"Even Rupert Murdoch is afraid of Roger Ailes, the paranoid boss of Fox News. But 'the Chairman' is using his power to make Americans more rightwing, more ignorant and ever more terrified"
"Rupert is surrounded by people who regularly, if not moment to moment, tell him how horrifying and dastardly Roger is," says Wolff, Murdoch's biographer. "Wendi cannot stand Roger. Rupert's children cannot stand Roger. So around Murdoch, Roger has no supporters, except for Roger himself."
Ailes begins each workday buffered by the elaborate private security detail that News Corp pays to usher him from his $1.6m home in New Jersey to his office in Manhattan. Travelling with the Chairman is like a scene straight out of 24. A friend recalls hitching a ride with Ailes after a power lunch: "We come out of the building and there's an SUV filled with big guys, who jump out of the car when they see him. A cordon is formed around us. We're ushered into the SUV, and we drive the few blocks to Fox's offices, where another set of guys come out of the building to receive 'the package'. The package is taken in, and I'm taken on to my destination."
"Ailes knows exactly who is watching Fox News each day, and he is adept at playing to their darkest fears in the age of Obama. The network's viewers are old, with a median age of 65. Ads cater to the immobile, the infirm and the incontinent, with appeals to join class action hip-replacement lawsuits, commercials for products such as Colon Flow and testimonials for the services of Liberator Medical ("Liberator gave me back the freedom I haven't had since I started using catheters"). The audience is also almost exclusively white – only 1.38% of viewers are African-American. "Roger understands audiences," says Rollins, the former Reagan consultant. "He knew how to target, which is what Fox News is all about." The typical viewer of Sean Hannity's show, to take the most stark example, is a pro-business (86%), Christian conservative (78%), Tea Party-backer (75%) with no college degree (66%), who is over 50 (65%), supports the NRA (73%), doesn't back gay rights (78%) and thinks government "does too much" (84%). "He's got a niche audience and he's programmed to it beautifully," says a former News Corp colleague. "He feeds them exactly what they want to hear".........READ MORE
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