Ailes’ widow, Elizabeth Ailes, announced his death in a statement posted on the Fox News website today.
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As the founding leader of Fox, Ailes envisioned an approach to news coverage that professed objectivity but filtered information through an ideological lens.
Instead, Fox feels at a crossroads. “Ailes was relatively isolated in recent months”.
Longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod acknowledged Ailes’ influence.
1996: Ailes is hired by media mogul Rupert Murdoch to launch Fox News, which he would build into the top-rated news network over the next two decades.
By mid-2016, Ailes continued to reign supreme as he prepared to celebrate Fox News’ 20th anniversary that autumn.
JOE MUTO: Trump equaled the ratings.
You know what they’ve got? “They’re living off of Roger’s fumes right now”.
Shister, now in her tenth year as a senior writing fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, says Ailes superbly blended politics and cable in a 24/7 format.
As head of a liberal media watchdog, Carusone was against virtually everything Ailes stood for. So, what Ailes did is he adopted all the trappings of a news network – the anchor desk, the sets, the studios. And then came the idea of a network to fill what he, and as it would turn out millions of Americans, saw as a conservative void on cable 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. Despite his public flirtation with a presidential run five years ago, Trump ultimately demurred until his infamous ride down the escalator at Trump Tower in July of 2015.
“He just felt very passionate about what he was doing”, Chandler said.
Donald Trump at the time leapt to his defense, saying that Ailes had been a friend of his for a “long time”. Kelly left for NBC News and Van Susteren now has a daily show on MSNBC. O’Reilly was sacked his top-rated show at Fox in April after reports surfaced that the network had settled lawsuits with five women who alleged he sexually harassed them. Traditional anchors such as Shep Smith, Chris Wallace and Bret Baier enabled Fox to maintain credibility as a news organization. In cases where Fox News is named as a defendant along with executives who are said to have tolerated workplace discrimination, “these statements wouldn’t be admissible against those other individuals because he’s not their agent”. He was obliged to stand down past year amid accusations of sexual harassment. Since the run of damaging news stories against Trump began, Hannity has become the angry id of the Fox audience, charging that the president’s opponents were “unhinged”, “foaming at the mouth” and “wetting their trousers”.
Others remembered a media consultant who didn’t suffer bellyaching. Newsmax expects to increase its television reach from 10 million to 35 million homes this summer.
Many other tributes have flooded social media platforms and the airwaves to mourn the Fox News founder’s death. “Roger changed that. He was a genius”.
Fox has largely avoided much reporting on Trump’s Russian Federation scandal, choosing instead to spend airtime on an alleged link between email leaks to WikiLeaks and the 2016 slaying of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, a suspicion that authorities say is unfounded.
Sherman: I see a network casting about for an identity.
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GREENE: So we don’t know much about the details at this point.
