There have long been rumors of tension between Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes. An ironically named article in GQ, “Why I Love Fox News,” takes a look at some of the machinations within News Corp. Writer Michael Wolff, who also wrote the Rupert Murdoch authorized biography “The Man Who Owns The News; Inside The Secret World Of Rupert Murdoch”, dishes some of the dirt on the feud between News Corp. on the one side—represented by Murdoch and his family—and the Fox News Empire on the other side, represented by Roger Ailes. During the research for his book Wolffe had unprecedented access to Murdoch and, no doubt, his thinking. Wolffe writes:
"He's crazy," Murdoch told me at one point. Indeed, I was offered a cornucopia of damaging anti-Ailes anecdotes. One choice leak to me involved how Murdoch took Ailes into a meeting with Obama, whereupon Obama, with Murdoch's permission, lectured and humiliated Ailes. (Not long after this was published in the biography, Ailes, to the family's fury, confronted Murdoch and forced him to back down and have the New York Post endorse Republican presidential candidate John McCain instead of Obama.)
And then, in early 2010, Matthew Freud, Murdoch's son-in-law, delivered what was clearly supposed to be a coup de grâce. He gave his now-famous interview to the New York Times saying: "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to."
In other words, Rupert Murdoch's aversion to confrontation and his love, ultimately above all else, of free cash flow, may have offered Ailes an amount of reliable protection. But none of that was going to protect him against James Murdoch. It was not only that the Murdoch children are ashamed of the Fox vulgarity, but, even more, they were unforgiving about Ailes' part in the exile of Lachlan Murdoch: revenge was obviously required there.
While the article doesn’t explicitly say so one gets the impression if these two opposing forces actually go to war, as opposed to subtle back office manipulation, there will be a scorched earth policy. However, as Wolffe sums up, Ailes might be the last man standing:
The children are further from the throne than ever and Murdoch himself is increasingly fragile. But Fox News, 15 years on, is one of the mighty forces on earth and Roger Ailes is, pretty much, king of the world.
Ruthless has the power to terminate Ailes, but we think Ailes has the goods on Ruthless, and probably would sing like a canary in a tree.
Then they went after Glenn Beck for his vote dividing and lost the conservative libertarians, who are most of Beck’s remaining audience.
Then their flip-flopping to endorse the frontrunner of the day got the moderates laughing at them.
If the outlet sites are any indication, the only people watching Fox News because they genuinely support them are reactionary racists who actually believe iCarly is real.
Seriously… they thought the episode with Michelle Obama on it was real and think a joke she told on it as a joke (as in, the context was obvious) was a confession.