Roger Ailes, former Fox News chief, dies at 77

[webfact]

Roger Ailes, former Fox News chief, dies at 77

By Jessica Toonkel

REUTERS

 

FILE PHOTO - Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of Fox News and Fox Television Stations, attends a panel discussion at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Pasadena, California, U.S. on July 24, 2006. REUTERS/Fred Prouser/File Photo

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Roger Ailes, founder and former chief executive of Fox News, the cable news channel popular with conservatives that helped reshape the U.S. political landscape, has died at age 77.

 

Ailes' widow, Elizabeth Ailes, announced his death in a statement posted on the Fox News website on Thursday. The cause of death was not immediately known.

 

He resigned from Fox News last July following allegations of sexual harassment, marking an abrupt end to his 20-year reign at the most-watched cable channel in the United States.

 

Fox News, which Ailes started in 1996 with the backing of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, raised the temperature of on-air debate on U.S. television, generally taking a hardline conservative view. It has had a mixed relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime friend of Ailes, but was instrumental in his election victory in November.

 

Ailes received a severance package of about $40 million when he left Fox News, owned by Twenty-First Century Fox Inc <FOXA.O>, according to a source familiar with the situation. He went on to serve as an informal adviser to Murdoch.

 

"Everybody at Fox News is shocked and grieved by the death of Roger Ailes," Murdoch said in a statement.

 

"Roger and I shared a big idea which he executed in a way no one else could have," he added. "Roger was a patriot, who never ceased fighting for his beliefs."

 

'PATRIOTIC WARRIOR'

 

Fox host Sean Hannity paid tribute to his former boss.

 

“Today America lost one of its great patriotic warriors," he said in a statement read on the channel. "For decades, RA (Roger Ailes) has impacted American politics and media. He has dramatically and forever changed the political and the media landscape single-handedly for the better."

 

Democrats also weighed in on someone they often saw as a foe. "I knew Ailes. Competed against him in campaigns," said David Axelrod, ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama, on Twitter. "Railed against him many times. But appreciated our frank, back-channel conversations."

 

Neither Ailes' wife nor Fox released any details on the circumstances of his death. He suffered from hemophilia, according to a source familiar with the matter.

 

Gabriel Sherman, a reporter who wrote a biography of Ailes, said on Twitter that Ailes died after suffering a blood clot from a fall in Palm Beach, Florida, citing two family friends. Reuters could not immediately confirm Sherman's report.

 

SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWSUITS

 

Fox has been roiled by sexual harassment claims for more than a year, which prompted Ailes' exit last summer and in April forced the departure of Bill O'Reilly, the channel's most-watched host, after the New York Times reported that Fox and O'Reilly had paid five women a total of $13 million to settle harassment claims.

 

Bill Shine, co-president of Fox News who had been at the channel since its inception, also left earlier this month. Despite the high-profile departures, Fox News ratings have remained strong.

 

Ailes and Fox News face several sex and race discrimination lawsuits from current and former anchors and other employees. Fox News is also the subject of a U.S. Justice Department investigation, CNN and New York magazine have reported, although Reuters has not confirmed those reports.

 

Ailes was a defendant in a pending sexual harassment case brought by Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky, who says she was denied a full-time job after rejecting Ailes' advances.

 

In a separate case, former Fox News anchor Andrea Tantaros said Ailes and the network spied on her and hacked her phone and computer after she complained of harassment by Ailes.

 

It is not clear how those lawsuits will progress after Ailes' death, but in the normal course of such cases, his estate would become the defendant in his place, according to a lawyer involved in one of the cases.

 

Ailes' chief lawyer Susan Estrich did not respond to a request for comment.

 

Before his death, Ailes took steps to limit any financial loss from lawsuits against him. He bought an oceanfront home in Palm Beach, Florida, for $36 million shortly after leaving Fox News and declared himself a state resident, according to public records.

 

The moves allowed Ailes to take advantage of Florida "homestead" laws that protect residential property from claims by creditors, according to Lee-Ford Tritt, a professor of estates and trusts at the University of Florida.

 

"Florida has amazing creditor protection," Tritt said. It's why people like O.J. Simpson bought a house there."

 

The legal protections will likely pass onto his wife, who would typically inherit control of the house under Florida law barring a prenuptial agreement to the contrary, Tritt said.

 

Ailes also owned homes in Cresskill, New Jersey, and Garrison, New York. The Cresskill home was up for sale at the time of his death, according to public records.

 

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Anna Driver, Jill Serjeant, Anthony Lin and Joseph Ax; Writing by Bill Rigby; Editing by Alden Bentley and Jeffrey Benkoe)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-19

[Jingthing]

Nothing good about that man.

 

Quote

Ailes leaves behind one of the largest legacies of any media figure of the past century: He made our country nastier, stupider, cruder, and more bigoted. Even as the memory of Ailes the man fades, we will always be able to look back on what he built.

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/18/roger_ailes_is_survived_by_trump_hannity_this_awful_time.html

 

[Crowes]

16 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Nothing good about that man.

 

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/18/roger_ailes_is_survived_by_trump_hannity_this_awful_time.html

 

 

Stay Classy

[Jingthing]

4 minutes ago, Crowes said:

 

Stay Classy

He didn't. 

[mtls2005]

Skirts will be at half-staff today on Fox News.

[impulse]

The news before Ailes:

:

 

The news after Ailes;

 

I'm not favorably impressed.

 

 

 

 

[DM07]

If you have nothing good to say about a dead man...

When I heard, he died...I said "Good"!

A truly evil man!

[ilostmypassword]

I went to foxnews.com home page to see how they would memorialize his passing.  There was nothing there.  Elsewhere yes, but not prominently featured.

[attrayant]

His tombstone will say "Here Lies Roger Ailes".   Well at least he's going to keep doing what he always did best. 

[thaibeachlovers]

Despite the high-profile departures, Fox News ratings have remained strong.

 

Maybe for now, but I think that will change. With the departure of O'Reilly the remaining anchors are bland and colourless. They all just say the same thing on every show. Without a charismatic anchor, I think they will lose viewers, especially given the exceptionally high number of ads being shown.

Sacking O'Reilly was a huge mistake.

Gutfeld and Waters are worth watching, but Gutfeld obviously has limited appeal.

 

If Fox does continue to survive, IMO it is because there is no conservative alternative.

[iReason]

38 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Sacking O'Reilly was a huge mistake.

 

So, if you were in charge, you would have kept a sexual predator who just cost you $13,000,000 to make it go away? 

As well as a wife beater?

As described by his daughter?

 

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/bill-oreilly-fired-sexual-harassment-fox-news-timeline-1202372546/

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/oreilly-falafel-suit-turns-five

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/accordingtomatthew/2016/02/bill-oreilly-loses-custody-of-his-children-after-choking-wife/

[iReason]

A timeline:

 

The last year of Roger Ailes' life was consumed by scandal

 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/18/media/timeline-roger-ailes-last-year/

[elgordo38]

11 hours ago, webfact said:

 

"Roger and I shared a big idea which he executed in a way no one else could have," he added. "Roger was a patriot, who never ceased fighting for his beliefs."

Who made me a ton of money thank you. I hear he died from complications from falling. Wonder if he was chasing something young?

[Opl]

http://www.salon.com/2017/05/19/roger-ailes-true-legacy-his-misbegotten-swamp-child-is-in-the-white-house/

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Opl

[JHolmesJr]

anyone who shits on a dead mans grave has retribution coming big time.

[ilostmypassword]

5 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

anyone who shits on a dead mans grave has retribution coming big time.

Oh no! It's zombie Roger Ailes!

[Andaman Al]

1 hour ago, JHolmesJr said:

anyone who shits on a dead mans grave has retribution coming big time.

Anyone who defends despicable people has Karma coming - bigly.

[baboon]

10 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Despite the high-profile departures, Fox News ratings have remained strong.

 

Maybe for now, but I think that will change. With the departure of O'Reilly the remaining anchors are bland and colourless. They all just say the same thing on every show. Without a charismatic anchor, I think they will lose viewers, especially given the exceptionally high number of ads being shown.

Sacking O'Reilly was a huge mistake.

Gutfeld and Waters are worth watching, but Gutfeld obviously has limited appeal.

 

If Fox does continue to survive, IMO it is because there is no conservative alternative.

"With the departure of O'Reilly the remaining anchors are bland and colourless. They all just say the same thing on every show."

 

Isn't that what their target audience wants, however? Don't they tune in to have their points of view reinforced? 

I shall refrain from commenting that Mr Ailes is at least nice and warm where he is now for fear of upsetting any right wing snowflakes..

[bendejo]

52 minutes ago, baboon said:

"With the departure of O'Reilly the remaining anchors are bland and colourless. They all just say the same thing on every show."

 

Nothing new about that!

The impressive thing about the way they do it is that it's word-for-word, right down the line.  They'll sometimes come up with terms I'm not familiar with, and the thing is none of them paraphrase it, they just repeat.  E.g. "Obama spiked the ball."  I don't know what that means, and even after hearing it said so many times I still won't know what they're getting at because no one uses other words.  The Yanks don't use the term "news reader" but that is exactly what they do, read the prompter.  Yeah, and Hannity, who likes to denounce people for reading the teleprompter, does it too.  I'm waiting for him to go down with the ship.  As Hannity himself declared "I never said I was a reporter."

 

There is going to be a heated competition in the right wing hair-on-fire broadcast market real soon: Sinclair is gearing up, and it may be that MSNBC will go the iron heel route.  Don't buy the bs that MSNBC is the liberal station -- yeah, they have a few staunch liberal reporters, but that's it.  I could see where they keep the few famous liberals and the rest are FN veterans, trying to get the best of both worlds (remember how Fox had Alan Colmes?).  My guess is all this will be in place for the 2018 mid-terms.

 

Also, the Fox News of old may pale against the new breed, which will probably be more like Alex Jones and the National Enquirer.  Tunnels connecting all Walmarts and subterranean FEMA camps, anyone?

 

 

Edited May 19, 2017 by bendejo

[Jingthing]

R.I.W.

 

Quote

Dead Wrong: Roger Ailes’ Destructive Legacy

Ailes’s legacy is a divided America, an angry America, an America he helped create over decades of incitement and provocation. I would offer the traditional Jewish appellation — “yemach shemo,” may his name be blotted out — but there is no blotting out the damage he has done to the country I love. I can only offer up “zachor.” Remember.

Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/national/372407/roger-ailes-died-obituary-destructive-legacy/

[mtls2005]

Supposedly this video shows Ailes last moments before he passed away on his pleasure barge...

 

 

[boomerangutang]

                          Probably the main legacy of Roger Ailes is; how one man, with a lot of money and powerful media position can tangibly affect presidential elections.   He contributed more to the elections of Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr. and Trump, 50X more than what the Russians did for Trump in 2016.  

 

                      Roger Ailes is a dirty trickster similar to Roger Stone, but Ailes was propped up by Australian Murdoch's hundreds of millions of dollars.  

 

                        Adding injury to insult, the Murdochs gave him $24 million severance pay, just weeks ago, for Ailes getting proven a sexual predator for decades, including ruining many women's careers.  Maybe it's not against the law to reward a man with $24 million for being a decades-long sexual predator, but perhaps it should be.   A case could be made that the Murdoch family have caused more harm to the USA than McCarthyism and AIDS combined.  Rupert and his 2 sons should be slammed in prison.

 

 

[Thakkar]

I had no plans to revisit America anytime soon. But now, I might make the pilgrimage—just so I can piss on Roger Ailes' grave.

 

That slimeball deserved no respect when alive, and none in death.

[Silurian]

I would say "watch out!" to all those female angels but I know that isn't the direction he is headed.

 

So Long Roger...so so long.

[55Jay]

Fox (News) has changed the debate, and how it is conducted, but not in a good way.   IMO, Fox is the worst of the lot.  The commercials/adverts alone are like fingernails down a chalkboard. 

[anon4546543]

I won't say anything bad against a bad dead man.

I will say the good he did instead.... Err

Umm, he made a lot of women whom he touched up and stalked rich.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 5/19/2017 at 2:25 PM, iReason said:

 

So, if you were in charge, you would have kept a sexual predator who just cost you $13,000,000 to make it go away? 

As well as a wife beater?

As described by his daughter?

 

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/bill-oreilly-fired-sexual-harassment-fox-news-timeline-1202372546/

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/oreilly-falafel-suit-turns-five

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/accordingtomatthew/2016/02/bill-oreilly-loses-custody-of-his-children-after-choking-wife/

Alleged sexual predator. When it's proven I'll believe it. Till then it's just more fake news.

 

The world is full of evil women that falsely accuse men of dastardly things for greed and vengeance. 

What happened to all those women that were accusing Trump of all sorts of things? been very quiet, haven't they?

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

                          Probably the main legacy of Roger Ailes is; how one man, with a lot of money and powerful media position can tangibly affect presidential elections.   He contributed more to the elections of Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr. and Trump, 50X more than what the Russians did for Trump in 2016.  

 

                      Roger Ailes is a dirty trickster similar to Roger Stone, but Ailes was propped up by Australian Murdoch's hundreds of millions of dollars.  

 

                        Adding injury to insult, the Murdochs gave him $24 million severance pay, just weeks ago, for Ailes getting proven a sexual predator for decades, including ruining many women's careers.  Maybe it's not against the law to reward a man with $24 million for being a decades-long sexual predator, but perhaps it should be.   A case could be made that the Murdoch family have caused more harm to the USA than McCarthyism and AIDS combined.  Rupert and his 2 sons should be slammed in prison.

 

 

Wow, we agree on something. Rupert and sons should indeed be in jail.

[ilostmypassword]

Actually, I've been shocked by the right wing news reports on his death. So far, not one of them has accused the Clintons of being the perpetrators.

Edited May 20, 2017 by ilostmypassword

[attrayant]

Human beings have to do good things in order to earn respect.  They don't automatically deserve respect simply for being - or having been in this case.  Ailes did nothing to earn anyone's respect, and did much to earn the ire of many.

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by attrayant
typo