For everyone keeping up with the news, you’ve probably heard all about Fox News anchor Roger Ailes getting canned after years of sexual harassment has come to light. However, as is tradition, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Now all sorts of other shit about Ailes is being dug up. Like this story that he somehow used Fox News money to spy on his rivals and coworkers.
Via Esquire:
“Sherman reported in New York Magazine that Ailes used Fox News money to fund public relations and surveillance campaigns against his enemies, including Sherman and other journalists. He also used company dollars to settle allegations of sexual harassment against him.
These shady dealings have been uncovered as Fox News executives pour through the network’s financial records following Ailes’s resignation. According to Sherman’s sources at Fox, Ailes spent millions on these endeavors, but because Fox was bringing in more than a billion dollars in yearly profits, the amounts used personally by Ailes were almost negligible. Ailes allegedly ran the operation out of an office dubbed “The Black Room” in a hidden corner of the News Corporation building. Among his surveillance targets were Sherman and Gawker journalists John Cook and Hamilton Nolan, all of whom covered Ailes in their reporting.
According to Sherman’s sources, Ailes ordered private investigators to stalk Cook near his home and create a report on his actions that could be used against him in the media. He also had private detectives follow Sherman and his wife in 2012 while he was doing research for his biography of Ailes, The Loudest Voice in the Room. Joe Lindsley, who was editor of Ailes’s hometown paper, The Putnam County News & Recorder, was also a target.”
Not going to lie, I never knew that the television news game was this cut throat. Like, I’ve seen Anchorman, but I assumed that was like an exaggeration. Really, though, half the blame here’s gotta be put on Fox’s finance department. How did nobody notice that this money was just disappearing? “Hey, did you see those new cameras they put in everybody’s dressing rooms?” “Yeah it’s fucking weird. By the way, how come there’s like a hundred thousand dollars missing?” “No idea, but there’s no way those two things are related.” This is just another instance of people just literally being unable to do their jobs because they’re too busy doing cocaine and trying to get their balls waxed by the hot temp. At least, that’s probably what happened. I can’t confirm or deny it.