Roger Ailes
Full Name: Roger Eugene Ailes
Birthdate: May 15, 1940
Birthplace: Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.
Date of Death: May 18, 2017
Occupation: Author and Businessman
Profile: CEO of Fox News (1996-2016).
Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes
Number of Quotes: 139
A guy who gets fired and humiliated in the press can lose a lot of confidence.
A lot of what we do at Fox is blue-collar stuff.
All business is basically about customers and marketing and making money and
cacapitalism and winning and promoting it and having something someone really wants.
Anybody who knows me knows that half the time I'm saying things with a somewhat humorous overtone.
Attacking me and Fox News is nothing new - it's a cottage industry.
Audiences are shifting. Platforms are shifting. Ages are shifting. It's better to be in charge of change than to have to react to change.
CNBC was completely in the dumper when I went there.
CNN and MSNBC, our primary competitors, are trying to figure out how to beat us. There are
some good, smart people at those networks, and even occasionally a blind pig finds an acorn.
CNN International, Al-Jazeera and BBC are the same in how they report mostly that America is wrong and bad.
David Dinkins was a financial disaster personally - and as an administrator. That is what the record shows.
Do I take alternative points of view? Yes, because all the media are going in another direction.
Everybody fears the unknown. But I have a strong feeling there's something bigger than us. I don't think all this exists because
some rocks happened to collide. I'm at peace. When it comes, I'll be fine, calm. I'll miss life, though. Especially my family.
Fox News has a very-high-income audience, and I think that any business channel
automatically draws that. We're not gonna reach for a lower financial demographic.
Fox News Latino has a mission to point out the positives of the Latino population, operating within the framework of making America great.
Fox News Latino will show people how opportunities exist, that whenever we are overregulated, or there
is too much government, we lose freedom. We lose power. That is, historically, one hundred percent true.
Giving up your core business in search of a phantom audience is not wise.
Growing up in Ohio and just being kind of an average guy from flyover country - my dad was a factory guy - I try to
put things on a screen that reflect reality. I don't mind if people want to argue with that, or think that's crazy.
Hispanics who get on government programs are doing only a little better than they were in the old country.
I believe business news is general news.
I believe most people think the economy is very important.
I can't look hip, but I don't want to be hip.
I can't stand cruel people. And if I see people doing something mean to somebody else just to make themselves feel important, it really gets me mad.
I consider myself a freedom fighter, fighting for my clients.
I could never be elected.
I did what I did. I went against the grain. And I understand that I would be criticized. Those were all choices.
I didn't give up my citizenship to create and run a news organization.
I don't care about my legacy. It's too late. My enemies will create it, and they'll push it.
I don't have any focus groups on talent and programming. If I need five people
in a mall to be paid $40 to tell me how to do my job, I shouldn't do my job.
I don't ignore anything. Somebody gets in my face, I get in their face.
I don't pay a lot of attention to communist infiltrators.
I don't remember threatening anybody, ever. I don't like threats. I don't respond well to them, so
I don't give them. But I'm not a doormat. I try to meet the appropriate level of communications.
I don't rise to the occasion when there's no occasion.
I don't tell Rupert Murdoch who to endorse.
I don't think the liberal media hates me. I think they don't like what I say.
I don't want my son to have to collect a bunch of New York Times
articles to see what I was like.
I go to mass every Sunday, which is a shock to everybody.
I grew up in the era when Dan Rather hated Richard Nixon.
He was a newsman, but you knew what his opinion was.
I happen to think that the Latino audience is an essentially traditional audience and will go to Fox News for traditional American values.
I have a good eye for talent, and my talent performs the best.
I have a soft spot for Joe Biden. I like him. But he's dumb as an ashtray.
I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings.
I know there are limits to what a coach can accomplish in improving speechmaking unless the subject is a diligent student of himself.
I like Bloomberg; he's a friend.
I like Marco Rubio. But I don't know about as a vice-presidential candidate.
He's a nice guy, and that role requires kicking the crap out of your opponents.
I like talent. I respect talent. I teach talent.
I look for something unique, and I look for people who haven't reached their potential. I think I'm pretty good at developing talent.
I love pressure situations. I won't run for cover, and I'll try to take as much
of the heat as possible. Because I feel I can stand it better than most people.
I never want to get caught with not expecting something.
I never want to lose. I hate to lose... But Babe Ruth struck out 1,300 times. You can't hit the home run every time you come up to bat.
I only understand friendship or scorched earth.
I quit politics because I hated it.
I think almost everything in life is life-experience, personality-driven.
I think liberals have a lot of good ideas, actually. But I've been pigeonholed, and I'm quite comfortable with it.
I think that Fox & Friends
audience is going to increase. That franchise in
the morning is very important to any television operation because they make money.
I view myself more as a traditionalist than a conservative. But I like the traditions, so I tend to try to keep
them alive. But I'm open to any kind of political thought - I don't care - I have people that I don't agree with,
and I have good friends I don't agree with, but for me personally, I'm more comfortable with the traditional stuff.
I want clean water and clean air and conservation... that's not what extreme environmentalists are all about.
For them, it is a religion. They believe in trees and animals, not God.
I want to elect the next president.
I want to prove that a fat guy can get to 100 still working.
I was a political consultant for 40 years, and we never said that about a person. That's not a nice thing to say about anybody. It's not true.
I was in the Oval Office when Neil
Armstrong landed on the moon because I was called in to coordinate the coverage. I got to thinking, We have a
feed from the moon. We've got a feed from the Earth. I can set up the first interplanetary shot in history.
I was the youngest producer of a national television show when I was twenty-five. I took it to 182 markets. Tremendous success.
I worked three summers putting in sewer pipe and guardrail on the road in Ohio.
I would like to be on Dancing with the Stars.
I'd like to hire Hillary
Clinton. She looks unhappy at the State Department. She'd get ratings.
I'm a great believer in giving people a chance.
I'm constantly trying to invent different ways to do things. If you're going to be a television executive, you have to change with the times.
I'm not a very good reporter, and I'm not very good at holding my tongue. I can't stand it when people make up stuff.
I'm not in politics. I'm in the media business.
I'm not trying to be anyone. You know why other executives always hire phonies? Because
they're phonies. They hire phonies because they like phonies. They're comfortable with them.
I've been an underdog all my life.
I've been kicked out of every damn church I've ever belonged to.
I've been thanked a lot in Wendy's, Applebee's, and Marriot hotels, I've never been thanked in Le Cirque, for some reason. I try to spend as little
time as possible in Le Cirque; that's not because the food isn't good... I'm not the kind of guy who likes to find his food under his parsley.
I've got a bad leg; I'm a little overweight, so I can't run fast, but I will fight.
I've never wanted my kid faced with the idea of, Who's the fat guy sitting in the living room?
What the hell is he doing?
I figure I might as well go to work so he can say his dad works.
If people know you'll go to any lengths for your client, they're less likely to play games with you.
If somebody comes to me looking for a fight, they might get one.
If somebody wants to book Alec Baldwin on one of our shows, and he wants to come on and talk to
our people and say what he wants, I don't care. We would question him on his choice of words.
If we look conservative, it's because the other guys are so far to the left.
If you are not being bombed, you are not in business.
If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, I have a solution to the Middle East problem,
and the other guy falls into the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?
If you're going to be mad at somebody, let's get mad at the terrorists.
If you're in the Senate and in the minority, you just get to give speeches and run around
and raise money. If you're in the majority, you're under attack from the press every day.
If you're making money, and you've hit your targets for five years, you don't need to demand a new contract.
If you've got a big star like O'Reilly, it does overshadow what the hard-news guys do during the day. That's the nature of television.
In a capitalistic society, success is determined by whether you can pay the bills.
In most news, if you hear a conservative point of view, that's called bias. We believe if you eliminate such a viewpoint, that's bias.
It would be a lie to say that I don't care what people say about me. Every human being
cares unless they're nuts. Am I nuts? But you can't allow that to override your mission.
Joe McGinniss will be remembered as a talented man. He changed political writing forever in 1968. We differed on many things, but he had a good heart.
Listen, we elected Warren G. Harding. Anybody has a chance.
Money will find you if people believe in your message.
Most people don't want to see people in conflict.
My doctor told me that I'm old, fat, and ugly, but none of those things is going to kill me immediately.
My first qualification is I didn't go to Columbia Journalism School.
My job is to cover the news and do it accurately and fair. And we do.
My toughest job every day is maintaining intensity with myself and with my staff.
Nobody wants to be in a position of defending anything Fox might do for minorities.
Obama's the one
who never worked a day in his life. He never earned a penny that wasn't public money. How many fund-raisers
does he attend every week? How often does he play basketball and golf? I wish I had that kind of time.
People don't want to be informed. They want to feel informed.
People think in terms of stories. And when you are able to connect your vision or your plan or your idea to a story, it's far more compelling.
People who watch news are pretty smart. Most of them don't just go to one channel for all their news anyway.
Personally, I'm right of center.
Television and I grew up together.
Television is not a gimmick.
Television is not a mirror; it is a hammer.
Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up
everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone.
Tell me who you want to see on the Left, and I'll hire them. If you give me a big name
that's out there, that's floating around and wants work, I'd be happy to hire them.
The American people probably know the economy is not doing well, but in a difficult time they want
to see something better, and they want to see a president that's going to make something better.
The audience will vote with their remote controls. You live and die by your ability to entertain, because it's a competitive world.
The best politics is right in the middle. But, unfortunately, the best ratings are on the fringes.
The contributions being made by Latinos are extraordinary, and we need to talk about them.
The difference between pros and amateurs is that pros play hurt.
The easiest thing in the world is to have an opinion. The hardest thing is to change it.
The NBC News people won't get caught dead on MSNBC.
The news business is simple, but it's not easy to do well.
The only question is how big the lies are going to be. That's what I say.
The press is supposed to watch the powerful. And not throw in with them.
The reality is, to watch Jon Stewart, you already have to have watched the news. In other words, it's not funny
if he does a joke about John McCain and
they don't know who John McCain is.
There are always people that will rise to the occasion when there is no occasion, but it is hard to find people will do it when there is.
There are more conservatives on Fox. But we are not a conservative network.
There is a - deep down, underneath all the work I do, I think there's a laziness in me.
There is a tendency in the media to simplify me to the point that I am somehow a tough guy. I think there is a lot more to me.
To succeed in television, you need to know what you want and never let go of your vision.
Twitter is a wonderful device. And I call it a device, but there are people that are addicted
to it now. That's not good. You're really not very interesting using only so many letters.
Usually, there are three or four major news spikes per year.
Van Jones has one job: to stir up racism, whether he can find it or not.
Vanity Fair
is a left-wing rag.
We didn't have locks in the early 1940s because nobody got into anybody's house, and nobody did anything wrong.
We're Americans. It's a culture. We should defend that culture, and we should reinforce that culture.
We're losing our freedom of speech. We are losing freedom of religion. We are losing freedom of the press.
We're not programming to conservatives. We're just not eliminating their point of view.
What I think works for Fox News is we have a very direct form of communication.
When I was in politics, I always got accused of image-making and trying to make them something they weren't. Truth was - and nobody
ever discovered it, although I was in that business for twenty years - what I was trying to do was to get them to be themselves.
When the press falls in love, they fall in love hard.
Who's like Bill O'Reilly? If there was somebody like Bill O'Reilly, they'd be out there getting ratings. No
matter how much the mainstream press dumps on him, the guy constantly delivers an interesting show. He's unique.
Wolf Blitzer is an excellent reporter, but he's not a star.
Yes, people will pay for the Fox News Channel, despite the fact that the
general feeling, one created by the Internet, is that everything should be free.
You are the only one who decides how much you are worth. Don't let anyone else tell you differently.
You cannot allow whether someone likes you or not to alter your course of action. Sometimes I think, Sure, that hurts
my feelings.
But it's not so important that I will adjust what I'm doing because someone is not going to like me.
You don't change minds in America with facts. You change minds with emotion.
You have to accept the fact that part of the sizzle of sex comes from the danger of sex.
You just don't go out when you're over 55 years of age, have a colossal failure, and expect to find work in your field again.
You never pull the trigger until you know you can win.
Last on Earth
