I’ve heard it said, that when you turn over a rock, what you will find isn’t pretty.
This past week, it was reported that Fox news commentator, Bill O’Reilly, and Fox News have paid out millions of dollars to settle claims of sexual harassment brought by several women against O’Reilly.
The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have both reported that O’Reilly and Fox have paid thirteen million dollars to settled claims brought by five women since 2002.
Late last year, Fox had to pay former anchor, Gretchen Carlson, twenty million dollars because of sexual harassment from its News Chief, Roger Ailes.
Anyone who has ever seen Roger Ailes would recognize that Fox paying someone twenty million dollars because they had to entertain the prospect of having sex with him got off pretty cheaply.
I don’t mean to imply that being sexually propositioned by O’Reilly is worth less.
Ailes has since been accused of sexual harassment by nine other women who worked at the network.
One of his accusers is Andrea Tantaros who appeared on a Fox Program called “Outnumbered.”
On one episode of the program, their guest, Keith Ablow, mocked and mimicked Vice-President Joe Biden’s public, tearful expression of grief over the death of his son Beau.
Ablow is an expert contributor to Fox News on the subject of …………………………Psychiatry.
Apparently, he skipped the training in grief counseling during medical school.
After watching that segment, it is difficult for me to summon any sympathy for Tantaros.
To no one’s surprise, the groper-in-chief that currently resides in the White House declared that he doesn’t think that O’Reilly has done anything wrong.
That is not hard to believe, if you have listened to the Access Hollywood tape on which he and Billy Bush describe their right to man-handle and grope women.
Some might wonder whether I would criticize Bill Clinton in this fashion.
In earlier blog posts I have said that if I were Monica Lewinsky’s father, Clinton would have needed dental work a long time ago.
The United States Department of Justice is investigating the propriety of the corporate monies used to settle the Fox News sexual harassment claims.
Sexual harassment isn’t the only offensive conduct under scrutiny at Fox News.
Fox News fired a financial executive in the accounting department after she made repeated racist derogatory comments about African-Americans while overseeing a department that has a large number of African-American employees.
Two of the employees have brought suit against Fox in New York State Supreme Court.
O’Reilly, not just content to be sued for sexual harassment, is also fending off claims that he made a racist comment for describing an African-American Congresswoman’s hair as resembling a “James Brown wig.”
In the wake of the Carlson multi-million dollar settlement, sexual harassment claims against Ailes are cascading.
Others making such claims include Megyn Kelly.
Ailes is probably sleeping soundly at night since Fox reportedly payed him forty-million dollar as part of his severance package.
In the meantime, a well-organized boycott has cost O’Reilly over fifty advertisers.
Major advertisers such as Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, All State and Angie’s List have pulled their ads.
Fox should probably consider changing its slogan from “Fair and Balanced” to simply “Unbalanced.”
It would be more accurate and nobody could call it “Fake New.”