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Roger Ailes

1940–2017 · 77 years Tier II

Talk-show producer who built Fox News and lost it in 15 days

Portrait of Roger Ailes — Sgt. Christopher Tobey — 2013-06-14 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Warren, Ohio, was a factory town and his father was a maintenance foreman in one of the factories. Ailes had hemophilia and spent stretches of his childhood in hospitals. He described a father who hit him and shouted at him, and a mother frightened enough of the disease that she touched him, by his account, once in a while. His parents divorced in 1960, and when he came home from college that Christmas they told him he would have to sleep at a friend's house. He took a radio and television degree at Ohio University in 1962 and ran the student station for two years. Then he went to work as a production assistant on a local afternoon talk show.

He produced The Mike Douglas Show, won Emmys for it in 1967 and 1968, and in 1967 sat down with Richard Nixon to talk about what television could do for a candidate. He ended up running Nixon's campaign television the next year, which Joe McGinniss turned into The Selling of the President 1968. Reagan's reelection followed in 1984, and George H. W. Bush's primaries and general election in 1988 alongside Lee Atwater. His theory of coverage was blunt: put two men on a stage, let one propose a settlement in the Middle East and the other fall into the orchestra pit, and see which one leads the news. He quit consulting in 1991, ran CNBC from 1993, launched the channel that became MSNBC, and in 1996 Rupert Murdoch hired him to build Fox News from nothing.

Gretchen Carlson sued on July 6, 2016, alleging harassment and wrongful termination. Ailes's lawyer, Susan Estrich, said Carlson had no legal case and was trying it in the press. Then Megyn Kelly told the internal investigators that Ailes had made unwanted sexual advances at the start of her career, Andrea Tantaros filed her own suit, and Shelley Ross published an account of a lunch in 1981 at which Ailes told her the best expression of loyalty comes in the form of a sexual alliance. Gabriel Sherman had reported similar accounts in 2014 and Fox News had denied them. The Murdochs gave him until August 1. He resigned on July 21 with roughly 40 million dollars, denied all of it, and kept advising Rupert Murdoch until he died. 21st Century Fox settled with Carlson that September.

He fell at his Palm Beach house on May 10, 2017, and died eight days later of a subdural hematoma, aggravated by the hemophilia he had carried since childhood. He had said in 2013 that the disease had prepared him to face death all his life, and that what he would miss was his family. His wife Elizabeth announced it on the Drudge Report. The reputation is now fought over on screen more than on paper: a 2018 documentary, then in 2019 both Russell Crowe playing him in The Loudest Voice, which won Crowe a Golden Globe, and John Lithgow playing him in Bombshell. The channel he built outlived him and did not change course.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Roger Ailes's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

The Mike Douglas Show television
Executive producer, and Emmy winner in 1967 and 1968 1967
Nixon's 1968 campaign television television
The work McGinniss chronicled in The Selling of the President 1968 1968
You Are the Message book
Written with his aide Jon Kraushar 1988
America's Talking television
The cable channel he built at NBC, later reworked into MSNBC 1994
Fox News Channel company
Launched for Rupert Murdoch, with Ailes as chief executive from October 7 1996
Fox Business Network company
One of four Murdoch television arms he chaired at once 2007

Life in brief

with age at each point

1960 aged ~20 His parents divorce and tell him, home from college, to sleep elsewhere
1962 aged ~22 Graduates from Ohio University after two years running the student station
1967 aged ~27 Talks television and politics with Richard Nixon He became Nixon's executive producer for television the following year.
1988 aged ~48 Helps carry George H. W. Bush through the primaries and the general election He worked alongside Lee Atwater.
November 1991 aged 51 Runs his last campaign, Richard Thornburgh's failed Senate bid He withdrew from political consulting that year.
October 7, 1996 aged 56 Becomes chief executive of Fox News
July 6, 2016 aged 76 Gretchen Carlson sues him for harassment and wrongful termination Megyn Kelly and Andrea Tantaros made allegations of their own within weeks.
July 21, 2016 aged 76 Resigns from Fox News with about 40 million dollars He denied every allegation and went on advising Murdoch.
May 18, 2017 aged 77 Dies in Palm Beach, eight days after a fall at home Subdural hematoma, aggravated by hemophilia. He had turned 77 three days earlier.