I have written many commentaries effectively ridiculing the culture at Fox News as a cross between those dramatized in The Stepford Wives and Peyton Place. Here for example is what I wrote in “Women Complain Fox News Head, Roger Ailes, Has Dick for Brains,” July 20, 2016:
_________
Close friends will tell you that I have often decried the way all ‘prominent Fox News women’ seem to abide a dress code that requires them to bare as much leg and wear as much makeup as possible.
Watching them, as I do on occasion for ‘fair and balanced’ news reporting, I always get the sense that they look more like beauty pageant contestants than cable news reporters. What’s more, camera shots invariably reinforce the impression that tits and butts are every bit as important as brains and skills.
Frankly, their objectification is such that Fox News women are often barely distinguishable from the vaudevillian ‘Benny Hill foxes.’ Hence, one can hardly blame Ailes for at least thinking of them, eponymously, as his Fox News foxes.
Far more troubling, though, is the rumor that he hired women based solely on whether or not he found them ‘f*ckable.’ After all, these allegations not only give credence to that rumor, but also make it impossible to watch Fox News women henceforth without wondering what sexual favors they performed to get, and are performing to keep, their jobs. What little professional credibility they had has now been shot.
________
But then came the #MeToo movement and the all too belated reckoning for powerful men across the media spectrum. I hailed their downfall in many commentaries – as the titles to just a few attest:
- “Fox Extinguishes Sex Pest Bill O’Reilly,” April 20, 2017
- “Roger Ailes, Sexual Predator Who Founded Fox News, Is Dead” May 22, 2017
- “This Hurricane Harvey Harassed Hollywood Hotties for Decades,” October 6, 2017
- “Charlie Rose, Accused Sexual Predator, WAS My Favorite TV Interviewer,” November 21, 2017
- “Bill Cosby, ‘America’s Dad,’ Guilty of Felony Sexual Assault,” April 26, 2018
- “Les Moonves, #MeToo Reckoning Claims Head of CBS,” September 10, 2018
But this is about Fox News, and its culture of sexual harassment that continues to defy the #MeToo movement. After all, having to fire poster boy Bill O’Reilly, retire founder Roger Ailes in disgrace, and settle a sexual-harassment suit with former anchor Gretchen Carlson for $20 million (with a public apology) should have caused a cultural evolution.
Hell, you’d think every man who works in that glass building would be working every day in mortal fear of the #MeToo movement shattering this abiding illusion:
Fox News markets itself as a Christian sanctuary in a wasteland of moral degeneracy. But these scandals expose it as just a proverbial Peyton Place.
(“Sex Pest Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, the Bill Cosby of Cable TV,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 6, 2017)
Yet Fox News showed no intent to stop cultivating predatory men. Nothing betrayed this quite like the way it continued propagating the lies and hijinks of Donald J. Trump. Its lack of repentance provoked me to denounce corporate titans for fraternizing with Fox Corporation titan Rupert Murdoch, instead of ostracizing him like a Trumpian Goebbels. I refer you in this regard to “Political Ads: Twitter, Facebook, Fox News: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly…,” November 6, 2019.
But I’m sure women at Fox News harbored hope that a new generation of Murdoch leadership would oversee a cultural evolution. Indeed, given the #MeToo movement, they had good reason to think that none of Murdoch’s potential heirs would countenance either the predatory sexual harassment or the conservative political agenda that prevailed.
Except that they would have been summarily disabused of any expectation in this regard if they had seen The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, which is currently airing on BBC2. For it documents the King-Lear way Rupert (89) pitted his three children against each other for the right to become his heir, only to make fools of Elisabeth (51), Lachlan (48), and James (47) by retaining control.
Incidentally, with all due respect to the BBC, I have read enough about the Murdochs’ family and business affairs to know that Elisabeth is easily the most suitable heir. I know many people think Rupert is Australian. But he’s a naturalized American. More to the point he’s a Republican, and no doubt proudly describes himself as being a little r too.
So even the de facto misogynistic rules of primogeniture do not apply. Instead Elisabeth appears to have committed a cardinal sin that put a black mark across her name forever in her father’s eyes in this respect. She married a Black man … her first time. But I digress …
The point is that, with Rupert still firmly in control, nothing has changed. Even worse, Lachlan appears to be going beyond the call of duty to seal the deal. This, not just by being the more obsequious and fawning towards their father but, more ominously, by assuming their father’s conservative political agenda – complete with all of the misogyny, racism, and other biases that entails.
Two incidents in recent days throw this into stark and foreboding relief.
The first came when a CNN Business reporter outed the head writer on Tucker Carlson Tonight as a racist, misogynist, homophobic troll. This happens to be Fox’s top-rated show in primetime. But the bad press was too much even for it to tolerate. The writer had to go. (I see no point in dignifying his name or his rants.)
Instead of apologizing for their association with this troll, however, Lachlan conspired with Carlson to project blame onto CNN for outing him.
Two people familiar with the situation told The Daily Beast that Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch personally approved what Carlson would say in his defensive Monday remarks addressing the exit of his top writer. Despite demands from Fox News executives that he pre-tape the segment and strike a conciliatory tone, Carlson barely sounded apologetic, knowing he had the full backing of the Murdoch heir.
(The Daily Beast, July 18, 2020)
The second came when two former employees filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment and rape. And, even though far more serious, it is far less surprising. Here is how The Daily Beast reported it on July 20:
__________
A former Fox News reporter and associate producer, along with a frequent guest on the network, have leveled brutal and disturbing sexual-assault allegations against former host Ed Henry as well as harassment allegations against current on-air talent like hosts Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Howard Kurtz.
In the complaint, filed Monday in New York federal court, former Fox News producer Jennifer Eckhart alleged that Henry — the long-time Fox reporter and host of America’s Newsroom who was fired earlier this month for what the network called ‘willful sexual misconduct’ — raped and assaulted her and ‘performed sadistic acts on her without her consent that left her injured, bruised and battered with bloody wrists.’ …
Meanwhile, journalist Cathy Areu, who had been a frequent on-air guest on Fox News programs — often labeled by Carlson as ‘The Liberal Sherpa’ for her ability to explain obscure, often lazily stereotyped left-wing beliefs to his viewership — alleged in the lawsuit that in early 2020, Henry sent her ‘a slew of wildly inappropriate sexual images and messages — which are in her possession.’
_________
Frankly, I’d rather just refer you to my commentaries cited above, especially those on Bill O’Reilly and Charlie Rose, to see how this case will likely play out. I will only add that I saw both women pleading their case on yesterday’s edition of CBS This Morning. Both women came across more like recent captives from the infamous NXIVM sex cult than recent employees from Fox News.
Apropos of my assessment of its defiant and unrepentant culture of sexual harassment, Eckhart bemoaned that it is one that “fosters and rewards sexual predators,” whereas Areu was incredulous that it is perfectly “normal for females to receive pornographic images from male anchors.”
Speaking of which, the Carlson in this second incident is the same Tucker from the first. But he’s clearly feeling the heat. Only that explains the red herrings he fed his audience on Monday about The New York Times planning to publish stories that could injure his wife and children. It was a trademark Trumpian attempt to distract by attacking the messenger.
Which brings me back to the Murdochs. Because they’re the ones continually paying male anchors millions to act on screen like Nazi propagandists. And, frankly, they just don’t give a damn that these male anchors create a Mad-Men work environment so hostile to women that, years after Gretchen Carlson, Jennifer Eckhart is filing an even more damning lawsuit. The only wonder is that corporate CEOs don’t treat the Murdochs like skunks and advertisers don’t treat Fox News like a cult, respectively.
Summing up, Fox News is not only rotten to the core, it stinks from the head down.
Related commentaries:
Women Complain Fox News head… Bill O’Reilly… Roger Ailes… Harvey Weinstein…
Bill Cosby… Charlie Rose… Les Moonves… Sex pest Bill… the good bad ugly…
Legacy Note: With over 5,600 posts spanning 20 years, I am easily the most prolific blogger on the most eclectic array of topics on the web. That makes The iPINIONS Journal an unparalleled archive of informed political and cultural commentary. Visit the ARCHIVES section in the sidebar or search by topic. You won’t find a more consistent, independent voice on world affairs.