As conservatives, we need to acknowledge that behavior that takes sexual advantage of women is inconsistent with a movement that heralds family values and moral righteousness.
One of the core pillars of the modern American conservative movement is its emphasis on personal responsibility. Conservatives believe that a self-governing society depends on individuals taking responsibility for their actions, and those of their family and community. They deride others, especially American liberals, who fall short of this standard, who blame anything other than themselves for personal transgressions or failures. For conservatives, every policy solution starts with an individual picking oneself up, acknowledging his or her mistakes, as a first step to improving his or her circumstances.
.. We saw no acknowledgment of mistakes publicly or privately from Mr. O’Reilly nor from Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chairman. Instead Mr. O’Reilly blamed others, embracing the victimization he so ridiculed of the American left. He claimed his departure was no fault of his own, but the cost of doing business as a high profile media personality.
.. Today’s conservatives must dissociate themselves from a “Mad Men” culture of the past. They should flatly condemn this disrespectful behavior toward women. Otherwise they, too, are complicit.
Now That Bill O’Reilly is Out, Here’s Who Might Be Next to Go at Fox News
In the lawsuit, Roginsky states that she had a meeting with Shine on July 29, 2016, after the revelations about Ailes started coming out in the media. Shine allegedly told Roginsky that “everything they are saying about Roger is true.” How the heck did he know that?
Roginsky further claims that she had another meeting with Shine on November 29, 2016, where she informed him of Ailes’ sexual advances. “They were not surprised to hear this:they already knew it,” the lawsuit states. She claims even after this meeting, Shine took no action to investigate, and did not encourage her to report what happened to Paul Weiss, the law firm tasked with investigating the scandal.
Perhaps the most shocking encounter of all was a Spring 2015 meeting between Tantaros and Fox News Senior Executive, Defendant William Shine (“Shine”), during which Tantaros sought relief from Ailes’s sexual harassment and Briganti’s retaliatory media vendetta against her. In response, Shine told Tantaros that Ailes was a “very powerful man” and that Tantaros “needed to let this one go.”
.. A high-ranking Fox source confirmed that Fox moved Luhn to New York so Ailes could monitor her. Luhn remembers staying at the Warwick Hotel for six weeks. During this time, she said, Ailes told her he needed to approve all of her outgoing emails. “I’d show him all the emails I’m getting,” she recalled. For several weeks, he marked them up and would “dictate exactly” how to respond. “You don’t have friends,” she recalled Ailes telling her. “I’m your friend. I’ll protect you.” He told her to also forward her emails to Bill Shine for review, she said. “The second floor” — where top Fox executives work — “was in charge of my life. I wasn’t in charge,” she said.
‘Be brave’: Bill O’Reilly’s downfall teaches a wonderful lesson to working women
Gretchen Carlson filed suit against Roger Ailes last summer — and started an avalanche.
Less than 10 months later, two of the most powerful men in media, Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, have been knocked off lofty perches at Fox News.
And the world is suddenly a different place for women who’ve experienced sexual harassment in their workplaces.
.. Ailes vehemently denied the charges, but Carlson, who reportedly had tape-recorded evidence on her side, eventually got a $20 million settlement and a public apology.
.. “Gretchen started the public avalanche, and Megyn continued it internally,” Maynard said.
.. “We found out, in all of this, that if you speak up, there will be action, and that there’s strength in numbers,” longtime media executive Vivian Schiller said Wednesday.
That’s especially true, of course, when one of those employees is a major star.
.. Of course, plenty of women have complained in the past, in companies and organizations, to no avail. Some have been retaliated against. Others ignored, mocked or silenced.
.. Next step, she said: Women should demand that Congress pass the Fairness in Arbitration Act to stop silencing victims of discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News career comes to a swift end amid growing sexual harassment claims
“Over the past 20 years at Fox News, I have been extremely proud to launch and lead one of the most successful news programs in history, which has consistently informed and entertained millions of Americans and significantly contributed to building Fox into the dominant news network in television,” he said. “It is tremendously disheartening that we part ways due to completely unfounded claims.
.. The company and O’Reilly paid out $15 million in exchange for his accusers’ silence.
.. But the prospect that his accusers — bound by non-disclosure agreements as a result of their settlements — wouldn’t speak in anything but general terms led the company to believe it could weather the Times story.
.. In fact, it was a sixth accuser — a former guest on O’Reilly’s program named Wendy Walsh — who may have been the key to his unraveling. Unlike the women who received settlements for their complaints, Walsh never sued or settled with O’Reilly, leaving her free to speak in public about her allegations. She did so repeatedly, putting a name, face and voice to the allegations in media accounts.
.. On Tuesday, another woman came forward, anonymously, to complain that she had been harrassed with racial and sexual comment by O’Reilly in 2008.
.. The network, however, continued to roll in record ratings, driven in part by viewer interest in Donald Trump, a longtime friend of Ailes, Murdoch and O’Reilly and a frequent interview guest on Fox programs ..
.. “The O’Reilly Factor” has been the network’s flagship show for nearly 20 years, and in many ways has embodied its conservative-oriented spirit.
.. drew an average of 4 million viewers each night during the first three months of the year, the most ever for a cable-news program.
.. intense media coverage surrounding O’Reilly led to a stampede of advertisers away from O’Reilly’s program, leaving it almost without sponsorship over the past two weeks.
.. The O’Reilly controversy has been casting a shadow over 21st Century’s $14 billion bid to win the British government’s approval to buy Sky TV, the British satellite service. Leaving O’Reilly in place would likely have been a public-relations nightmare
.. The Murdoch family abandoned a 2011 offer for Sky amid another scandal, the phone-hacking conspiracy perpetrated by employees of the Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid in London.
.. Since the Ailes scandal erupted, the company has continued to employ almost all of the senior managers who were in charge when Ailes was allegedly harassing employees, including Bill Shine, currently Fox’s co-president. Shine was accused of enabling Ailes’s retaliatory efforts against an accuser, Fox contributor Julie Roginsky