News Analysis - Roger Ailes Shows the Limits of Crisis Communication Skills - Bonus

Are there limits to spin? Are there some things the greatest crisis communications counselor in the world can't spin his or her way out of? Absolutely yes. Case in point, Roger Ailes resignation recently as chairman of Fox News. Now, Roger Ailes is someone who, whether you like his politics or not, is widely respected as a communications genius. His book, you Are the Message, written in the late 1980s, is still a good read. It's one that I consider an essential part of my own communications library. He, more than anyone in the modern political era, has been influential in shaping messages and successfully delivering messages, certainly at the political level, as a top advisor to Richard Nixon, to Ronald Reagan, to George H.W. bush, and certainly throughout his tenure at Fox News, creating something from absolutely nothing, an idea, and within a few short years, relatively short years, completely destroying entrenched in competition at cnn, msnbc, Headline News and elsewhere. So he had extraordinary success as a communicator. A part of that communication was knowing how to destroy opponents, whether it was the gazillion presidents of CNN who came and got fired doing battle with him, political opponents at the presidential, senatorial and gubernatorial level, where he had a huge, huge track record with so many prominent political leaders throughout the Republican Party. So no one is better equipped. I always love seeing anyone attack Roger Ailes in the news because you knew there would be a soundbite quote from Ailes or from Fox news that was 10 times more devastating, 10 times harsher, and deflated the opposition. So if anyone is going to be under attack, come out ahead. Roger Ailes is typically the person to bet on. Not this time. When story after story of women coming out saying that Roger Ailes had sexually harassed them, demanded sexual favors in exchange for favoritism on air gigs, hosting gigs, it was just too much. You it all started when Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit a couple of weeks before Roger Ailes resigned. But once that happened, it set into motion a whole series of incidents that became impossible for Ailes to do. Battle. It was fascinating to see how he countered through the various news cycles, getting his spin out on the Drudge Report other places. But at some point it just became too overwhelming if, and I'm sorry to sound superficial and ageist and sexist, but if you're a 76 year old, short fat bald man, and story after story comes out about how you're groping young women, telling women, you got to sleep with me, it would be better for us, the sheer ickiness, the grossness factor overwhelms any spin you can do. And with Ailes being Part of News Corp. News Corp. Being publicly traded and News Corp. Having gone through a transition of power rather than it just being Rupert Murdoch's baby, his two sons, a younger generation who by all accounts are not politically conservative and don't like Roger Ailes. Now that it's three people sharing power and it's a publicly traded corporation, News Corp. With thousands and thousands of employees having to answer to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of shareholders, simply does not want to be in a position of saying yes. One of our most important executives is portioning out airtime and plum jobs based on what? Attractive young women 40, 50 years younger than he is, will sleep with him. That's just not a viable position for a publicly traded corporation. Once more and more women came out, it became politically an unstoppable story. Of course, what really sealed the deal here was the internal investigation that the News Corp. Organization decided to have. And then they interviewed Megyn Kelly, the face of the network these days, the star, the host of the number two rated show on Fox as well as all tv. And then sources leaked information from her. Not a deposition, but her meeting with the internal investigators from a prominent law firm where she said, in fact she had been sexually harassed by Roger Ailes 10 years earlier. So here's someone who is on the air, certainly no liberal agenda or liberal vendetta against Roger Ailes saying that, yes, this guy does it even to me. Once that story broke, it was only a matter of time and the end of Roger Earles career at Fox. Although he's technically still a paid consultant. The reason I bring this up is we do spend time trying to figure out how during a crisis you can put your best face forward. How can you put out facts that will make people feel a little better about you and your organization and what you're doing. In this case, I don't think Roger Ailes was in a success. It was even possible for him to be successful. The real winner here in Crisis Communications was News Corp. They fired, accepted the resignation of Roger Ailes. And in the view of a lot of people certainly and their investors, they say, okay, News Corp did the right thing. They got rid of this old relic. But it is a constant reminder, no matter how skilled you are at media arts, no matter how skilled you are at Crisis Communications, there are some crises you're not going to spin your way out of. I'm T.J. walker.