It has been a couple of months since the ongoing saga concerning Fox News and some of the network’s most prominent men died down; Now, the scandal is about to come roaring back.
According to a new woman who has come forward, it wasn’t just Ailes who was pushing himself onto women working with and for him – it was also the men who worked under him.
According to Caroline Heldman, former Fox News guest, Ailes’ first hand man Woody Fraser, a television producer with a career a mile long repeatedly used her career at Fox as leverage to force her into a sexual relationship. Heldman says that during her time on Fox, she was propositioned by Frasier three times.
Heldman says the producer used “coded language” to proposition her for a sexual relationship, a proposition she repeatedly ignored. It was for this reason, she believes, she was denied a more permanent position at the network.
“Mr. Fraser insinuated on several occasions that a contributorship at Fox was contingent upon me having a sexual relationship with him. Even though I was a popular guest with numerous appearances and high ratings (according to Mr. Fraser), I was not offered a contributorship because I rebuffed Mr. Fraser’s sexual advances.”
The former Fox guest’s accusations were made under a sworn statement which was written under the penalty of perjury. Inappropriate comments made by Fraser in emails to Feldman were also produced and provided to Mother Jones for the record.
Heldman’s statement is just one of several being lodged against Fraser, the most recent in a growing list of older men at Fox who are being targeted for their sexual crimes. As we have seen again and again, the culture at Fox encouraged this type of behavior against women at the network, and it wasn’t until now that those women have felt emboldened to speak out.
