Man who made Fox ‘most trusted’ news channel

If anybody in the US media can be said to be king of the hill today, it must be Roger Ailes, president of Fox News. Rupert Murdoch's lieutenant will no doubt be delighted by the results of a poll which suggest the right-wing TV news channel is the most trusted in the US.
 
Almost 50 per cent of the 1,151 voters polled said they trusted Fox News. That compares to only 39 per cent for CNN and results in the low 30s for ABC, CBS News and NBC News. The results seem to vindicate – at least commercially – the aggressively partisan strategy adopted by Fox since its inception, which have traduced its (trademarked) motto 'Fair & Balanced'.
 
Mike Hoyt, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, observed recently that "Fox News is not really a news network, it's a commentary network. Its news output is a small island in a vast sea of very conservative commentary".
 
Fox News is very much Ailes's creation. Born in 1940, the Ohio University radio and television major had enjoyed a long career in television production before Fox. Starting with a local talk show, he had risen to be president of CNBC and host of his own nightly programme. Along the way, it was Ailes who brought the notorious Rush Limbaugh from radio to TV.
 
Besides his TV career, Ailes has acted as a media consultant to several Republican presidents or presidential candidates, starting in 1968 when he was Richard Nixon's chief television advisor. He is credited with having helped Ronald Reagan win by coaching him ahead of a TV debate with rival Walter Mondale, and was also pivotal in George Bush Sr's 1988 campaign.
 
In 1996, Murdoch poached the corpulent Ailes and 89 other employees from NBC to set up Fox News. Ailes had been working on a new talk channel for NBC, which pulled the plug at the last minute. Today he is reported to earn as much as $23m a year from Fox, making him one of the biggest fatcats in the American news media.
 
Few apart from his closest allies will be celebrating his latest success. "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder, and every other global media business aspires to," said Matthew Freud, recently. Freud is Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law. ·