero to some people at Fox News.
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Earlier today, Rupert Murdoch announced that Roger Ailes would step down from his role as chairman and chief executive of Fox News.
Roger Ailes, the executive who created Fox News and built it into America’s top ranked cable news channel, resigned yesterday amid charges of sexual harassment.
People familiar with Ailes’s exit negotiations said he will receive around $40 million, much of which 21st Century Fox was already obligated to pay him under a severance package.
The announcement came 15 days after Ailes was sued by former anchor Gretchen Carlson for sexual harassment.
Further allegations surfaced in United States media that Ailes sexually harassed another Fox News presenter, Megyn Kelly, about 10 years ago, claims he has also denied. The one-time media consultant to Richard Nixon was the key figure in building the Fox News channel into a ratings, profits and, most important perhaps, political powerhouse. Fox News Channel provided a television home to conservatives who had felt left out of the media, and played a part in advancing a rough-and-tumble style of politics that left many concerned that it was impossible to get things done in government.
“A seismic shift in the media world”, the lawyers said.
Murdoch first walked into the tiny room where the editorial meeting for Fox News typically is conducted.
Ailes’ resignation comes weeks after he was accused by former Fox 5 reporter Gretchen Carlson of having taken reprisals against her, including reducing her salary, after she refused to have sexual relations with him, EFE news reported.
“Rupert Murdoch is a conservative, but the Republican intensity, the conservative passion including the viciousness toward the Democrats that we now see against Hillary Clinton and has been going on against Obama all these years, all that is Roger Ailes, ” Paul Levinson, communications professor at Fordham University, told the AP news agency.
Pressure mounted when other women came forward in media reports with similar claims against Mr. Ailes. But Fox’s many fans said it was a necessary counterweight to liberal media bias.
Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, who jointly run the company, pressured Ailes to resign. “I am confident that everyone at Fox News and Fox Business will continue as the standard setters that they are, and that the businesses are well positioned for even greater success in the future”. Ailes blew apart the notion that public affairs programming should target a broad audience with civil debates, he said.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Any sign that Fox was losing its tough, take-no-prisoners attitude without Ailes could at least raise suspicions with its loyal fans.
Lachlan Murdoch is Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son.
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Ailes’ long experience as both a television producer and a Republican strategist helped him to formulate a winning strategy: hire charismatic talent to appeal to a conservative audience. Fox News has a relatively old audience – most of its prime-time viewers are over 65 years old. As Ailes’s fate hung in the balance over the past week, there was speculation that he might raid some of the personalities that he recruited to Fox, including stars Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, upon his departure.
