Fox News founder Roger Ailes dies

Fox News founder Roger Ailes died Thursday. He was 77. His wife, Elizabeth, announced the news but gave no details about the cause, although Ailes was a hemophiliac. Ailes launched Fox in 1996 and quickly began to reshape the cable news landscape. The scrappy conservative upstart channel soon dominated the airwaves, buoyed by a new cohort of bombastic hosts: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. But at the height of its ascendancy, the Ailes empire came crashing down under the weight of sexual harassment allegations. In early July 2016, popular Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit alleging Ailes refused to renew her contract because she wouldn’t have sex with him. Two weeks later, Rupert Murdoch, head of 21st Century Fox, decided it was time for Ailes to go. Ailes began his media career as an adviser to then-President Richard Nixon. He spent the next decade working as a communications consultant for Republican politicians, including President Ronald Reagan and then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. He dove into cable news in 1993 when NBC hired him to rescue its cable business product, CNBC. Ailes is survived by his wife and their son, Zachary.