Mr. Media

Zev Chafet’s Roger Ailes: Off Camera is an excellent book, well-paced and crisp, as perceptive, unpretentious, and entertaining as its subject.1 As is appropriate for a book about an entertainment and journalism personality, most of the material is anecdotal—when publishing such a biography, there are rarely primary source papers and documents worth waiting for as there generally are with statesmen. The author is a well-traveled New York journalist who has had as good a vantage point as anyone who is not an intimate to appreciate the talents and achievements of Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News and media consultant for numerous Republican campaigns. And his factual, unembellished, refreshingly informal treatment of his subject is a pleasure and a relief. Mr....