(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
One of the main factors behind the Republican right wing's takeover of the United States is a systematic media campaign against liberals, metropolitan and intellectuals, portrayed as demons who are all set to destroy the traditional values that have made the United States "great." The architect of this media strategy was Roger Ailes. Growing up in a small Ohio town, he wanted to create a "good old-fashioned party TV channel" as early as the 70 years, and ended up organizing and orchestrating Fox News for media magnate Rupert Murdoch. Almost immediately, the TV channel attracted a large portion of the American audience, ready to demonize who it was – Jews, Muslims, Liberal Christians – who did not believe in their own "small-town values."
Republican man
This documentary, directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - Taxi to the Dark Side- Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream) provides a wild but smooth depiction of Roger Ailes' grandeur and fall. Ailes learned all about TV in the 1970s when he worked for a big morning show with Mike Douglas. When Richard Nixon appeared in the show in 1968, Ailes launched himself as the right man for the task of creating a TV image that could sell "Tricky Dick" to the audience. Nixon became more charming and willing to work with him, which would be crucial to his campaign for being elected president for a year marked by an unusual number of divisions. Thanks to this effort, Ailes became a main character in the bestseller The 1968 Selling of the President, which reveals how Nixon's image was transformed from the 1960 loser to the 1968 election winner.
For the next two decades, Ailes was involved in campaigns to get Rudy Giuliani elected mayor of New York and to make Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush president of the United States. He returned to television when cable networks became popular in the 80s, when he started with CNBC and followed up with the television channel America's Talking, which was later bought by Bill Gates and made into MSNBC. Furious at being sidelined by a West Coast liberal, Ailes went to the news baron Rupert Murdoch and succeeded in establishing Fox News.
Sexual harassment
With Fox News, Ailes transformed the United States, or perhaps we should say that he succeeded in continuing that transformation of the United States into a radical right-wing nation that he had embraced under Nixon. With his mix of middle-aged men like Bill O'Reilly – who lets the hate flow freely – and a host of "Fox blonde" hostesses, Ailes created a TV channel that became the counterpart to the most malicious of the English tabloids, including those owned by Murdoch.
Ailes created a television channel that became a counterpart to the most malignant of the English tabloids.
As Alexis Bloom maps his career through archival material and interviews, she also begins to build a case against Ailes by seizing his Achilles heel, namely sexual harassment. As the born bully he was, Ailes systematically relied on women who would work with him, forcing them to do him services if they wanted to keep his career or move on. Finally, it all exploded as one of his favorite public figures, Donald Trump, maneuvered into the White House. Charges of sexual assault were first made by a Fox Newsreader, Gretchen Carlson, then by Megyn Kelly, and then by many, many more. Ailes was thrown out, but at the same time received a farewell package from Fox and worked for Trump in the election campaign.
Roger Ailes' death a year later is treated with a certain sentiment by Bloom: She chooses to show the reaction to some of Fox's news editors, who pretend to miss him. One more worrying thing is that Fox is still working out of Ailes' mindset, even now that he's gone. A bit of a legacy!
It's hard not to want a more uncompromising deal with the theme, though Divide and Conquer is an honorable effort of a movie and interesting diet for anyone who perceives themselves as belonging to the liberals or the left.
The series appears on HBO Nordic.
Translated by Anders Dunker
