Roger Ailes | featured news

Last April, Fox News chief Roger Ailes stood before an audience at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and declared, “[In] 15 years we have never taken a story down because it was wrong. You can’t say that about CNN, CBS or the New York Times.” The Erik Wemple Blog, among other outlets, went all archival on the guy, citing instances when Fox News had to correct itself for various falsehoods and distortions, such as vest-wearing deer, Geraldo at war and the tilting Washington Monument.

Roger Ailes, the longtime Republican media guru, founder of Fox News and its current chairman, had some advice last year for then-Gen. David H. Petraeus. So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.