On Wednesday, Fox’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, released a terse statement saying it took the allegations “seriously” and is conducting an “internal review of the matter.” The wording and timing of the press release — Ailes had yet to issue his own response, which, when it came, described the lawsuit as “retaliatory” (Carlson was just dropped from Fox) and claimed it would be “vigorously defended” – signal that Ailes’s standing with the Murdochs is precarious. According to one highly placed Fox source, Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James, approved the hiring of an outside lawyer to conduct the independent investigation. While it’s common for large companies to bring in outside counsel to conduct inquiries during public scandals, the move is a radical one for Murdoch. “Unprecedented,” one former senior executive told me. “It’s not Rupert’s style to investigate internal issues.”
Executives I spoke with over the past 24 hours said the hiring of an outside lawyer is also an indication that Murdoch’s sons may be capitalizing on the Carlson scandal to achieve a long-held goal: forcing Ailes out. “It’s a coup,” one person close to the company told me. If the investigation into Ailes’s management confirms Carlson’s account, or turns up additional episodes of harassment with other Fox women, it stands to reason the Murdoch children would have the leverage they need to push Ailes aside and install a less-right-wing chief. “This could be curtains for Ailes,” another person close to the company said. Indeed, several months after NBC hired an outside counsel in 1995 to investigate Ailes’s alleged anti-Semitic slur, he left NBC.
Based on what Carlson’s camp is saying, it appears her lawsuit could unleash a torrent of new allegations from other women. “He’s the Bill Cosby of media,” Carlson’s lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, told me today. “My office is being deluged with calls and website contacts from women. I don’t even have a count anymore … Women as young as 16 who said he demanded oral sex. Another said during an interview that he said, ‘Take off your bra.’ She was devastated.” Smith told me she’s forwarding the names of women who agreed to be interviewed to journalists. The New York Times currently has multiple reporters working on the story.
Well if it is true that Ailes demanded oral sex from sixteen year old girls than I think losing his job is the least of his worries.
So is it actually possible that we could see Fox News go in a less conservative direction once Ailes is dragged kicking and screaming from the building?
And if that is possible what does it mean for American journalism moving forward?
We could be on the brink of something that could literally change the political landscape.
Source http://ift.tt/29sCzOJ
