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“Loudest Voice in the Room” book review

A review of the book The Loudest Voice in the Room – the unauthorized biography of Fox cable boss Roger Ailes – after the jump …..

It is widely believed that when Fox cable head Roger Ailes learned in 2011 that New York Magazine contributing editor Gabriel Sherman was planning to write a biography about him, he commissioned the conservative writer Ze’ev Chafets to write one first … which he did with Off Camera in 2013.

Many of the reviews were less than praiseworthy: not exactly a hagiography, but one that a reviewer for the New Republic describes thusly:

If you are the head of Fox News, and you want a convincing yet friendly portrait published, you need a writer whom the mainstream media won’t dismiss as a partisan hack, but one who also will play ball. That’s Zev Chafets. The author of more than a dozen books, Chafets has established himself as someone with special access to conservative figures, earned by the sympathetic profiles he writes of them. He seems credible, writes well, does actual reporting, and is published in center to center-left outlets like the New York Times Magazine and Newsweek. He frequently identifies himself as a member of the “mainstream media” or “lamestream media,” complete with quotation marks to deny an endorsement of either appellation. While not airbrushing his subjects’ warts away completely, his method is to err toward letting his subjects get the last word in-as he writes in Roger Ailes: Off Camera, out yesterday, “I have left him front and center, allowing him to speak for himself.”

At one point during our interview, I floated my theory that Chafets only shows those faults that don’t really damn his subjects. Few supporters-or detractors, for that matter-of Ailes or Limbaugh care that they were married multiple times. Doesn’t a “true” portrait of those men require tougher probing and more context? His retort: “Most people don’t know a goddamn thing about Roger Ailes. And most people don’t care about Roger Ailes.”

Such is not the case with Gabriel Sherman’s book – from his “A Note on Sources”:

* “This book is based on interviews with 614 people who have worked with Roger Ailes”.

* “Roger Ailes did not participate in this book, notwithstanding my numerous attempts (over 2-1/2 years) to arrange a sit-down interview. He discouraged sources close to him from speaking with me”.

* A large number of people did speak to Sherman (many on the record) though many asked for not-for-attribution status.

* “While Roger Ailes did not grant me a sit-down interview: I strove to reflect his point of view throughout the book. I relied on the thousands of quotes he has given to the press over the years on a wide array of subjects”.

   
   

I can recommend this book to Moose readers for these reasons:

1)  You do get a story of his entire life, much of it not in politics. He was a producer on the Mike Douglas Show, and also had some success as a co-producer Off-Broadway (with the Hot L Baltimore his best success). In much the same way that history might have been changed had George W. Bush been named as baseball commissioner in 1992 …. the world we live in would have been different had Ailes found greater success in (and remained in) the entertainment business.

2)  Sherman talks about Ailes’ tough upbringing in Warren, Ohio (devastated by the auto industry collapse) and – although he has worked in NYC much of his life (and has little use for Warren today) he uses it as a backdrop for his political leanings about “the heartland”.

3)  The book does, indeed, incorporate Ailes’ views on various subjects. Sherman, though, does add a narrative on when the public statements do not jive with reality.

4)  An early political role came about in the 1960’s this way:

Ailes: “Mr. Nixon, you need a media adviser.”

Nixon: “What’s a media adviser?”

Ailes: “I am.”

5)  He goes into great detail about Ailes’ sexism and sense of paranoia that one has read elsewhere.

6)  The book goes into great depth about another Ailes venture: the purchase of a Hudson Valley, New York local newspaper and how he turned an even-handed small-town publication into a right wing one.

7)  All along, Sherman tries to even-out the narrative: when talking about Ailes’ triumphs, he includes some side effects. And when the 2012 election (and other setbacks) are discussed, he writes of ways that Ailes would work to emerge victorious. Thus, the book maintains some semblance of an even keel.

8)  It is clear that Sherman does not care for Ailes, either personally or politically. He does admire his TV genius, and does find other aspects of his life achievements to praise and does so unreservedly.

9)  We learn that Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity are not on good terms, and the book reveals many other interpersonal battles behind the scenes at the network. And as some of Ailes’ trusted aides eventually part ways with him: it is often those people who help provide a good deal of background material.

10)  When candidate Barack Obama first met Ailes (at a meeting arranged by Rupert Murdoch), afterwards Murdoch asked Ailes his impression … and was taken aback when Ailes responded by likening him to a ….. middle manager.

“I wasn’t asking you to evaluate him for a position at Fox. I’m asking what you thought of him as a presidential candidate”.

“Well, that’s what I think”.

11) I was afraid of reading the chapters on the Monica Lewinsky and the Florida 2000 election …. one reason why I dislike reading political books on the conservative movement for fear of being overwhelmed. Gabriel Sherman, though, intersperses more background material and the like …. and I never got a dyspeptic feeling.

12) Finally, the Daily Beast lists “25 revelations” from this book, most of which I have not discussed above.

In short: this is a book worth reading … will neither make you happy nor leaving you with an upset stomach, but will leave you amazed at the journey this fellow’s life has taken. Having been published just this past January, you can purchase it in many formats. Even if your public library does not have it, you can probably get it via interloan – as I learned to say in my first job at a public library – and while there are no photographs: at 395 hardcover pages, it’s not a difficult read. The last sentence:

“Fox News was his best show on his biggest stage yet … but every show has its run.”


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