A Fox News shakeup Wednesday that abruptly
moved a top news executive to another unit has reportedly thrown into disarray the network's succession plan for chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes.
New York magazine columnist
Gabriel Sherman reports Fox News' executive vice-president for news, Michael Clemente – moved to a new "longform unit" at the network – was considered a leading contender to replace the 75-year-old Ailes.
"He's out," Sherman quotes one unnamed Fox host saying. "He's been kneecapped."
Ailes has his own plan, Sherman writes.
"Donald Trump's attacks on Fox and its biggest star, Megyn Kelly, coming on top of Ailes's advanced age and ongoing health problems, are testing Ailes’s leadership like never before," Sherman writes. "But it seems Ailes has neutralized any threat to the throne — for now."
Sherman, citing a "highly placed Fox source," reports the 75-year-old Ailes has been telling people he'd like to have another contract after his expires, reportedly in two years
"The elimination of Clemente as a potential rival might help him achieve that goal," Sherman writes.
Sherman writes that among the marks against Clemente was Ailes' suspicion that he was leaking inside information to the press, and that he'd built up a relationship with Ailes' boss, Rupert Murdoch.
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