It has to stop

Megyn Kelly sent up a rocket on the subject of sexual harassment at Fox this morning. The Post did a transcript.

On Saturday, the Times revealed yet another settlement, paid to dispose of a sexual harassment case against O’Reilly. Not a huge shock there, we already knew of five, thanks to a Times report in April. But this latest one was for $32 million. Reportedly paid directly by O’Reilly to Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl, right before Fox News renewed his contract.

Thirty-two million dollars. That is not a nuisance value settlement, that is a jaw-dropping figure. O.J. Simpson was ordered to pay the Goldman and Brown families $33.5 million for the murders of Ron and Nicole. What on earth would justify that amount? What awfulness went on?…

O’Reilly calls the Times reports a malicious smear, claiming that no woman in 20 years ever complained to human resources or legal about him.

Maybe that is true. Fox News was not exactly a friendly environment for harassment victims who wanted to report, in my experience. However, O’Reilly’s suggestion that no one ever complained about his behavior is false — I know because I complained. It was November of 2016, the day my memoir was released. In it, I included a chapter on Ailes and the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News — something the Murdochs knew I was doing and, to their credit, approved.

O’Reilly was being interviewed on CBS News that day and he brushed aside questions about sexual abuse at Fox. So Kelly wrote to the co-presidents of Fox.

…an email I have never made public but am sharing now because I think it speaks volumes about powerful men and the roadblocks one can face in taking them on.

I wrote, in part, “Perhaps he didn’t realize the kind of message his criticism sends to young women across this country, about how men continue to view the issue of speaking out about sexual harassment. Perhaps he didn’t realize that his exact attitude of shaming women into shutting the hell up about harassment on grounds that it will disgrace the company is part of how Fox News got into the decade-long Ailes mess to begin with.

Perhaps it’s his own history of harassment of women, which has, as you both know, resulted in payouts to more than one woman, including recently. That blinded him to the folly of saying anything other than ‘I am just so sorry for the women of this company, who never should have had to go through that.’ ”

Bill Shine called me in response to my email, promising to deal with O’Reilly. By 8 p.m. that night, O’Reilly had apparently been dealt with. And by that, I mean he was permitted, with management’s advance notice and blessing, to go on the air and attack the company’s harassment victims yet again.

Oh that kind of “dealt with.”

That was the one where he said if you don’t like being sexually abused at work then quit.

This is not unique to Fox News. Women everywhere are used to being dismissed, ignored or attacked when raising complaints about men in authority positions. They stay silent so often out of fear. Fear of ending their careers. Fear of lawyers, yes. And often fear of public shaming, including through the media.

At Fox News, the media relations chief Irena Briganti is known for her vindictiveness. To this day, she pushes negative articles on certain Ailes accusers, like the one you are looking at right now. It gives me no pleasure to report such news about my former employer, which has absolutely made some reforms since all of this went down. But this must stop. The abuse of women, the shaming of them, the threatening and the retaliation, silencing of them after the fact, it has to stop.

It has to, but will it?

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