This Thursday morning, news broke that Roger Ailes, the creator of Fox News Channel, has died. Despite sexual assault allegations that ousted him from his network last year, there’s no overstating the impact he had on television news. Ailes created a conservative media network that provided a voice for half the country, in a landscape dominated by liberal agendas. But that is exactly the reason why the left hated him and that hate continued today on Twitter in the hours after his death was announced. Journalists from every major media outlet couldn’t contain their disgust for the man, Fox News, and the right, excitedly tweeting over his death:
Josh Barro, Senior Editor of Business Insider and MSNBC contributor said Ailes network “made people dumber and angrier.”
Roger Ailes behaved egregiously toward women in his organization and changed our culture for the worse, making people dumber and angrier.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 18, 2017
MSNBC’s Joy Reid claimed that Fox News “created a fantasy world for white conservative men” and made women “agreeable sex objects.”
Ailes built an empire by creating a fantasy world for white, conservative men, where women are agreeable sex objects and POC are predators.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) May 18, 2017
Ailes main legacy will be telling a generation of conservatives that their deepest fears were real, and their crudest fantasies were valid.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) May 18, 2017
Vox correspondent Carlos Maza:
In memory of Roger Ailes, who made bigotry, fear, and paranoia permanent fixtures of American conservative media: pic.twitter.com/nxw2XYZIRK
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) May 18, 2017
Sam Stein, Senior Politics Editor for The Huffington Post and frequent guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:
Yes, Roger Ailes was a TV genius. He also had an apparently monstrous personal life and nasty, dangerous editorial instincts.
— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) May 18, 2017
CNN commentator, author and professor Marc Lamont Hill sent “condolences” to “everyone who was abused, harassed, exploited and unjustly fired by him,” followed by a flippantly dismissive tweet from Daily Kos’s social media director:
Roger Ailes has died. Wow. Sending deep and heartfelt condolences to everyone who was abused, harassed, exploited, and unjustly fired by him
— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) May 18, 2017
@marclamonthill @keithboykin Mood pic.twitter.com/4ohWM1VHue
— Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) May 18, 2017
Washington Post reporter Alexandra Petri:
skirts at Fox News today will be lowered to half-mast
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) May 18, 2017
Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell:
Take a moment today to remember the many women who said they were victimized by Roger Ailes https://t.co/jSdloIkly8 pic.twitter.com/z9mulVERoH
— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) May 18, 2017
Writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert:
sure, roger ailes was professionally evil but keep in mind that in his personal life he was a monster
— Cullen Crawford (@HelloCullen) May 18, 2017
Rebecca Traister, writer for New York Magazine and The Cut:
"Ailes' legacy" obstructed SCOTUS, coal in rivers, ICE raids, Muslim ban, renewed drug war, safety nets stripped, VRA gutted, predator in WH
— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 18, 2017
Gizmodo writer Ashley Feinberg:
The New York Times’ Ross Douthat:
Two eras in conservative journalism in this country: The Buckley era and the Ailes era. May the next one be more like the first.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) May 18, 2017
