Scandal overshadows Ailes death for some media

Not everyone in media was ready to overlook scandals following the death of former Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes on Thursday.

 

{mosads}Ailes, who had built Fox News into a dominant force over the past 15 years and served as a consult to three successful presidential campaigns in the 1970s and ’80s, resigned from the network in July 2016 following allegations of sexual harassment.

 

Yes, Roger Ailes was a TV genius. He also had an apparently monstrous personal life and nasty, dangerous editorial instincts.

— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) May 18, 2017

Roger Ailes behaved egregiously toward women in his organization and changed our culture for the worse, making people dumber and angrier.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 18, 2017

skirts at Fox News today will be lowered to half-mast

— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) May 18, 2017

A lesson of today: if you live as an abusive, cynical scoundrel who loves nothing more than your own power, no one will cry when you die.

— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) May 18, 2017

I’m sure Roger Ailes is in a worse place looking up at us.

— Travon Free (@Travon) May 18, 2017

Think about how shrewd it was to label Fox News “Fair & Balanced,” and how that misappropriation undermined trust in the mainstream media.

— Jeremy W. Peters (@jwpetersNYT) May 18, 2017

Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean you have to say something nice about him. Would he give you the same break?

— Jack Shafer (@jackshafer) May 18, 2017

I once spent a day interviewing with Roger Ailes for a job at Fox. He was a disgusting scumbag. I’m glad he can’t hurt people anymore.

— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) May 18, 2017

“I am profoundly sad and heartbroken to report that my husband, Roger Ailes, passed away this morning,” Ailes’s wife Elizabeth said in a statement Thursday morning. 

 

The Drudge Report was the first to report on the 77-year-old’s passing.