Edwin Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation, released the following statement today on the death of Roger E. Ailes.

With the passing of Roger Ailes, America has lost a communications visionary and a true patriot. Though he had a highly successful career as a political consultant, Roger will be most remembered for his pioneering work in television.

Roger Ailes was a consistent champion of free speech and a free press, but his lasting legacy to America is a news source stripped of the liberal bias so commonly found among the once-dominant mainstream media. He took a cable upstart and turned it into something that had been sorely lacking for decades: a national news outlet that presented all points of view fairly. 

By filling that void, the Fox News Channel soon outpaced its rivals in viewership, reaching and staying at the top of the cable ratings heap. Even more importantly, the “fair-shake coverage” he insisted on delivering made American politics and culture more hospitable to conservative ideas.

In 2011, I had the privilege of presenting Roger with our Clare Boothe Luce Award. The Heritage Foundation’s top honor, it is given only to those who have made truly outstanding contributions to the conservative movement. It was an award he richly deserved.

We are grateful for all that he did to restore even-handedness to the national dialogue, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his wife, Elizabeth, and his many friends and admirers.