Years before he became head of Fox News — way before there even was a Fox News — Roger Ailes was a media consultant. Most prominent among his many clients, perhaps, was President Ronald Reagan. Ailes was an adviser to the President in his 1984 reelection bid, and was indirectly responsible for one of that campaign’s most memorable, and decisive, moments.
I met Roger Ailes in the fall of 1987. He’d written a book to help coach people in the art of public speaking and dealing with the media. The books promised to reveal the “secrets of the master communicators.”
So here now, from 1987, Roger Ailes:
Roger Ailes went on to become CEO of the fledgling Fox News in 1996. He held that post until 2016 when allegations of sexual harassment forced him out.
Roger Ailes died in 2017, thee days after his 77th birthday.