Field: Television
Position: CEO, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network; chairman of Fox Television Stations and Twentieth Television
Why He Was Nominated: Television journalism was completely transformed over the past decade—69-year-old Ailes is the one who changed it. Fox News set the agenda for the past 10 years, and cemented the primacy of cable news with a point of view. Besides making Fox the nation’s leading news channel—and turning Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck into superstars—Ailes indirectly stoked the rise of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and MSNBC as counterbalances. Going back to his role as Nixon’s wunderkind media consultant in 1968, Ailes has proven a media visionary capable of reinventing himself virtually every decade.