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Ailes Drives Fox News' Fantastic Success

CEO's midwestern values shaped right-wing powerhouse

By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 10, 2010 12:13 PM CST

(Newser) – “Television is not a gimmick, and if you think it is, you’ll lose again,” a 27-year-old Roger Ailes told Richard Nixon as he sought the Oval Office in 1968. Days later, Ailes had a job aboard the ultimately successful campaign. Decades later, many similarly derided the launch of Fox News, but the network's CEO has relentlessly crafted it into a right-wing behemoth, political game-changer, and cash cow in an age of media decline. The New York Times profiles News Corp's crown prince.

The son of a Midwestern factory worker, Ailes says his credo—God, country, family—also drove the network's success. “I built this channel from my life experience,” he says. “My first qualification is I didn’t go to Columbia Journalism School." And while Fox may be a favored piñata on the left, a gimmick it's not—the $700 million it's rumored to pull down this year surpasses CNN, MSNBC, and the nightly news of ABC, CBS, and NBC together. “In terms of the news business, the cable television business, and the political business, there is him and then there is everybody else,” says James Carville.

[Images (7)]

[Quotes (2)]

Fox business anchor Neil Cavuto, left, News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch, center, and President of Fox News Roger Ailes pose at the Fox Business Network Launch Party, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007,... (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes visits the studio of Fox Business Morning during its debut on Monday, Oct. 15, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, left, gives reassuring comments to Fox Business Morning anchors Jenna Lee, center, and Nicole Petallides, right, before going on the air on Monday, Oct. 15, 2007... (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Roger Ailes, president of FOX News, poses with his wife Elizabeth on the red carpet at a salute to FOX News Channel's Brit Hume on January 8, 2009 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

Chairman & CEO, FOX News Roger Ailes from 'Fox News' speaks. (Getty Images)

Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. (Getty Images)

In this July 24, 2006 file photo, Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox News, speaks during the Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, FILE)

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Success never made that chip on his shoulder go away. He holds onto what he envisions to be the values of the heartland and is suspicious of people on either coast. - Joe McGinniss, author of book on Ailes

I am by no means alone within the family or company in being ashamed by Ailes’ horrendous and sustained disregard of the standards that News Corp, its founder and every other global media business aspires to. - Rupert Murdoch son-in-law Matthew Freud

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Ailes Drives Fox News' Fantastic Success