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FROM LA TIMES
By Stephen Battaglio
Fox News is once again confronting allegations of sexual misconduct by its senior news staff.
A former Fox News employee and a guest allege in a federal lawsuit that they were subjected to a variety of sexually inappropriate behavior by ex-anchor Ed Henry and two of the channel’s biggest stars, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court by Jennifer Eckhart, who worked at the network from 2014 to 2020; and Cathy Areu, an occasional unpaid guest on the network. They allege that Fox News protected and rewarded “perpetrators of sexual harassment and refuses to take accountability for putting such persons in positions of power from which they can subject women to sexual misconduct …”
The suit also said that Eckhart, whose complaint led to the firing of Henry , was raped by the former anchor in a New York hotel room in 2017.
The complaints come after Fox News had revamped its human resources department and stated a commitment to creating a safe workplace for employees after a prolonged sexual harassment scandal that ended the tenures of the channel’s founding Chief Executive Roger Ailes and former prime-time anchor Bill O’Reilly.
In 2016, Fox News paid $20 million to former anchor Gretchen Carlson , whose lawsuit charging Ailes with harassment is considered ground zero in the #MeToo movement.
The suit on behalf of the women, represented by Douglas Wigdor, who has handled numerous harassment and racial discrimination cases against Fox News, said, “some of the names in leadership may have changed since Roger Ailes’ regime, but Fox News’ institutional apathy towards sexual misconduct has not.”
Fox News said in a statement that it fired Henry shortly after Eckhart filed a complaint. The company said the allegations against other employees named in the suit were investigated and found to be baseless. Eckhart left Fox News in mid-June.
