The world is fueled by politics these days, perhaps more so
than in the history of this country. What’s even more frightening is that there
is little room for middle ground these days and more and more people have
chosen one side or the other. Even scarier is the fact that the press has
revealed themselves in recent years to be more one sided politically than they
exposed themselves to be in the past. But even in stating that opinion there is
controversy with one side claiming I’m right and the other saying I’m wrong and
that they are merely reporting the news. History would say otherwise.
Which brings us to this film, DIVIDE AND CONQUER THE TRUE
STORY OF ROGER AILES. The documentary from A&E (owned by Disney/ABC)
attempts to paint a portrait of a man who knew how to manipulate people toward
his own cause and beliefs. Those were right leaning conservative ideas. It
follows his life starting with his childhood, moving quickly on to his time
working with Richard Nixon and on through his years helping other Presidents
get elected. Then he moves on to something even bigger, the creation of Fox
News.
Along the way incidents of alleged sexual misconduct
followed Ailes. From his producing days while working on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW
to his time at Fox, Ailes was supposed to have hit on nearly every female
employee that worked for him. He had affairs with his aides and was married
three times. It was this last bout of accusations that led to his being ousted
from the behemoth he had created and made the number one news channel in the
country.
So how is the movie? Confusing, infuriating, interesting and
leaving at least myself with more questions than answers. Those who find Ailes
to be the devil will no doubt adore the movie and not put it in perspective,
finding it a film that justifies their beliefs not so much about the man but
Fox News itself. The channel takes a lot of hits in the film. But that’s what
makes the film so confusing.
In a world filled with # metoo stories the movies takes
numerous shots at Fox while ignoring the myriad of other networks suffering the
same stories. We get to hear about Ailes and host Bill O’Reilly while nothing
is said of Charlie Rose (seen in clips here), Matt Lauer or several other
network execs who’ve gone through the same process and been ousted as well.
While the movie is about Ailes, why focus solely on him and not discuss the
entire movement that led to this juncture?
The movie also tries to have it both ways with claims that
Ailes wasn’t all that smart in one sentence and then claiming he was
Machiavellian in the next, creating a news channel based completely on
political beliefs without any value as a news source. Either his a genius or an
idiot but the film tries to claim that he was both at the same time. Huh?
It also fails to discuss the fact that the channel does have
a news division kept apart from its commentary programming which fills most of
its air time. And it paints those commentary shows as extremist propaganda,
again ignoring the fact that channels such as MSNBC and CNN both do the exact
same thing but coming from a different political point of view. How does one
complain about a channel doing this but then never discuss the fact that all
major news channels these days have followed suit? And perhaps that’s the
biggest thing about Ailes that they fail to discuss, the fact that his channel
pushed the others into coming out and doing the same thing in an attempt to win
back ratings.
Along these same lines they claim that he was shaping the
country in one sentence and a few minutes later they say that he was tapped
into what America wanted. These two concepts cannot exist at the same time.
Either he made the entire country that watches the channel and makes it number
one in ratings believe as he did or they believed that way to begin with and
finally found a channel to watch that they agreed with.
Through it all and wrapping up the story being told here we
have his sexual escapades, his telling potential stars that they need to sleep
with him to get ahead. Every man or woman who does something like this
immediately raises the creep factor a hundred fold. Ailes falls into that
category with the claims made against him that were settled out of court. But
then as I stated earlier this was a pattern found in all of the entertainment
and news world if one is to judge by the accusations, indictments and firings
throughout the industry.
While the movie is interesting it is so far one sided that
at times the interviewers can be heard posing the questions to those speaking
so that they get the response they hoped for rather than a straight answer from
the mouth of those talking. It becomes a hit job intended to portray Ailes, Fox
News owner Rupert Murdoch and Fox News in the most negative light while
ignoring the fact that more has taken place at other networks. Fox News used to
use the phrase “fair and balanced”. It would be nice to see a documentary that
applies that to the topic they choose to feature.
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