The Naples News covered the remarks of Fox News founder and chairman Roger Ailes at the Ave Maria School of Law speakers series Monday. Media and politics dominated the talk & Q&A at the Ritz-Carlton Naples.
His opening comments jabbed at cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC and he bemoaned what he considers a biased and dishonest mainstream news business. He also weighed in on current politics, criticizing the recently passed health care reform law.
“It doesn’t seem constitutional to me to have the government tell you you have to buy something,” he said.
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On the current state of the news business, Ailes remarked, “You don’t want a media that lines up together.
Ailes considers himself apolitical these days, but during a 40-minute question-and-answer session, many attendees on Monday appealed to the conservative ace that helped Nixon and Reagan. One man asked how Republicans could win in the fall.
“We have got to get back to the Constitution,” Ailes replied.
Asked about such questions after the lecture, Ailes said he was a media man with little advice for either political side.
“I can’t help ’em,” he said. “I’m not in politics anymore. I don’t do politics, I do the news.”