What Ailes Us

UPDATE:  Author Gabe Sherman hits Ailes' claims about fact-checking.  Says he tried to inteview Ailes numerous times and factcheckers logged 2000 hours. 

Earlier: NYT managed to get a copy of that upcoming Gabriel Sherman opus on Roger Ailes and publishes a few bits tonight.  Two things:

Former employees cited in the book talked of Mr. Ailes’s volatile temper and domineering behavior. In one anecdote, a television producer, Randi Harrison, told Mr. Sherman that while negotiating her salary with Mr. Ailes at NBC in the 1980s, he offered her an additional $100 each week “if you agree to have sex with me whenever I want.”

A Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement on Tuesday: “These charges are false. While we have not read the book, the only reality here is that Gabe was not provided any direct access to Roger Ailes and the book was never fact-checked with Fox News.”

The book also describes an explosive episode dating back to 1995, when Mr. Ailes was a high-ranking executive at NBC and locked in a power struggle with another executive, David Zaslav.

At a company dinner, according to the book, Mr. Ailes made clear he was ready to do battle with Mr. Zaslav. “Let’s kill the S.O.B.,” he told his dining companions, Mr. Sherman writes. At a separate meeting with Mr. Zaslav, the book says, Mr. Ailes was said to have unleashed a vulgar, anti-Semitic slur at his rival.