at your job every day is the cornerstone of a great career.
Nothing is more important than giving your word and keeping it. Don’t blame others for your mistakes. Don’t take credit for someone else’s work. Don’t lie, cheat, steal—people always figure it out, and you will never regain your reputation.
Our common goal is the success of Fox News. Only teams go to the Super Bowl. Volunteer to help others once your own job is finished. Ask for help when you need it. Solve problems together and give credit to others.
Attitude is everything. You live in your own mind. If you believe you’re a victim, you’re a victim. If you believe you’ll succeed—you will. Negative people make positive people sick. Management relies on positive people for all progress.
Cramer was a star, and a friend. But he hadn’t been willing to work hard enough for the good of the team. He didn’t keep his word. He had been publicly negative about his job and disrespectful to his boss. And so he was out. Ailes made an example of Jim Cramer; he wanted everyone to know that his handbook was not a set of lofty aspirations, but a guide to survival in Roger World.
Anchorman Mike Schneider didn’t get it. He was a prototypical Fox hire, an experienced and competent newsman who had been at all three major networks but never quite reached the top. Ailes gave him a chance as host of a prime-time news show. It was a potential star-making job, but Schneider blew it.
In 1997, Fox TV broadcast the Super Bowl, including a halftime show by the Blues Brothers. This was a very big deal for the Murdoch-owned network, and as a cross-promotion for the fledgling Fox News, Ailes decided on a gimmick. At the end of the first half, Fox News anchor Catherine Crier broke in with a special news flash—the Blues Brothers had escaped from jail and were seen heading for the game. It got some media attention, which was Ailes’s goal, but it offended Schneider’s sense of propriety. He blasted the stunt in public. Ailes called him in and read him the riot act. “How dare you criticize your colleagues?” he said. “If I were in a foxhole with you, I’d shoot you first.” Schneider’s prime-time career was over, and Fox declined to renew his contract. After leaving the network, he ran for Congress in New Jersey as a reform Democrat, and lost.
The last case of blatant insubordination was the Paula Zahn affair. Zahn was a talented and glamorous CBS personality who came to Fox in 1999, anchored the nightly news, and then got her own show,
The Edge
, making her one of the first female prime-time hosts in cable news history. Less than two years later, Ailes discovered that although she was still under contract, she had been negotiating with CNN. This wasn’t illegal, but it violated Ailes’s sense of loyalty. The network sued Zahn, and while the case was thrown out, it made the point to all other employees that those who cross Roger Ailes won’t be allowed to go quietly. Zahn went to CNN and then on to PBS, where she hosts cultural programs. Ailes eventually retaliated against CNN by poaching veteran journalist Greta Van Susteren and giving her a prime-time show of her own.
• • •
“In fifteen years, CNN and MSNBC have made sixty-three changes to their prime-time lineups,” says Roger Ailes. “We’ve made five.” Three anchors—Crier, Zahn, and Schneider—were replaced early on. In 2009, Alan Colmes was dropped from
Hannity & Colmes
(although he remains at Fox as a commentator). And famously, Ailes moved Bill O’Reilly from six o’clock to eight, setting off the most successful career in the history of cable news.
O’Reilly’s office is on the seventeenth floor of the News Corp building. I was scheduled to meet him at five o’clock, but I arrived a few minutes early and ducked into the men’s room. There I found O’Reilly staring at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth.
He looked at me backward and said, “Hi,
Nothing is more important than giving your word and keeping it. Don’t blame others for your mistakes. Don’t take credit for someone else’s work. Don’t lie, cheat, steal—people always figure it out, and you will never regain your reputation.
Our common goal is the success of Fox News. Only teams go to the Super Bowl. Volunteer to help others once your own job is finished. Ask for help when you need it. Solve problems together and give credit to others.
Attitude is everything. You live in your own mind. If you believe you’re a victim, you’re a victim. If you believe you’ll succeed—you will. Negative people make positive people sick. Management relies on positive people for all progress.
Cramer was a star, and a friend. But he hadn’t been willing to work hard enough for the good of the team. He didn’t keep his word. He had been publicly negative about his job and disrespectful to his boss. And so he was out. Ailes made an example of Jim Cramer; he wanted everyone to know that his handbook was not a set of lofty aspirations, but a guide to survival in Roger World.
Anchorman Mike Schneider didn’t get it. He was a prototypical Fox hire, an experienced and competent newsman who had been at all three major networks but never quite reached the top. Ailes gave him a chance as host of a prime-time news show. It was a potential star-making job, but Schneider blew it.
In 1997, Fox TV broadcast the Super Bowl, including a halftime show by the Blues Brothers. This was a very big deal for the Murdoch-owned network, and as a cross-promotion for the fledgling Fox News, Ailes decided on a gimmick. At the end of the first half, Fox News anchor Catherine Crier broke in with a special news flash—the Blues Brothers had escaped from jail and were seen heading for the game. It got some media attention, which was Ailes’s goal, but it offended Schneider’s sense of propriety. He blasted the stunt in public. Ailes called him in and read him the riot act. “How dare you criticize your colleagues?” he said. “If I were in a foxhole with you, I’d shoot you first.” Schneider’s prime-time career was over, and Fox declined to renew his contract. After leaving the network, he ran for Congress in New Jersey as a reform Democrat, and lost.
The last case of blatant insubordination was the Paula Zahn affair. Zahn was a talented and glamorous CBS personality who came to Fox in 1999, anchored the nightly news, and then got her own show,
The Edge
, making her one of the first female prime-time hosts in cable news history. Less than two years later, Ailes discovered that although she was still under contract, she had been negotiating with CNN. This wasn’t illegal, but it violated Ailes’s sense of loyalty. The network sued Zahn, and while the case was thrown out, it made the point to all other employees that those who cross Roger Ailes won’t be allowed to go quietly. Zahn went to CNN and then on to PBS, where she hosts cultural programs. Ailes eventually retaliated against CNN by poaching veteran journalist Greta Van Susteren and giving her a prime-time show of her own.
• • •
“In fifteen years, CNN and MSNBC have made sixty-three changes to their prime-time lineups,” says Roger Ailes. “We’ve made five.” Three anchors—Crier, Zahn, and Schneider—were replaced early on. In 2009, Alan Colmes was dropped from
Hannity & Colmes
(although he remains at Fox as a commentator). And famously, Ailes moved Bill O’Reilly from six o’clock to eight, setting off the most successful career in the history of cable news.
O’Reilly’s office is on the seventeenth floor of the News Corp building. I was scheduled to meet him at five o’clock, but I arrived a few minutes early and ducked into the men’s room. There I found O’Reilly staring at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth.
He looked at me backward and said, “Hi,
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