Roger Ailes Quotes
Former CEO of Fox News Channel
You never pull the trigger until you know you can win.
Listen, we elected Warren G. Harding. Anybody has a chance.
I only understand friendship or scorched earth.
I have a soft spot for Joe Biden. I like him. But he's dumb as an ashtray.
Audiences are shifting. Platforms are shifting. Ages are shifting. It's better to be in charge of change than to have to react to change.
What I think works for Fox News is we have a very direct form of communication.
Giving up your core business in search of a phantom audience is not wise.
My toughest job every day is maintaining intensity with myself and with my staff.
My doctor told me that I'm old, fat, and ugly, but none of those things is going to kill me immediately.
Fox News has a very-high-income audience, and I think that any business channel automatically draws that. We're not gonna reach for a lower financial demographic.
There are more conservatives on Fox. But we are not a conservative network.
I don't have any focus groups on talent and programming. If I need five people in a mall to be paid $40 to tell me how to do my job, I shouldn't do my job.
You cannot allow whether someone likes you or not to alter your course of action. Sometimes I think, 'Sure, that hurts my feelings.' But it's not so important that I will adjust what I'm doing because someone is not going to like me.
I've been thanked a lot in Wendy's, Applebee's, and Marriot hotels, I've never been thanked in Le Cirque, for some reason. I try to spend as little time as possible in Le Cirque; that's not because the food isn't good... I'm not the kind of guy who likes to find his food under his parsley.
Fox News Latino will show people how opportunities exist, that whenever we are overregulated, or there is too much government, we lose freedom. We lose power. That is, historically, one hundred percent true.
I quit politics because I hated it.
I never want to lose. I hate to lose... But Babe Ruth struck out 1,300 times. You can't hit the home run every time you come up to bat.
'Vanity Fair' is a left-wing rag.
In a capitalistic society, success is determined by whether you can pay the bills.
The reality is, to watch Jon Stewart, you already have to have watched the news. In other words, it's not funny if he does a joke about John McCain and they don't know who John McCain is.
I think liberals have a lot of good ideas, actually. But I've been pigeonholed, and I'm quite comfortable with it.
I want clean water and clean air and conservation... that's not what extreme environmentalists are all about. For them, it is a religion. They believe in trees and animals, not God.
CNN International, Al-Jazeera and BBC are the same in how they report mostly that America is wrong and bad.
There is a - deep down, underneath all the work I do, I think there's a laziness in me.
I grew up in the era when Dan Rather hated Richard Nixon. He was a newsman, but you knew what his opinion was.
Who's like Bill O'Reilly? If there was somebody like Bill O'Reilly, they'd be out there getting ratings. No matter how much the mainstream press dumps on him, the guy constantly delivers an interesting show. He's unique.
In most news, if you hear a conservative point of view, that's called bias. We believe if you eliminate such a viewpoint, that's bias.
Tell me who you want to see on the Left, and I'll hire them. If you give me a big name that's out there, that's floating around and wants work, I'd be happy to hire them.
Joe McGinniss will be remembered as a talented man. He changed political writing forever in 1968. We differed on many things, but he had a good heart.
Anybody who knows me knows that half the time I'm saying things with a somewhat humorous overtone.
I can't stand cruel people. And if I see people doing something mean to somebody else just to make themselves feel important, it really gets me mad.
We're not programming to conservatives. We're just not eliminating their point of view.
Obama's the one who never worked a day in his life. He never earned a penny that wasn't public money. How many fund-raisers does he attend every week? How often does he play basketball and golf? I wish I had that kind of time.
Everybody fears the unknown. But I have a strong feeling there's something bigger than us. I don't think all this exists because some rocks happened to collide. I'm at peace. When it comes, I'll be fine, calm. I'll miss life, though. Especially my family.
I think almost everything in life is life-experience, personality-driven.
I look for something unique, and I look for people who haven't reached their potential. I think I'm pretty good at developing talent.
If somebody wants to book Alec Baldwin on one of our shows, and he wants to come on and talk to our people and say what he wants, I don't care. We would question him on his choice of words.
Television and I grew up together.
CNN and MSNBC, our primary competitors, are trying to figure out how to beat us. There are some good, smart people at those networks, and even occasionally a blind pig finds an acorn.
Growing up in Ohio and just being kind of an average guy from flyover country - my dad was a factory guy - I try to put things on a screen that reflect reality. I don't mind if people want to argue with that, or think that's crazy.
The press is supposed to watch the powerful. And not throw in with them.
It would be a lie to say that I don't care what people say about me. Every human being cares unless they're nuts. Am I nuts? But you can't allow that to override your mission.
All business is basically about customers and marketing and making money and capitalism and winning and promoting it and having something someone really wants.
I'm not trying to be anyone. You know why other executives always hire phonies? Because they're phonies. They hire phonies because they like phonies. They're comfortable with them.
I believe most people think the economy is very important.
A lot of what we do at Fox is blue-collar stuff.
I believe business news is general news.
Usually, there are three or four major news spikes per year.
I could never be elected.
The news business is simple, but it's not easy to do well.
I like Bloomberg; he's a friend.
The contributions being made by Latinos are extraordinary, and we need to talk about them.
Do I take alternative points of view? Yes, because all the media are going in another direction.
A guy who gets fired and humiliated in the press can lose a lot of confidence.
When the press falls in love, they fall in love hard.
Van Jones has one job: to stir up racism, whether he can find it or not.
Money will find you if people believe in your message.
CNBC was completely in the dumper when I went there.
I don't pay a lot of attention to communist infiltrators.
If you've got a big star like O'Reilly, it does overshadow what the hard-news guys do during the day. That's the nature of television.
There is a tendency in the media to simplify me to the point that I am somehow a tough guy. I think there is a lot more to me.
David Dinkins was a financial disaster personally - and as an administrator. That is what the record shows.
People who watch news are pretty smart. Most of them don't just go to one channel for all their news anyway.
There are always people that will rise to the occasion when there is no occasion, but it is hard to find people will do it when there is.
I didn't give up my citizenship to create and run a news organization.
I've been an underdog all my life.
Television is not a gimmick.
I would like to be on 'Dancing with the Stars.'
I don't care about my legacy. It's too late. My enemies will create it, and they'll push it.
I want to prove that a fat guy can get to 100 still working.
When I was in politics, I always got accused of image-making and trying to make them something they weren't. Truth was - and nobody ever discovered it, although I was in that business for twenty years - what I was trying to do was to get them to be themselves.
If somebody comes to me looking for a fight, they might get one.
I'd like to hire Hillary Clinton. She looks unhappy at the State Department. She'd get ratings.
I don't tell Rupert Murdoch who to endorse.
I don't remember threatening anybody, ever. I don't like threats. I don't respond well to them, so I don't give them. But I'm not a doormat. I try to meet the appropriate level of communications.
My first qualification is I didn't go to Columbia Journalism School.
If you're in the Senate and in the minority, you just get to give speeches and run around and raise money. If you're in the majority, you're under attack from the press every day.
I like talent. I respect talent. I teach talent.
I've got a bad leg; I'm a little overweight, so I can't run fast, but I will fight.
If you're making money, and you've hit your targets for five years, you don't need to demand a new contract.
I was the youngest producer of a national television show when I was twenty-five. I took it to 182 markets. Tremendous success.
I can't look hip, but I don't want to be hip.
I view myself more as a traditionalist than a conservative. But I like the traditions, so I tend to try to keep them alive. But I'm open to any kind of political thought - I don't care - I have people that I don't agree with, and I have good friends I don't agree with, but for me personally, I'm more comfortable with the traditional stuff.
I have a good eye for talent, and my talent performs the best.
My job is to cover the news and do it accurately and fair. And we do.
I happen to think that the Latino audience is an essentially traditional audience and will go to Fox News for traditional American values.
Hispanics who get on government programs are doing only a little better than they were in the old country.
I go to mass every Sunday, which is a shock to everybody.
We're Americans. It's a culture. We should defend that culture, and we should reinforce that culture.
Fox News Latino has a mission to point out the positives of the Latino population, operating within the framework of making America great.
I don't want my son to have to collect a bunch of 'New York Times' articles to see what I was like.
I love pressure situations. I won't run for cover, and I'll try to take as much of the heat as possible. Because I feel I can stand it better than most people.
Nobody wants to be in a position of defending anything Fox might do for minorities.
Twitter is a wonderful device. And I call it a device, but there are people that are addicted to it now. That's not good. You're really not very interesting using only so many letters.
Attacking me and Fox News is nothing new - it's a cottage industry.
I never want to get caught with not expecting something.
I consider myself a freedom fighter, fighting for my clients.
I think that 'Fox & Friends' audience is going to increase. That franchise in the morning is very important to any television operation because they make money.
I did what I did. I went against the grain. And I understand that I would be criticized. Those were all choices.
The difference between pros and amateurs is that pros play hurt.