Ailes started with the story he wanted told, and bent everything within his formidable reach to tell it that way. He did so without apology, without qualms.
The result was what we have today: A society inured to lying, where truth is in the eye of the beholder, where being loud and vehement is the same as being correct. Technology helps spread fake news around, but Ailes made it normal, made it acceptable, to believe what one wanted to believe.
Now we are seeing a bit of a bounce back of the traditional values of journalism: getting facts right, digging beneath the surface — particularly in print. That’s heartening but it has to last, and it has to grow. We have to see a commitment from the mainstream media, and broadcast media in particular, to take on Fox News and fake news directly, to call a lie what it is and to refuse to cover the latest Twitter rant even if the ranter is our president.