Fox News’ Ailes Used Private Detectives, ‘Black Ops’ Against Journalists, Critics

Roger Ailes, until recently the end-all-be-all leader at Fox News, has already resigned due to a number of allegations about ongoing sexual harassment from current and former employees.

New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, whose reporting has been at the forefront of this entire Ailes-ousting saga, has a piece up about this “black room” and it being a way for Ailes to engage in “PR and surveillance campaigns against people he targeted both inside and outside the company”.

He says Dietl had also been used to track Andrea Mackris, a producer who accused Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment in 2004.

How devious is former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes?

People targeted by the campaign reportedly included John Cook and Hamilton Nolan, who covered Ailes for Gawker. In 2011, Cook and fellow Gawker staffer Hamilton Nolan reported that security officers for Fox’s former parent company, News Corporation, had been caught spying on employees of Ailes’ hometown paper, the Putnam County News & Recorder, after Ailes began to believe that they were complaining about his and his wife’s management style in private.

Solivan – one of five “consultants” hired by Ailes who were laid off last week – allegedly worked with Fox employees Ken LaCorte and Jim Pinkerton, and Ailes’s personal lawyer Peter Johnson Jr to advance their boss’s agendas. Solivan, who had previously worked for Fox News as a general manager of the channel’s website, did not respond to requests for comment. Ailes assigned private investigators to follow Lindsley around Putnam County. New York Magazine said a private detective followed Cook around his neighborhood and Fox operatives were preparing a report on the journalist with information to give to blogs.

“In 2012, while I was researching a biography of Ailes, Fox operatives set up web pages to attack my reputation, and Fox funds paid for Google search ads against my name that linked to the sites”, he writes. She said Ailes would frequently photograph their activities. I love Roger Ailes. Fox News CFO Mark Kranz, for instance, approved budget expenditures throughout this period, and general counsel Dianne Brandi approved contracts. Both execs have said that they were unaware of surveillance and online attacks conducted on Ailes’ behalf. Ailes’ lawyer Peter Johnson was also allegedly part of the group, however he denied this when asked by NY Magazine.

Susan Estrich, a spokesperson for the now deposed media executive has denied the allegations, saying they “are totally false”. The same report says that more staffers will be let go in the coming days for similar reasons.