DRAMA AT FOX NEWS – AT 12:46 P.M. ET:   One of the great boosts to conservatism in the last 20 years has been the growth of Fox News as a journalistic powerhouse.  While Fox's slogan is "We report, you decide" and its sub-slogan is, "Fair, balanced, and unafraid," Fox tilts right and has given conservatives a voice they don't have on other networks.  We can see stories on Fox that the others simply won't carry because they don't fit into the approved narrative."

Now Fox is going through convulsions.  The man who built it, Roger Ailes, appears to be on his way out.  From the New York Post, which is owned by the same corporation as Fox News: 

Roger Ailes’ 20-year reign as the boss of cable TV’s No. 1 news outlet could soon be coming to an end as he negotiates his departure from Fox News Channel.

Ailes, 76 — who built Fox News into an influential, $3 billion business — is reportedly being shunted aside in the wake of a sexual harassment suit filed against him by former anchor Gretchen Carlson.

Ailes has strongly denied the accusation.

And while most FNC female staffers lined up to support Ailes, one did not: Megyn Kelly.

Kelly, a prime-time anchor, has remained publicly silent on the matter. On Tuesday, however, New York magazine reported that she told Fox lawyers conducting an internal probe that Ailes had sexually harassed her, too, in the mid-2000s, when she was a Washington correspondent. It was not clear what kind of harassment she alleged.

After the article emerged, several news outlets reported that negotiations on Ailes’s exit were under way. Late Tuesday, his lawyer, Susan Estrich, confirmed that the discussions were in the advanced stages, according to the New York Times.

She told CNN, “There’s lots of cross talk, but no agreement has been reached.”

FNC referred all calls to its parent, 21st Century Fox.

A departure by Ailes could bring chaos to the Fox News Channel.

Several of the network’s biggest stars — Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren — have clauses in their contracts that would allow them to leave if Ailes exits, according to a report in the Financial Times.

COMMENT:  This is a convulsion.  If Ailes is out, who is in?  For what it's worth, and I claim no inside information, I believe the sexual harassment charge, which is unproved, is simply being used as an excuse to retire Ailes.  Ailes was hired by, and protected by, Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corporation, which owns Fox News.  But Murdoch is aging, and is gradually turning power over to his two sons, at least one of whom does not share Ailes's conservatism.

I fear there will be an attempt to move Fox left.  I think it will fail, and Fox will become just another number on the dial.

That's my theory.  I hope it's wrong. 

July 20, 2016