While the media cycle has moved on from the O’Reilly scandal, Fox News’s nightmare continues as it undergoes a federal investigation into the network’s response to sexual harassment allegations. In light of this probe, some new details have come to light in regards to Fox News’s efforts to attack the women who brought sexual harassment allegations against male members of staff.
Bo Dietl, a former Fox News contributor and current NYC mayor hopeful, is one of the folks being interviewed for his role in the network’s misogynist acts to protect its male harassers. Salon reports:
Bo Dietl, a private investigator who is currently a candidate for mayor in New York City, admitted in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he was hired to spy on female Fox News Channel employees who had alleged sexual harassment in an attempt to discredit their allegations.
A former city police detective, Dietl told the Journal that his firm was retained to look into the backgrounds of two female Fox News employees, Gretchen Carlson and Andrea Mackris, who had initiated legal proceedings against network heavyweights. Mackris sued onetime Fox News star Bill O’Reilly in 2004 for serial sexual harassment. Carlson sued the network’s then-CEO Roger Ailes in 2016 on similar grounds. Both men denied the charges but the two women were given multimillion-dollar settlements.
It really seems that the house of cards Fox News made is slowly collapsing. Just last week, they were hit with another lawsuit by radio correspondent Jessica Golloher, who claims she was fired after using the company’s sexual harassment hotline.