Roger Ailes' Stunning Fall Marks the End of a Murdoch Era

[Commentary] And now begins the Fox News chief's war against the Murdochs. It was James Murdoch’s cold calculation that ended the hand-wringing debate: Whither Fox News and its $1.2 billion in annual profits without Roger Ailes, no small concern of his older brother Lachlan and their father, Rupert? "Ailes is 76 and unhealthy, so how much longer could he last anyway?" the younger Murdoch is said to have asked, and to have argued: Since they would lose Ailes soon enough anyway, why not turn lemons into lemonade and get credit for kicking him out for being a sexist pig?

With Ailes nearly as much a subject in Cleveland at the Republican convention among political professionals as Trump himself (the rumor of Ailes replacing Paul Manafort as campaign manager is an active one, with a further rumor putting Trump in favor of this and his children against it), the negotiation continues. It has been reportedly slowed not just by Ailes’ war-like posture, but because Rupert Murdoch is in the middle of it, full of angst and ambivalence and regret, changing the terms of the negotiation on an hourly basis. In real ways, Roger's end is his.

[Michael Wolff is the author of a biography of Rupert Murdoch]