After more
than fifty years of reviewing books, I only occasionally come across a
biography that gets my juices flowing; a book so well written that it is almost
a physical pleasure to read it and a subject that is totally engrossing. This
was the case for me when I began to read Zev Chafet’s “Roger Ailes Off Camera.”
Like many
people I was aware that Ailes had created Fox News with the backing of print
and broadcast tycoon, Rupert Murdoch. He literally did so from scratch. There
were no studios, no equipment, no staff, and no infrastructure. When he
suggested the venture to Murdoch, the media giant asked “How much will it cost
me?” “Nine hundred million to a billion,” Ailes replied, adding “And you could
lose it all.” “Can you do it?” asked Murdoch. “Yes.” “Then go ahead and do
it.” That took a lot of courage and
confidence on the part of both men and it transformed television news.
Ailes is a
Horatio Alger story, born into a family of modest means, a boy from a small
Ohio town with the great talent and virtue of telling people the truth even if
they did not want to hear it. He had a passion for television and the luck of
being in the right place at the right time. When, in 1961, KYW-TV in Cleveland
decided to launch a daytime variety show hosted “by a little known
song-and-dance man, Mike Douglas”, Aisles, just out of Ohio University joined
the team producing it. The show would go onto run in national syndication for
more than twenty years. It took long hours and hard work to make it one of the
most popular shows on TV, but Aisles thrived on it.
“Ailes was
a legend at a very young age,” says Marvin Kalb, who was a reporter at CBS News
at the time. “His success at the Douglas show struck a chord. He was talked
about in the seventies in New York, in television circles.”
As
Chafet’s notes, “Ailes came out of Ohio with Middle American taste in
entertainment.” His years with the Mike Douglas show afforded him the
opportunity to meet and befriend many of the leading personalities of the time.
When he
met former Vice President Richard Nixon who, at that point, had lost the
presidential election to John F. Kennedy and been defeated for Governor of
California, Nixon dreaded television in the wake of his famed debate with JFK.
Chafet says “Ailes was a cocky young man who knew, he said, how to make Nixon
shine on screen.” After a meeting with the Nixon media team, he was offered the
job of producing Nixon’s television appearances, but he went beyond that,
creating the Man in the Arena campaign. Chafet says the campaign “made it
possible for Nixon to control his media environment” via a series of town
meetings with carefully screened audiences.
Aisle did
not join Nixon in the White House. Instead, in 1969, he left Washington for New
York where he started his own company, Ailes Production, later changed to Ailes
Communications. He went on to an illustrious career as a political consultant
with an uncanny knack for winning. By 1988 the election made him “the first
superstar political consultant, so famous and infamous that his mere
participation became an issue.”
There is
so much more to his life, the personal as well as the professional, told
skillfully and entertainingly by Chafet, He would run CNBC for several years
and, when he left to create Fox News, “he was followed by more than eighty
staffers in what is known in the lore of Fox News as ‘the jailbreak.’” He had a
knack for spotting and supporting talented people.
He wrote
an employee’s handbook that says much about his success and that of Fox News.
It is still given to new employees.
“Excellence
requires hard work, clear thinking, and the application of your unique talent,”
was rule number one. “Nothing is more important than giving your word and
keeping it. Don’t blame others for your mistakes” was rule two. Rule number
three was “Our common goal is the success of Fox News. Only teams go to the
Super Bowl. Volunteer to help others once your own job is finished. Ask for
help when you need it. Solve problems together and give credit to others.”
And rule
number four was “Attitude is everything. You live in your own mind. If you
believe you’re a victim, you’re a victim. If you believe you’ll succeed—you
will. Negative people make positive people sick. Management relies on positive
people for all progress.”
The man at
the center of Chafet’s book has transformed television news and made superstars
of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, along with Brit Hume, Bret Baier and others,
seeing in them some special qualities that others might have been overlooked by
a less canny judge of character. He made sure to include liberal contributors
as well. In the process, he created a remarkable team of on and off-air people
at Fox News. Millions turn to the channel for “fair and balanced” news.
Editor’s
note: Caruba is a founding member of The National Book Critics Circle and
maintains a monthly report on new books at www.bookviews.com.
© Alan
Caruba, 2013
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