Report: 'Friends' Of Roger Ailes On The Way Out

Roger Ailes

With Roger Ailes gone, some of his longtime associates are also on the way out at Fox News, according to Brian Stelter at money.cnn.com.

"Longtime friends of Roger's dating back to the '70s are beginning to exit the building," a senior source said Wednesday.

Ties were already severed with five Ailes consultants, as New York magazine first reported. But another wave of departures is expected, two sources said.

Accord got Steler, tt is clear from interviews with people inside Fox News that the network has been shaken to its core.

Ailes is the only CEO Fox News has ever had. He launched the channel in 1996 and ran it as a fiefdom, grooming an entire generation of hosts, reporters and producers who feel indebted to him.

He set the cultural tone of the place.

With Ailes deposed -- one veteran staffer compared it to the sudden death of a Middle Eastern strongman -- there is widespread uncertainty about the status of on- and off-air talent alike.

At the moment, the Fox News executive leadership team remains in place. Acting CEO Rupert Murdoch and programming chief Bill Shine, who are said to be running the network side by side, are trying to stabilize things.

Meanwhile, there is a fresh focus on Ailes' spending habits.

Ailes, through Fox News, employed a number of longtime friends as consultants, for purposes that remain unknown.

One of the consultants earned $10,000 a month by submitting a monthly invoice to Fox.
Sherman reported on Sunday that "one of the consultants, Bert Solivan, ran negative PR campaigns against Ailes' personal and political enemies." He said Solivan and four others were dismissed.

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