Fox host Bill O’Reilly is in the headlines again today, but it isn’t for his racist and sexist attacks on women, rather for his actual sexual assaults on a handful of women for which his employer has covered up again and again.
Today, the New York Times reported that Fox News has paid a shocking $13 million over his career to keep women quiet and settle legal disputes over O’Reilly’s inappropriate sexual behavior.
The most recent of these scandals occurred in January of this year when Fox quietly settled a suit lodged by former Fox host Juliet Huddy. Huddy alleged that she was not only harassed by O’Reilly but was fired when she refused his advances. Huddy was paid close to a million dollars to settle the case, though it appears O’Reilly never personally paid a dime.
Though the January case was reported at the time, it was not widely circulated and Fox News mostly kept the scandal under wraps. But the New York Times claims in their April 1st article that they have been given more details about more O’Reilly-caused scandals that Fox helped cover up.
“The three other settlements were uncovered by The Times. Two involved sexual harassment claims against Mr. O’Reilly, and the other was for verbal abuse related to an episode in which he berated a young producer in front of newsroom colleagues.”
Clearly, Fox News does not care about the conduct and reputation of their licentious and criminal employees, but one would think that they would care about their pocketbook. O’Reilly has absolutely no incentive to cease his criminal, victimizing activities while Fox continues to pay out of pocket to hide his crimes and give him a prime-time spot on evening TV.
Not only does the culture of Fox clearly devalue and disrespect women as a rule, they are willing to go to great costs – literally – in order to enable their particularly hateful point of view.
