President Richard Nixon found Roger Ailes in Media, and Ailes in turn found a way to change politics forever.

He was a “brilliant broadcaster (who) played a huge role in shaping America’s media over the last 30 years,” said Rupert Murdoch in a Philadelphia Inquirer report by Nick Vadala.

Ailes left a legacy of media innovation when he recently passed away, and Delaware County was the center of his world when it all happened.

Ailes had risen to executive producer of The Mike Douglas Show when Nixon took notice of his unique approach to television and invited him to New York for an interview.

“Nixon’s staff grilled me for three hours,” he said, but it paid off when he was hired to utilize “the tools of Madison Avenue and Hollywood (in) a presidential campaign for the first time.”

Ailes’s success not only put Nixon in the White House in 1968, but also paved the way for him to consult with future Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. From there, he went to CNBC before helping Murdoch start Fox News in 1996.

Ailes was Fox News Channel’s chairman and CEO until last year.

“He will be remembered by many people on both sides of the camera that he discovered, nurtured, and promoted,” Murdoch said. “Roger and I shared a big idea, which he executed in a way no one else could have. In addition, Roger was a great patriot who never ceased fighting for his beliefs.”

Read more about Roger Ailes’s life and rise from Media to media mogul in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.