How much have the personality and opinions of Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, defined the network?
Or are the important opinions not his but Rupert Murdoch’s? Rupert Murdoch has long believed that the news media are dominated by liberals and that one of his missions is to counter this. He tries to do this with his more than a hundred and seventy-five newspapers, including the New York Post. He had long been frustrated not to have a television news network, and eventually hired Roger Ailes to build Fox News in 1996. Murdoch signs the checks. But, in Ailes, Murdoch found a kindred spirit, a man who shared his conservative politics, his lust for battle, and his view that a liberal bias dominated the media. In Ailes, Murdoch got more than an acolyte. There are those who believe that Fox News succeeds because it simply excites a core conservative base of viewers. This is the cartoon version of Fox’s success. Roger Ailes is a skilled former television producer and former campaign operative—he worked for Nixon—who knows how to enliven a broadcast and how to decipher what an audience wants.
