Spy and Conquer

It is a relatively mild scene in a documentary about the sexual predator who helped transform American politics. Back when he ran Fox News, Roger Ailes bought up his hometown paper, and in Divide and Conquer--now in theaters--the Putnam County News and Recorder's former copy editor describes what happened to her after she eventually quit the job. In the next few days, people she had messaged privately about Ailes on Facebook began finding out that he was looking into them. One even received a phone call: "This is Roger Ailes, and I hear you've been making threats about me." Ailes then quoted the friends' Facebook conversation, verbatim. In her interview with Divide and Conquer, the copy editor was clearly still shaken by the experience: "It was really terrifying--this feeling that there are really powerful people who live five minutes from me that are out to destroy me and my life."