Fifteen years ago, a new cable news channel began broadcasting among a fairly loud chorus of media skeptics. “Fledgling Fox News” was an oft-repeated refrain by the media establishment, and oddly, became a rallying cry with founding Fox News Chief Roger Ailes and his loyal support staff. Last night, I was able to attend, on behalf of Mediaite, the 15 year celebration at New York’s Chelsea Piers, and caught up with Mr. Ailes, plus on-air stalwarts like Bill O’Reilly, Shep Smith, and many others to discuss Fox News success.

In the latest issue of Esquire, writer Tom Junod analyzes the serious side of The Daily Show and compares comedian Jon Stewart to Fox News president Roger Ailes. Junod devotes most of the article to Stewart’s serious side, suggesting in recent years it has influenced and guided his work more than his comedic side. Talking [...]

Jon Stewart is famous for his legendary take-downs of Fox News, but in an interview with Rolling Stone, he says The Daily Show and Fox are not so different from one another.

Ed Henry, who made a fast friend in White House Press Secretary Jay Carney upon leaving CNN to become Fox News’ White House correspondent, gave Adweek a very revealing interview about the course his career has taken.

Henry even tackles the media buzz surrounding his switch to Fox News, sharing that he feels his questions are just as tough as when he was at CNN.

Fox & Friends‘ Steve Doocy hosted BreitbartTV Editor-in-Chief Larry O’Connor this morning to discuss reports of several popular websites that are now, supposedly, “dead or dying.” The real target here, though, was obviously Gawker, who Fox says has lost 75% of its traffic since last year. You can almost audibly hear the axes grinding, as Fox extracts some payback for Gawker’s unflattering coverage of Fox News, and O’Connor blames the whole thing on liberal hoity-toitiness. Gawker’s Nick Denton immediately pushed back against the story.

Here at Mediaite we don’t write about, much less care too much about, fancy-pants restaurants, even those deemed to be “media” hangouts and especially those considered “hot spots.” So last year when our founder Dan Abrams and other media guy Dave Zinczenko got involved in The Lion restaurant, we yawned publicly while secretly imagining a new Mediaite clubhouse, sort of like a real-life version of Cheers only with powerful media figures playing the part of regulars.

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, back to work following her maternity leave, took some time to speak with Marie Claire about a whole lot ‘o stuff: the role her looks have played in her television career, Glenn Beck, Roger Ailes… and whether or not she believes her network is biased in its coverage.

Much of the interview — surprisingly hard-hitting for a profile in a fashion-oriented magazine — focuses on image. How does Kelly’s image help or hurt her career? What image does Beck give off to viewers and detractors? …Does she agree with the perception of Fox News as a biased news source? In a word, “No.”

Yesterday, we told you that Gawker and its investigative report John Cook were preparing a civil suit against New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in an effort to obtain records that he had met with Fox News head Roger Ailes on September 11th of last year. Cook believes Ailes has a direct hand in GOP politics and may have encouraged Christie to try and seek the Republican nomination for president. The American Civil Liberties Union decided to help the website in its legal pursuits, filing the suit on behalf of Gawker Entertainment LLC.

Now, however, it seems that the organization is having a change of heart.

Gawker and its resident investigative reporter John Cook are planning to file a civil suit today against Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as part of the site’s investigation into whether Christie communicated with Fox News president Roger Ailes… and whether Ailes has a direct hand in politics.

Gawker’s investigation was inspired by New York magazine’s recent, much-publicized profile on Ailes, which noted that the chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group called Christie to encouraged him to campaign in 2012.

Perhaps owing to a classic summer news lull (combined with Casey Anthony Trial fatigue) CNN looked to Gawker for news today. The Situation Room devoted a segment to yesterday’s story on Fox Chief Roger Ailes and some memos unearthed by Gawker’s John Cook. CNN producers sought a statement from Fox News who insisted that a statement would be forthcoming if they ran it unedited. CNN refused to air it “sight unseen,” Mediaite has obtained the full statement that CNN did not run.

Gawker’s investigative reporter, John Cook, recently combed through various documents (as in, 318 pages of memos, letters, outlines and resumes) detailing Fox News president Roger Ailes‘ working relationship to the White House under President Richard Nixon.

No, Roger Ailes insists, he does not think Sarah Palin is an idiot. Far from it. In an interview with Newsweek‘s Howard Kurtz, the Fox News boss responds to a recent run of lousy media coverage, including two magazine profiles that, in Kurtz’s words, portray Ailes as “power mad, paranoid, and a GOP puppeteer.”

Roger Ailes, the head of the Fox News Channel, is written about very extensively in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. The author of the piece, Tim Dickinson, appeared last night on MSNBC with substitute anchor Thomas Roberts and continued his unflattering description of Ailes, “the Chairman,” as a “deeply paranoid” but extremely powerful man.

Coming back from a week long vacation from the news last night, Jon Stewart laced into both the mysterious One Nation bus tour of Sarah Palin — and the media that are desperately trying to cover/make sense of it. Stewart cited a blog post by the one lucky journalist allowed to interview Palin on her bus, Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, who in a blog post explained that she got the plum interview spot since Palin is a fellow Fox News employee. In Stewart’s estimation, ergo, Fox News’ chief Roger Ailes is calling the shots.

The explosive New York magazine profile of Roger Ailes that we covered extensively, was the subject for discussion on Morning Joe with the article’s author, Gabriel Sherman. Joe Scarborough was most intrigued by the relationship and discussions between Ailes and Glenn Beck and was pleased to conclude “Ailes was dripping with contempt for Beck’s craziness long before we heard about it.”

The shift in media power in the past couple of decades– as exemplified by his election as the most trusted news personality on TV– has had Bill O’Reilly fascinated all week, and tonight he brought on Charles Krauthammer for further commentary. Krauthammer’s explanation for Fox News’ success happened to coincide with his explanation for why the Democrats’ campaigning has become so “scurrilous”: “America is a center-right country… not conducive to a liberal message.”

Like many others, Ed Schultz found many revelations in the New York magazine profile of Roger Ailes to be very interesting. However, Schultz and his guest, former Governor Ed Rendell, also came to their own conclusion: this article proves to them Fox News’ inescapable bias.

As the New York magazine profile of Fox News chief Roger Ailes continues to send shockwaves through the cable news universe, officials at Fox News are quick to clear up at least one inaccuracy while fair-minded readers of the article are left wondering about another question. Why did the piece feature a disparaging image of Ailes with a cigar blowing up in his face, while a similarly extensive profile of Media Matters founder David Brock, which appeared in the same issue of the magazine, showcased a flattering portrait of the Fox News nemesis?

This week’s issue of New York magazine includes an ambitious and thorough essay by Gabriel Sherman that provides an in-depth and fascinating portrayal of Fox News chief Roger Ailes. It is a must read for anyone curious about the inner-workings of the dominant cable news network, and includes a number of potentially game-changing revelations, a few of which have been outlined below.

President of the Fox News Channel Roger Ailes is profiled in a New York Magazine article that reveals tons of juicy, behind-the-scenes-details. Just some of the dirt uncovered includes the Republican who Ailes is actively trying to get to run for President and what Ailes truly thinks about lightning rods Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

Last night, Chris Matthews took a shot at Sarah Palin and Roger Ailes on Hardball. After watching Palin’s comments about Newt Gingrich on Hannity, Matthews concluded that it was “so pathetic that Roger Ailes has put her on television.” Now, Ailes has responded to the comment, sending Matthews a piece of his own medicine.

In a big article on the front page, Gawker has found information that they claim proves that Fox News chief Roger Ailes is a “paranoid maniac.” And all they had to do to get it was use the New York Freedom of Information Law to go through the police records in the small town where he lives, root around for all the times he’s mentioned, and then find out why police went to his house! It’s easy! It reminds me of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein seminal month-long investigation to prove that March had somehow transformed into April.

Gawker makes a buzzworthy accusation about Fox News chief Roger Ailes, saying hes been “caught spying” on staffers of small-town newspapers in New York’s Hudson Valley that Ailes owns with his wife Elizabeth–even using “News Corp security goons” to tail one of the employees–in a big black SUV. “He noticed a black Lincoln Navigator that seemed to be following him, according to several sources familiar with the incident,” Gawker’s John Cook and Hamilton Nolan write, describing how Joe Lindsley “drove aimlessly for a while to make sure he was being followed, and the Navigator stayed on him.”

Morning shows of the world, unite against Glenn Beck! Following Good Morning America‘s segment on Beck’s “doom and gloom” yesterday, the folks over at Morning Joe took their turn against the chalkboard piñata. Joe Scarborough, after thoroughly enjoying Jon Stewart’s Beck impression (late night shows can have their fun too), spent the segment theorizing about the fate of Beck post-Fox, and he didn’t see it as working out well for the soon-to-be-ex TV host. I’m curious to see if Beck has another epic rebuttal in him.

For what it’s worth, Roger Ailes isn’t losing sleep over how reporters write up the news of the end of Glenn Beck‘s show on Fox News. “Half of the headlines say he’s been canceled,” Ailes tells the Associated Press’ David Bauder. “The other half say he quit. We’re pretty happy with both of them.”

Bauder, who describes Beck’s tenure at Fox as a “quick burn,” notes that Ailes wondered how much longer the current format of the show could continue: