A fascinating piece on one of television’s sharpest visionaries:
Mr. Ailes, the son of a foreman at the Packard Electric plant in Warren, Ohio, described his upbringing with three words: “God, country, family” and said that credo was responsible for the success of Fox News.
“I built this channel from my life experience,” Mr. Ailes, 69, said. “My first qualification is I didn’t go to Columbia Journalism School. There are no parties in this town that I want to go to.”
Mr. Ailes majored in radio and television at Ohio University and worked for “The Mike Douglas Show,” where at age 27 he met then-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon in 1968.
“The camera doesn’t like you,” he told Mr. Nixon, according to “Crazy Like a Fox,” a book by Scott Collins about Fox News.
“It’s a shame a man has to use gimmicks like this to get elected,” Mr. Nixon said.