NAKED LAUNCH: ROGER AILES ASKS FOR BOMB-PROOF WINDOWS FOR HIS OFFICE: “As soon as we’re on the air, homosexual activists are going to be down there every day protesting, and who knows what the hell they’ll do”
We've all met big fat guys with double chins, literally round, but with dainty feet. These guys are graceful. You have a neighbor like this, maybe an uncle. At a wedding, they hit the dance floor and tip toe around with shiny little shoes so you'd think they were hippos doing a ballet in Walt Disney's "Fantasia". The guys I've met like this are always mild-mannered, as though the slightest assertive sentence might be taken the wrong way because of their sheer girth.
Roger Ailes is one of these gliding globes, except there's nothing mild-mannered about him. He got the tough guy gene, and he likes to throw his weight around. With Fox News anchor John Gibson’s current mockery of the death of actor Heath Ledger built on a foundation of anti-homosexual prejudice, people are wondering where this sort of insensitivity can possibly come from. The answer is Roger Ailes, Mr. Tough Guy.
When he got to Fox News, there wasn’t a ballroom for Roger the gliding globe to waltz around in, but there was what I called The Crystal Palace. It wasn’t a palace, really, it was just an office, but it was a big one with a row of massive floor-to-ceiling windows, and a bunch of years earlier, it had been the office of über-mogul Barry Diller.
When publisher-TV host Judith Regan introduced Roger Ailes to Rupert Murdoch, and Roger won Rupert’s tentative approval to launch a cable news channel, Ailes greatly admired The Crystal Palace, and understood that sitting under Rupert Murdoch was a good place to dwell and to create a network as had Diller in the days long before.
Standing on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, between 47th and 48th Streets, looking at the building called 1211 Avenue of the Americas (better known to New Yorkers as Sixth Avenue, because that’s what it is), I thought it to be a very nondescript skyscraper occupying the entire block. The building was set back from the sidewalk. Facing it, on the left, a curious outgrowth of the building extended to the street, only as high as the building’s lobby. This was an office of Charles Schwab, a discount stock brokerage. To balance the weirdness of the Schwab blob, on the right
was a large, elevated concrete planter holding six London Plane trees, all of them looking very unhappy. There were benches on the planter as well, but few people occupied them. The London Planes had the ability to see the future: they knew their fate.
This unlikely building was the United States headquarters of News Corporation. On the building’s second floor, clearly visible through the London Planes, through the row of massive windows, was The Crystal Palace. From the street, looking at the building, and also from the 48th Street side, passersby could see directly into The Crystal Palace, and once settled in, to Roger Ailes at work. Roger liked the vast dimensions of The Crystal Palace, the glass Diller table, and the ocean liner desk he ordered for himself. But Roger feared the fragility, the potential danger, of the glass windows. And so it came to pass that Roger Ailes summoned me to The Crystal Palace, and told me “I want all these windows replaced with bomb-proof glass”.
“Of course”, I said, and promptly called Rudy Nazath, the architect who was my collaborator on the design of the entire Fox News editorial and production facility in the building.
Rudy told me “There is no such thing as bomb-proof glass. I don’t even think there’s protective plastic or glass that can prevent an assault rifle if it’s fired up close. We can get the heaviest grade bullet-proof glass available, but what do you need it for?” I didn’t know.
So I asked Roger. “Roger, do you mind if I ask why the glass should be bomb-proof?”
Roger Ailes is one of these gliding globes, except there's nothing mild-mannered about him. He got the tough guy gene, and he likes to throw his weight around. With Fox News anchor John Gibson’s current mockery of the death of actor Heath Ledger built on a foundation of anti-homosexual prejudice, people are wondering where this sort of insensitivity can possibly come from. The answer is Roger Ailes, Mr. Tough Guy.
When he got to Fox News, there wasn’t a ballroom for Roger the gliding globe to waltz around in, but there was what I called The Crystal Palace. It wasn’t a palace, really, it was just an office, but it was a big one with a row of massive floor-to-ceiling windows, and a bunch of years earlier, it had been the office of über-mogul Barry Diller.
When publisher-TV host Judith Regan introduced Roger Ailes to Rupert Murdoch, and Roger won Rupert’s tentative approval to launch a cable news channel, Ailes greatly admired The Crystal Palace, and understood that sitting under Rupert Murdoch was a good place to dwell and to create a network as had Diller in the days long before.
Standing on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, between 47th and 48th Streets, looking at the building called 1211 Avenue of the Americas (better known to New Yorkers as Sixth Avenue, because that’s what it is), I thought it to be a very nondescript skyscraper occupying the entire block. The building was set back from the sidewalk. Facing it, on the left, a curious outgrowth of the building extended to the street, only as high as the building’s lobby. This was an office of Charles Schwab, a discount stock brokerage. To balance the weirdness of the Schwab blob, on the right
was a large, elevated concrete planter holding six London Plane trees, all of them looking very unhappy. There were benches on the planter as well, but few people occupied them. The London Planes had the ability to see the future: they knew their fate. This unlikely building was the United States headquarters of News Corporation. On the building’s second floor, clearly visible through the London Planes, through the row of massive windows, was The Crystal Palace. From the street, looking at the building, and also from the 48th Street side, passersby could see directly into The Crystal Palace, and once settled in, to Roger Ailes at work. Roger liked the vast dimensions of The Crystal Palace, the glass Diller table, and the ocean liner desk he ordered for himself. But Roger feared the fragility, the potential danger, of the glass windows. And so it came to pass that Roger Ailes summoned me to The Crystal Palace, and told me “I want all these windows replaced with bomb-proof glass”.
“Of course”, I said, and promptly called Rudy Nazath, the architect who was my collaborator on the design of the entire Fox News editorial and production facility in the building.
Rudy told me “There is no such thing as bomb-proof glass. I don’t even think there’s protective plastic or glass that can prevent an assault rifle if it’s fired up close. We can get the heaviest grade bullet-proof glass available, but what do you need it for?” I didn’t know.
So I asked Roger. “Roger, do you mind if I ask why the glass should be bomb-proof?”
Roger said “Because as soon as we’re
on the air, homosexual activists are going to be down there every day
protesting". He chuckled "And who knows what the hell they’ll do”. Roger was
worried that gays might bomb him. And so The Crystal Palace came to be
lined with bullet-proof glass, and hideous shades were mounted inside
the windows to prevent anyone outside from seeing in, and on top of the
shades there were one inch blinds, always askew, which made The Crystal
Palace appear, from the street, like an empty, unused store room.
I told Roger that I wanted to mount a camera high on the building across the street, to capture a live beauty shot of the building and the studio I named “A”, which was directly below The Crystal Palace. At Roger’s request, I had set up a giant red lettered news zipper that ran around the building. We wanted it to look bigger and better than the teensy-weensy zipper in the shot used every day by NBC’s “Today” show in Rockefeller Center plaza, across from the skating rink. Roger loved the idea of the beauty shot, and mounting the camera on a building across the street, but wisely he asked “What about those piece of shit trees? Don’t they block the view of the building?”
They did indeed. On the other hand, they added a nice splash of green to the image; at least, that was my incorrect opinion. “Get rid of the trees”, Roger told me. “Chop them down”.
What? Chop down the trees?
My stomach tightened. I didn’t know anything about chopping down trees, and knew that the building was not owned by News Corporation, and therefore chopping down the trees would be a nightmare of bureaucratic wrangling.
“Well?” Roger thundered, “What are you waiting for, chop the fucking trees down”.
“I’ll look into it right away, Roger” I said, heading for the door out of The Crystal Palace.
“When I come to work tomorrow morning” Roger shouted, “I want those trees gone! You chop them down yourself in the middle of the night!” I fled the room.
Days passed while I procrastinated. I consulted with the managing agent, the News Corporation head of building facilities Tony Fragetti, and meeting after meeting was held. A war began somehow between me and Jerry Speyer, the real estate magnate who owned Rockefeller Center, who refused to allow a camera to be attached to one of his buildings, regardless of how much we paid for it to be there. After all, I was told, NBC was Speyer’s biggest tenant. And Bob Wright, president of NBC, didn't want Fox having a shot that looked like the "Today" show.
No one but Roger wanted the trees gone. And every day at the boy’s club meetings, Roger would glare at me, point toward the window in the direction of the trees, and yell “They’re still fucking there! Don’t you have any balls? Chop them fucking down!”
Relief for me and the London Planes eventually came in the form of Anna Murdoch, Rupert’s wife, who summoned me to meet her in the lobby, the better to inspect the trees. “I’m afraid I’m a bit of a tree hugger”, Mrs. Murdoch said to me, “But please don’t tell Rupert I said so. Can we save them? Move them to a farm somewhere?”
Thus the problem was solved, and so was the issue of the camera across the street. Rupert won. His real estate broker told me “Jerry Speyer hates you”. That didn’t sound good. I expressed concern. The broker informed me “A man is judged by his enemies”. I liked that.
With Mrs. Murdoch having made her views known, I contracted with the very elite gardener who selects, chops down and puts up the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree every year, and one evening, when no one much was about, me watching on the street, his gardeners dug out the six trees, wrapped their feeble roots, and allegedly drove them off to Suffolk County on Long Island, where he promised they would be replanted, and perhaps one or two might survive. And so we had the glory shot, and Roger was safe from bullets fired by homosexuals. But not bombs, and that was a compromise that simply had to be made, and Roger was pleased, and it was good.
I told Roger that I wanted to mount a camera high on the building across the street, to capture a live beauty shot of the building and the studio I named “A”, which was directly below The Crystal Palace. At Roger’s request, I had set up a giant red lettered news zipper that ran around the building. We wanted it to look bigger and better than the teensy-weensy zipper in the shot used every day by NBC’s “Today” show in Rockefeller Center plaza, across from the skating rink. Roger loved the idea of the beauty shot, and mounting the camera on a building across the street, but wisely he asked “What about those piece of shit trees? Don’t they block the view of the building?”
They did indeed. On the other hand, they added a nice splash of green to the image; at least, that was my incorrect opinion. “Get rid of the trees”, Roger told me. “Chop them down”.
What? Chop down the trees?
My stomach tightened. I didn’t know anything about chopping down trees, and knew that the building was not owned by News Corporation, and therefore chopping down the trees would be a nightmare of bureaucratic wrangling.
“Well?” Roger thundered, “What are you waiting for, chop the fucking trees down”.
“I’ll look into it right away, Roger” I said, heading for the door out of The Crystal Palace.
“When I come to work tomorrow morning” Roger shouted, “I want those trees gone! You chop them down yourself in the middle of the night!” I fled the room.
Days passed while I procrastinated. I consulted with the managing agent, the News Corporation head of building facilities Tony Fragetti, and meeting after meeting was held. A war began somehow between me and Jerry Speyer, the real estate magnate who owned Rockefeller Center, who refused to allow a camera to be attached to one of his buildings, regardless of how much we paid for it to be there. After all, I was told, NBC was Speyer’s biggest tenant. And Bob Wright, president of NBC, didn't want Fox having a shot that looked like the "Today" show.
No one but Roger wanted the trees gone. And every day at the boy’s club meetings, Roger would glare at me, point toward the window in the direction of the trees, and yell “They’re still fucking there! Don’t you have any balls? Chop them fucking down!”
Relief for me and the London Planes eventually came in the form of Anna Murdoch, Rupert’s wife, who summoned me to meet her in the lobby, the better to inspect the trees. “I’m afraid I’m a bit of a tree hugger”, Mrs. Murdoch said to me, “But please don’t tell Rupert I said so. Can we save them? Move them to a farm somewhere?”
Thus the problem was solved, and so was the issue of the camera across the street. Rupert won. His real estate broker told me “Jerry Speyer hates you”. That didn’t sound good. I expressed concern. The broker informed me “A man is judged by his enemies”. I liked that.
With Mrs. Murdoch having made her views known, I contracted with the very elite gardener who selects, chops down and puts up the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree every year, and one evening, when no one much was about, me watching on the street, his gardeners dug out the six trees, wrapped their feeble roots, and allegedly drove them off to Suffolk County on Long Island, where he promised they would be replanted, and perhaps one or two might survive. And so we had the glory shot, and Roger was safe from bullets fired by homosexuals. But not bombs, and that was a compromise that simply had to be made, and Roger was pleased, and it was good.
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This page contains a single entry by Dan Cooper published on January 25, 2008 9:30 AM. Copyright Dan Cooper Media Strategies 2005-2008 All Rights Reserved
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