Most news reports of former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes death on Thursday walked a careful line: portraying him as a powerful and influential media titan—and noting that he was ultimately fired from the network he created over multiple allegations of sexual harassment. (Fox News itself is a notable exception; the network’s website gave the claims and Ailes’s firing a single sentence in a lengthy story.)
Many of the more personal reactions to Ailes’s passing at age 77 were less circumspect, with social media users generally either condemning the CEO as a sexual predator or lionizing him. And for some Twitter observers, a tweet from media personality Tina Brown, fell too far in the latter camp.
Brown, the former editor of publications including Vanity Fair and TheNew Yorker and now head of Tina Brown Live Media—which puts on the star-studded Women in the World Conference each year—tweeted: “Ailes was an extraordinary producer and one of the best raconteurs ever. Awful harassment revelations not only way to remember him.”
Her message quickly racked up more than 300 replies—most of them critical.
Https://twitter.com/awbertholf/status/865237177566973952
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Jeffrey Dahmer was an excellent gardener, and he enjoyed sunsets. Murderous cannibalism shouldn't be his only legacy.
— Simon Agirlandaboy (@Simon_the_boy) May 18, 2017
https://twitter.com/JerseyJennyDC/status/865242744255643649
But I'm sure he told hilarious fucking stories over dinner.
— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 18, 2017
20 Years https://t.co/7DDdH5piNR
— Annie (@CurlynDoris) May 18, 2017