Roger Ailes, Who Built Fox News Into an Empire, Dies at 77 -<br />Mr. Ailes exerted wide influence on American politics with his conservative Fox News, only to be undone by sexual harassment allegations.<br />As recounted in “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” Gabriel Sherman’s 2014 biography of Mr. Ailes, a female producer looking<br />to work for him at NBC said he had offered her an extra $100 a week “if you agree to have sex with me whenever I want.”<br />In 1993, Mr. Ailes took charge of the CNBC business news network and a second NBC cable channel, America’s Talking (which gave way in 1996 to MSNBC).<br />Wary of television — convinced that he had lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy on the<br />basis of appearances — Nixon dismissed it in a conversation with Mr. Ailes as a “gimmick.”<br />“Television is not a gimmick,” Mr. Ailes said boldly, “and if you think it is, you’ll lose again.”<br />Nixon took those words to heart, and took the young man onto his campaign as a media adviser.<br />“In addition, Roger was a great patriot who never ceased fighting for his beliefs.”<br />Although an Ailes admirer, Mr. Murdoch reluctantly concluded in the summer of 2016<br />that his news chief had to go after a former network anchor, Gretchen Carlson, brought a lawsuit charging Mr. Ailes with sexual harassment.<br />By CLYDE HABERMANMAY 18, 2017<br />Roger E. Ailes, who shaped the images that helped elect three Republican presidents<br />and then became a dominant, often-intimidating force in American conservative politics at the helm of Fox News, which he created with Rupert Murdoch’s money and guided for two decades until he was forced out in a sexual predation scandal, died on Thursday morning.
