The reputation of Fox News founding CEO Roger Ailes continues its downward trajectory with new revelations that the once-powerful news executive regularly demeaned minorities publicly and once called Media Matters for America founder David Brock a "faggot."
Sources told CNNMoney that the Brock incident happened five years ago when Politico CEO Fred Ryan met with Ailes to ease friction between the two news organizations. Ailes warned Ryan that his website shouldn't run commentary or quotes from "that faggot David Brock."
When informed of the account, Brock told CNNMoney, "Why am I not surprised?" Ryan wouldn't comment on the matter.
Brock wrote a book about the right-wing network called The Fox Effect, in which he detailed an encounter where Ailes told former President George H.W. Bush to avoid short-sleeved shirts because he'd "look like a fucking faggot."
Ailes's seething resentment of minorities may have cost him his first job -- he abruptly left NBC in 1996, shortly before establishing Fox News. Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman said Ailes's departure was set into motion after he called NBC executive David Zaslav "a little fucking Jew prick." Zaslav's boss at the time told Sherman that Ailes "probably said it."
The CNNMoney report claims Ailes directed horrible comments toward numerous groups, including racial minorities and women, as well. His most recent downfall occurred after longtime Fox journalist Gretchen Carlson sued him for sexual harassment, saying specifically that he ignored earlier complaints of sexist conduct on the part of other male employees and then slowly pushed Carlson out after she rebuffed his sexual advances. The Carlson lawsuit led to an internal investigation, in which Fox's superstar female journalist, Megyn Kelly, also detailed inappropriate and demeaning behavior from Ailes. The executive was fired shortly after.
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