On Thursday, Roger Ailes—the man who created the Fox News Channel under Rupert Murdoch and built it into the most powerful and influential cable news network in the country—stepped down. The decision to do so came after pressure from the Murdoch family—particularly Rupert’s sons, Lachlan and James—which was responding to numerous claims of sexual harassment against Ailes, including a lawsuit by former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson. By the time the network’s newest star, Megyn Kelly, reportedly told independent investigators that Ailes had harassed her, there was little doubt that he would be forced out.
Gabriel Sherman, a reporter for New York magazine and author of a decidedly unauthorized biography of Ailes, has broken the lion’s share of news about Ailes’ conduct and the subsequent News Corp. investigation.
I spoke by phone with Sherman after Ailes’ departure. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed the Murdoch family’s internal debates, Donald Trump’s relationship with Roger Ailes, and the future of the network. […]
For 20 years, people who worked for Ailes—it’s like a cult of personality; they always have faith in the leader and believe he will lead them out of it. I heard a funny story, which was that around the Fox News booth at the RNC, where all the producers and talent hang out, when I reported that the Murdochs had decided to remove Ailes, I heard that inside the Fox News booth in Cleveland, people were saying, “Gabe Sherman is wrong. He is always wrong.” Inside Fox News it is like North Korea. Ailes creates a distorted reality. He tells people I am wrong and the Fox PR person, Irena Briganti, tells people I am wrong and has tried to attack me to reporters. There was disbelief. Ailes had presented this image that he was infallible. When the announcement came, there was this shock. This morning I am getting calls: People don’t know what to do. There is no one giving marching orders every day.
Many people see Fox News as a cynical production of people who know better. But you seem to be saying that people believe in what they are doing or their leader. Maybe those aren’t exclusive—
No, they aren’t mutually exclusive. The culture of sexual harassment is widely known at Fox News. The whole idea that it is a family values network is incredibly cynical, and everyone knows that. But the fear and psychological control that Ailes had over his employees—if he says the sky is green and not blue, even very intelligent people, maybe even liberals, tend to start believing it. He has this charismatic, cultlike power to shape a corporation in his image. And that’s why Fox, whatever it becomes, is going to be very different. There is no executive in American media and politics who has that charisma and that ruthlessness, and, as these allegations have shown, the kind of darkness of his mind to control women and people.
