As reported at Salon ...
When it was announced last that Rupert Murdoch was stepping down and handing the reins of 21st Century Fox to his sons, Lachlan and James, the announcement was accompanied by a statement from Fox News that its longtime leader, Roger Ailes, would still be reporting to Rupert:
Rupert Murdoch would continue to serve as executive chairman, according to Stuart Varney, host of Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.” Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch, according to Fox News Channel.
Not so fast:
“Roger will report to Lachlan and James but will continue his unique and long-standing relationship with Rupert,” 21st Century Fox spokesperson Nathaniel Brown said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter
Apparently, the Fox News statement came directly from Ailes:
According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. “Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say,” the source said. “In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert.”
According to Sophia Tesfay at Salon (read the whole thing):
No one I spoke to in the hours after the news broke could remember a time when Ailes has been so publicly diminished. “History was made,” a longtime Ailes associate told me. “It is terrible for Roger,” said another. “It is a public contradiction. Roger takes these things personally. Worse, it shows that Rupert did not give him a heads-up of the management change in advance. That alone was a slight to his ego.”
What's more, apparently Murdoch's kids
detest Fox News and Roger Ailes, and son James, the new CEO, is an
environmentalist.
Gee, maybe someday we won't have Fox News to kick around - or kick us around - anymore. Wocka, wocka.