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How Fox News Women Took Down Roger Ailes (New York magazine)

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A long, but really great and detailed article about the environment at Fox News, and how the women there helped to bring Roger Ailes down.

It began, of course, with a lawsuit. Of all the people who might have brought down Ailes, the former Fox & Friends anchor Gretchen Carlson was among the least likely. A 50-year-old former Miss America, she was the archetypal Fox anchor: blonde, right-wing, proudly anti-intellectual. A memorable Daily Show clip showed Carlson saying she needed to Google the words czar and ignoramus. But television is a deceptive medium. Off-camera, Carlson is a Stanford- and Oxford-educated feminist who chafed at the culture of Fox News. When Ailes made harassing comments to her about her legs and suggested she wear tight-fitting outfits after she joined the network in 2005, she tried to ignore him. But eventually he pushed her too far. When Carlson complained to her supervisor in 2009 about her co-host Steve Doocy, who she said condescended to her on and off the air, Ailes responded that she was “a man hater” and a “killer” who “needed to get along with the boys.” After this conversation, Carlson says, her role on the show diminished. In September 2013, Ailes demoted her from the morning show Fox & Friends to the lower-rated 2 p.m. time slot.

Carlson knew her situation was far from unique: It was common knowledge at Fox that Ailes frequently made inappropriate comments to women in private meetings and asked them to twirl around so he could examine their figures; and there were persistent rumors that Ailes propositioned female employees for sexual favors. The culture of fear at Fox was such that no one would dare come forward. Ailes was notoriously paranoid and secretive — he built a multiroom security bunker under his home and kept a gun in his Fox office, according to Vanity Fair — and he demanded absolute loyalty from those who worked for him. He was known for monitoring employee emails and phone conversations and hiring private investigators. “Watch out for the enemy within,” he told Fox’s staff during one companywide meeting

Taking on Ailes was dangerous, but Carlson was determined to fight back. She settled on a simple strategy: She would turn the tables on his surveillance. Beginning in 2014, according to a person familiar with the lawsuit, Carlson brought her iPhone to meetings in Ailes’s office and secretly recorded him saying the kinds of things he’d been saying to her all along. “I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better. Sometimes problems are easier to solve” that way, he said in one conversation. “I’m sure you can do sweet nothings when you want to,” he said another time

But most striking is the extent to which Ailes ruled Fox News like a surveillance state. According to executives, he instructed Fox’s head of engineering, Warren Vandeveer, to install a CCTV system that allowed Ailes to monitor Fox offices, studios, greenrooms, the back entrance, and his homes. When Ailes spotted James Murdoch on the monitor smoking a cigarette outside the office, he remarked to his deputy Bill Shine, “Tell me that mouth hasn’t sucked a cock,” according to an executive who was in the room; Shine laughed. (A Fox spokesperson said Shine did not recall this.) Fox’s IT department also monitored employee email, according to sources. When I asked Fox’s director of IT, Deborah Sadusingh, about email searches, she said, “I can’t remember all the searches I’ve done.”

According to interviews with Fox News women, Ailes would often begin by offering to mentor a young employee. He then asked a series of personal questions to expose potential vulnerabilities. “He asked, ‘Am I in a relationship? What are my familial ties?’ It was all to see how stable or unstable I was,” said a former employee. Megyn Kelly told lawyers at Paul, Weiss that Ailes made an unwanted sexual advance toward her in 2006 when she was going through a divorce. A lawyer for former anchor Laurie Dhue told me that Ailes harassed her around 2006; at the time, she was struggling with alcoholism

The story of Laurie Luhn, which I reported in July, is an example of how Ailes used Fox’s public-relations, legal, and finance departments to facilitate his behavior. Ailes met Luhn on the 1988 George H.W. Bush campaign, and soon thereafter he put her on a $500 monthly retainer with his political-consulting firm to be his “spy” in Washington, though really her job was to meet him in hotel rooms. (During their first encounter, Luhn says, Ailes videotaped her in a garter belt and told her: “I am going to put [the tape] in a safe-deposit box just so we understand each other.”) Ailes recruited Luhn to Fox in 1996, before the network even launched. Collier, then his deputy, offered her a job in guest relations in the Washington bureau.

There is a ton more in the article, including a history of Ailes' work in television and politics, and how far back his disgusting behavior goes. Even back to the 60s.
 
This should kill the network but it won't. Their viewers will just ignore it, hand wave it away, or come to the conclusion that it's just those lying women at it again. Sickening.
 

whytemyke

Honorary Canadian.
That's awesome. Really how you run a network in this day and age.

Probably why he was hired by a top talent scout like Donald Trump to help oversee the staff.
 
Good thing they got rid of him.... and gave him like $50,000,000. Eh...

Sad as it is, dude is a massive success at creeping. Just like Cosby, Savile, Bambaataa, etc. These people have gotten away with it and, even after being caught, continue to live luxurious lives of excess (Savile being the exception, who was only found out posthumously).

There are no real consequences. So what if his image is ruined, he still has enough money to hire 20 escorts every day for the rest of his life.
 
This should kill the network but it won't. Their viewers will just ignore it, hand wave it away, or come to the conclusion that it's just those lying women at it again. Sickening.

Median age of viewers is fucking high and if there's one thing you can count on with old conservatives is they'll brush almost all sexual harassment off as political correctness.
 
I keep wondering how Bill Shine got a promotion out of all this. Every story seems to paint him as a total Ailes asskisser and hatchet man for all the illegal shit.
 
Ailes right now:

image.php
 

JustenP88

I earned 100 Gamerscore™ for collecting 300 widgets and thereby created Trump's America
Carlson, Kelly and company did some good, brave work here. Ailes sounds like an absolute disaster of a human being and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he had a habit of killing and eating interns.
 
How Fox News Women Took Down Roger Ailes said:
Murdoch summoned Ailes to his New York penthouse to work out a severance deal. James had wanted Ailes to be fired for cause, according to a person close to the Murdochs, but after reviewing his contract, Rupert decided to pay him $40 million and retain him as an “adviser.”

My definition of take down is a little different...
 
Great investigative journalism. Wow at the thought of Trump creating his own network after losing the election, capitalizing on the disgruntled right wing conservatives upset at the establishment that voted him the nominee. I could definitely see Trump make huge money off of that.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
Murdoch summoned Ailes to his New York penthouse to work out a severance deal. James had wanted Ailes to be fired for cause, according to a person close to the Murdochs, but after reviewing his contract, Rupert decided to pay him $40 million and retain him as an “adviser.”
And meanwhile I'm trying to find a job that doesn't treat me like someone fresh out of school. Fuck.
 

rhandino

Banned
Ailes was furious with Kelly for not defending him publicly. According to a Fox source, Ailes’s wife Elizabeth wanted Fox PR to release racy photos of Kelly published years ago in GQ as a way of discrediting her.
DISGUSTING.

The articles is such a great read even if the topic at hand is so hard to stomach tbh.
 

statham

Member
disgusting. and Trump calls him a friend and defended and just hired him. Yea, lets make Trump president.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Wow, what a shit show. Not surprising that there was always a festering culture of misogyny in the whole company. Ailes managed to get away with his vileness for so long because he was surrounded by cowardly sycophants who enabled him (like these women who sent young beautiful women to his office for him to harass, UGH).

Oh and wooooow, spying on competing reporters via fake dates... >_<

And... this passage, shiiiit:

Trump&#8217;s appointment of Steve Bannon, chairman of Breitbart, the digital-media upstart that has by some measures already surpassed Fox News as the locus of conservative energy, to run his campaign suggests a new right-wing news network of some kind is a real possibility.

Who's ready for Trump-Breitbart TV? May Satan help us all...
 
Good thing they got rid of him.... and gave him like $50,000,000. Eh...

Sad as it is, dude is a massive success at creeping. Just like Cosby, Savile, Bambaataa, etc. These people have gotten away with it and, even after being caught, continue to live luxurious lives of excess (Savile being the exception, who was only found out posthumously).

There are no real consequences. So what if his image is ruined, he still has enough money to hire 20 escorts every day for the rest of his life.

No real consequences? So what if he is rich? His whole legacy has been torn to sheds, he'll be mocked and berated for the rest of his life (including well after), he'll never be taken seriously again by anyone worth a shit, and he'll have to wear the label of a sexual harassing, potentially rapist, for what's left of his life, not to mention all of the family around him will have to deal with that label to some degree for the rest of their lives.

He may not be behind bars like he should be, I admit, but there is more to life than simply luxury.
 

Brinbe

Member
Ha, I (and a lot of result smart people) totally called The Trump Network as a real possibility. Makes too much sense. Trump is ultimately an opportunist and he's gonna make himself bank even if he loses.

Anyway, I read through that piece and it's hard to say I'm surprised. Ailes' behaviour I'd abhorrent enough but the people who supported and enabled that shit are almost as bad. What a looney and toxic environment.

And he still got millions just to go away. He'll help start TNN/Breitbart to rival Fox and that'll be his legacy.
 

entremet

Member
So they main conservative TV news outlet systemically ignores the serous sexual harassment complaints of its female employees?

That doesn't help dispel the War on Women angle that the GOP gets criticized for.
 
Ha, I (and a lot of result smart people) totally called The Trump Network as a real possibility. Makes too much sense. Trump is ultimately an opportunist and he's gonna make himself bank even if he loses.

Anyway, I read through that piece and it's hard to say I'm surprised. Ailes' behaviour I'd abhorrent enough but the people who supported and enabled that shit are almost as bad. What a looney and toxic environment.

And he still got millions just to go away. He'll help start TNN/Breitbart to rival Fox and that'll be his legacy.

A lot of investigation in Trump's finances from the NY Times is speculating that Trump could be in debt as much as 600 million dollars. Whatever bank he may make is going to help that, if this network thing actually happens, and is actually successful (or a major failure like several of Trump's businesses have been).

No matter what Ailes does from now on his legacy is always going to be founding Fox News, and then being exposed as a slumbag. He's never going to escape that, and that label will only get more and more stuck on him as time goes on, especially as more women come forward.
 

Raxus

Member
Taking on Ailes was dangerous, but Carlson was determined to fight back. She settled on a simple strategy: She would turn the tables on his surveillance. Beginning in 2014, according to a person familiar with the lawsuit, Carlson brought her iPhone to meetings in Ailes’s office and secretly recorded him saying the kinds of things he’d been saying to her all along. “I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better. Sometimes problems are easier to solve” that way, he said in one conversation. “I’m sure you can do sweet nothings when you want to,” he said another time

https://youtu.be/Gd9OhYroLN0?t=26
 

Mistake

Gold Member
Say the state has laws against wiretapping. Would they both get in trouble? Or just the party that did it first?
 
Jesus. What a fucking scum bag.

And the irony. This dude sexually harassing women while his network claims there is no war on women.
 
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