Roger Ailes passed away today. Roger had a huge effect on this country, on the news, on all of us around the table. In every building where a Fox News employee has worked or works today.
But it wasn't just Fox News and its millions of viewers that benefited from Roger. All other news outlets were improved by him for he pushed them to rethink all of their biased views, he called them on it. Then sought to fight it with a profound idea that became a Fox News. You can see its effect not just in Fox News' wild success but among those to which there were no opposition to their views. Those outside the news may not have liked FNC, but their lives have also been improved by smarter analysis created by healthy competition. Roger created a more informed public by making our competition work for it, which probably that drove them nuts.
The mark of an achievement is that you can't imagine the world before it. What was news like before Fox News? I remember it was a place where diverse opinion was scarce, were millions of patriotic Americans were ignored by a mainstream media that dominated by a world of frightened, dull witted conformity. That era died when Fox News was born.
Personally, I wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for Roger. He gave me a show in the dead of night called "Red Eye" even though he had actually met me first. What was he thinking? I'm just one of hundreds of stories like that. He was a man who saw something in all of us -- potential, talent, edge -- things that other people didn't see. We will always be grateful for that, but we saw something in him too, something will likely never see again.
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