The swift downfall of political journalist Mark Halperin has the TV news business bracing for more revelations of sexual harassment. Halperin’s contract with NBC News was terminated Monday, several days after allegations that he sexually harassed a dozen women during his tenure at ABC News.
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News said Monday it has terminated its contract with Mark Halperin, the political journalist who was accused of sexual harassment by several women when he […]
Lionsgate executive Andrew Kramer’s recent exit from the independent studio followed allegations that he harassed a subordinate. Kramer had served as COO of international for Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group since 2013. Prior to that, he spent seven years at the Weinstein Co., where he was president of business and legal affairs and general counsel.
Fox has devoted more than 12½ hours of airtime to the Harvey Weinstein story since Oct. 5, when The New York Times broke the story about his misconduct, according to the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America. By contrast, Fox has spent 20 minutes, 46 seconds, on the accusations against Bill O’Reilly since the Times revealed many of them in April, the group said. A news organization’s instinct to downplay a story that reflects poorly on itself isn’t unusual. But in this case, some are attributing the disparity to politics.
Exclusives
Rick Najera, longtime director of CBS’ Diversity Sketch Comedy Showcase, is out at the network following allegations of sexual harassment.
Following a CNN report Wednesday evening that detailed sexual harassment allegations from five women against journalist Mark Halperin, MSNBC has issued a statement saying that he’s currently out at that network and NBC News.
Mark Halperin, who is a regular on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, is apologizing for what he terms “inappropriate” behavior after five women claimed he sexually harassed them while he was a top ABC News executive.
O’Reilly, Ailes Loom Over Fox’s Business
Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes haven’t worked for 21st Century Fox in months. Indeed, Ailes, who built and led the company’s financial engine, Fox News, passed away earlier this year. But their shadows continue to hover over some of the corporation’s most critical business efforts.
Los Angeles police detectives have interviewed a possible victim who recently reported she was sexually assaulted by film mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2013.
Amanda Segel, a former executive producer of the Spike sci-fi series The Mist, claims Bob Weinstein made repeated overtures to her that included invitations to dinner, to his home and to a hotel room. He denies the claim.
Ray Price was put on leave last week following sexual harassment allegations and had not been expected to return. An Amazon spokesman confirmed the resignation Tuesday and had no additional comment.
Roy Price, the head of Amazon Studios and global content at Amazon Video, was put on a leave of absence Thursday following allegations by producer Isa Hackett that Price propositioned her with crudely suggestive language after a 2015 Comic-Con event in San Diego.
Did The Media Help Weinstein Quash Claims?
It wasn’t just the complicit silence around Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment that made it so dangerous. It was the opposite of silence, too. It was the public humiliation that could be used to retaliate against alleged victims who spoke out. Weinstein used the media like a bludgeon to keep his alleged victims in line, by many accounts. He did it skillfully — and with plenty of help.
In the course of a 10-month investigation by The New Yorker, 13 women said that, between the 1990s and 2015, Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them. The allegations that corroborate and overlap with the New York Times’ revelations, and also include far more serious claims. Three women said that Weinstein raped them.
Three days was all it took to topple one of Hollywood’s most high-profile and sharp-elbowed moguls — a combative power player who, like few ever have, regularly dominated the Academy Awards. But it was the all-powerful Harvey Weinstein who was ousted Sunday night from the company he co-founded and that bears his name. Following a devastating New York Times expose that detailed years of sexual harassment allegations against Weinstein, the Weinstein Co. co-chairman was unceremoniously fired by his brother, Bob, and three other directors on the film and TV company’s board.
The Weinstein Co.’s television operations have been far more successful than the company’s feature business in the past few years. Harvey Weinstein has been adept at packaging projects and leveraging his connections to meet the voracious demand for TV content. But that business is in jeopardy with the detailed revelations of alleged sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior that Weinstein allegedly exhibited in the context of his work as a producer.
An investigation by The New York Times found previously undisclosed allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein stretching over nearly three decades, documented through interviews with current and former employees and film industry workers, as well as legal records, emails and internal documents from the businesses he has run, Miramax and the Weinstein Co.
21st Century Fox paid off a woman who accused former top executive David Hill of sexual misconduct while he ran Fox Sports, two individuals with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap. The payment happened in 1998, and suggests Fox had issues with sexual harassment long before the investigations that led to the exits of Fox News star Bill O’Reilly and founder Roger Ailes, and the ouster of Fox Sports President Jamie Horowitz last month.
Prosecutors have taken testimony from several witnesses, including Laurie Luhn, about her severance package and how it was recorded on Fox’s books
For many female employees at Fox News these days, the mood is one of fear and disappointment, several current and former employees told CNNMoney. The revelation that Fox renewed its contract with O’Reilly — even after he, the company, and parent corporation together or separately paid a total of $13 million in settlements to five women who accused him of sexual harassment or verbal abuse — dealt a crushing blow to employees’ faith in the company’s claim that it had zero tolerance for sexual harassment.
Shelley Ross, once one of the most powerful women in TV news, writes on resisting Roger Ailes’s invitation to have a ‘sexual alliance’ with him, the epidemic of sexual harassment in TV news, and how to solve it.
HLN’s Female Hosts Talk Sexual Harassment
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Three female anchors on cable’s HLN channel saluted Gretchen Carlson, the former Fox News Channel newswoman who recently sued the network’s chairman alleging years of […]
If the Murdochs were hoping the removal of Roger Ailes from Fox News was going to bring to an end the controversy that has enveloped the organization, they were sorely mistaken. Reports from The New York Times and New York magazine Saturday made clear that Ailes wasn’t the only Fox News executive who may have sexually harassed female on-air talent.
