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Despise him or admire him, Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Eugene Ailes is widely credited with transforming American political television during an era when political discourse had never been at a higher pitch. No fan of Roger's, President Barack Obama once jokingly called him "the most powerful man in America." His biographer Gabriel Sherman has said that Roger "mastered the dark art of attack politics as a mercenary campaign strategist" when helping launch Fox as a counter voice to CNN. Another biographer, Zev Charles, calls him "a fascinating man, full of contradictions and surprises." Yet another book, by Kerwin Swint, is entitled Dark Genius.
Roger got his start in television in the 1960s as a "prop boy" working for The Mike Douglas Show, a daytime talk program. In this role he met guests such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr. and Bill Cosby. He also convinced guest Richard M. Nixon, at the time a presidential candidate and television skeptic, to use the medium more to his advantage in creating an attractive persona. This role later was described in Joe McGinniss' bestseller, The Selling of the President.
Among his next career moves was producing Broadway plays Mother Earth with singer Toni Tennille in 1972 and The Hot l Baltimore in 1973. In that same era, he traveled to Kenya with a teenage Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the wildlife conservation documentary Final Frontier. Roger established his own firm Ailes Communications Inc. as he was drawn more deeply into politics and went on to advise political campaigns for Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as well as a host of other conservative candidates such as Rudolph Guiliani and Mitch McConnell.
Roger shifted into the medium of TV talk shows when he executive produced Rush Limbaugh's half-hour syndicated television series from 1992 to 1996. Fascinated by the prospects of the growing field of cable TV news, Roger was hired in 1993 as president of CNBC at a time when it was owned by General Electric. As reported in William D. Cohan's book Power Failure, Roger "got CNBC going" by transforming it into "a ratings and profits juggernaut." In this role, he helped create the "America's Talking" channel which evolved into MSNBC. After leaving the company in controversy in 1996, he was approached by News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch and recruited to run Fox News. The platform he created allowed Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity among many others to emerge as stars in their own right. Then in 2005, Murdoch tapped him to chair Fox Television Stations Group. Roger resigned from Fox in 2016 amid allegations of sexual harassment.
Roger was a lifetime sufferer from hemophilia. He was a native of Warren, OH, the son of Robert Eugene and Donna Marie (Cunningham) Ailes of the family of Melville Darwin and Sarah Hortense "Sadie" (McMurray) Ailes. His great-great-great grandparents Frederick and Elizabeth (Sechman) Miner Sr. were pioneer settlers of Ohio in 1812.
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Copyright © 2024 Mark A. Miner |
