P(aranoia)-related: How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory

[Edward]

Fantastic piece just out from Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone. A taste:

Ailes begins each workday buffered by the elaborate private security detail
that News Corp. pays to usher him from his $1.6 million home in New Jersey
to his office in Manhattan. (His country home – in the aptly named village
of Garrison – is phalanxed by empty homes that Ailes bought up to create a
wider security perimeter.) Traveling with the Chairman is like a scene
straight out of 24. A friend recalls hitching a ride with Ailes after a
power lunch: “We come out of the building and there’s an SUV filled with big
guys, who jump out of the car when they see him. A cordon is formed around
us. We’re ushered into the SUV, and we drive the few blocks to Fox’s
offices, where another set of guys come out of the building to receive ‘the
package.’ The package is taken in, and I’m taken on to my destination.”Ailes
is certain that he’s a top target of Al Qaeda terrorists. “You know, they’re
coming to get me,” he tells friends. “I’m fully prepared. I’ve taken care of
it.” (Ailes, who was once arrested for carrying an illegal handgun in
Central Park, now carries a licensed weapon.) Inside his blast-resistant
office at Fox News headquarters, Ailes keeps a monitor on his desk
that allows him to view any activity outside his closed door. Once, after
observing a dark-skinned man in what Ailes perceived to be Muslim garb, he
put Fox News on lockdown. “What the hell!” Ailes shouted. “This guy could be
bombing me!” The suspected terrorist turned out to be a janitor. “Roger tore
up the whole floor,” recalls a source close to Ailes. “He has a personal
paranoia about people who are Muslim – which is consistent with the ideology
of his network.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525?print=true
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