New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman is reporting that Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly has been a heavier player in the Roger Ailes sexual harassment scandal at Fox News than previously reported:
When Gretchen Carlson filed her sexual-harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes on July 6, the explosive allegations surely did not surprise Megyn Kelly. Fox News' biggest star has since told lawyers hired by parent company 21st Century Fox to investigate Ailes that she experienced similar unwanted sexual advances from the Fox News chair in the mid-2000s when she was a young correspondent in the Washington bureau.
According to a source briefed on the investigation, Kelly has helped at least one colleague speak out, too. In recent days, Kelly has called a former Fox female anchor and encouraged her to share her experience of harassment by Ailes with the corporate investigators. The former Fox anchor had described to Kelly being kissed against her will by Ailes during a private meeting. According to a person briefed on Kelly’s thinking, Kelly decided to speak to Paul, Weiss attorneys and encourage others to do so because she felt that a parade of Fox women marching to Ailes’s defense was presenting a distorted public account of the company’s culture. “Megyn thought the other side of the story needed to be told,” the source said.
Kelly has so far declined to comment. Her lawyer told the New York Times that “she has cooperated with the inquiry fully and truthfully.”
Which doesn’t mean that Politico’s report that Kelly has not contacted Carlson’s legal team is incorrect but it may mean that Kelly is one of the bigger players in the Ailes saga.
It also means that there is some serious leaking going on; my suspicion is that this is from the Murdoch brothers.
This story is much bigger than the Thomas-Hill hearings, IMO.
IIRC, Professor HIll never alleged that there was a widespread culture of male sexual harassment against women at the EEOC.
Nor do I remember Professor Hill ever alleging to any knowledge that Clarence Thomas was a serial sexual harasser (although some stories did come out in the media that hinted that it might have been the case).
Remember that Gretchen Carlson’s complaint not only named Roger Ailes but also her co-host Steve Doocy and we have already seen video on-the-air evidence of the harassing behavior of Steve Doocy.
It is possible that this story may be the catalyst of a cultural conversation about a corporate environment of male sexual harassment against women in a way that the Thomas-Hill case could have never approached.
It also seems to me that The Fox News Channel cannot credibly continue to discuss women’s issues in the way that even the female Fox News spokespersons have spoken of them.
Will this lead to any editorial changes in The Fox News Channel?
We shall see...maybe sooner than we think.
Amended 7.20.16 3:33pm CK
Wednesday, Jul 20, 2016 · 9:16:21 PM +00:00 · Chitown Kev
OneL suggests that we read Michael Wolff’s highly informative piece on all of the background in this morning’s Hollywood Reporter...including this tidbit:
Still, as of this morning, with Ailes nearly as much a subject in Cleveland at the Republican convention among political professionals as Trump himself (the rumor of Ailes replacing Paul Manafort as campaign manager is an active one, with a further rumor putting Trump in favor of this and his children against it), the negotiation continues. It has been reportedly slowed not just by Ailes’ war-like posture, but because Rupert Murdoch is in the middle of it, full of angst and ambivalence and regret, changing the terms of the negotiation on an hourly basis. In real ways, Roger's end is his.