Fox News staffers are worried that O'Reilly's departure is just the beginning: report

Who will be next to go at Fox?

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published April 20, 2017 1:18PM (EDT)

 (Rainmaker Photo/mediapunch/mediapunch/ipx)
(Rainmaker Photo/mediapunch/mediapunch/ipx)

Fox News' decision to fire Bill O'Reilly may still be making ripples throughout the world of cable news, but a new report indicates that within Fox News, employees are worried that the worst isn't over yet.

While some Fox News staffers were happy that O'Reilly had been fired, others were crying, according to a recent report by Vanity Fair. One Fox News insider told the publication that "there's more to come" — referring to other women who will go public about sexual harassment that they endured at the hands of their co-workers at the network. Two other people who claimed to have heard such stories directly shared the same observation. In addition, there are concerns that 21st Century Fox's handling of the allegations will draw scrutiny within the company.

O'Reilly himself did not find out that he had been fired until Wednesday morning, as he was heading to the important from a vacation in Italy.

Things were particularly tense with Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, who needed to be persuaded by his sons Lachlan and James that O'Reilly's departure was necessary. Murdoch spent much of Wednesday going to closed-door meetings with on-air personalities at the network in order to inform them of what their jobs would be in the post-O'Reilly era.

One indication that the Fox News maelstrom has not yet subsided is that Nancy Erika Smith, the lawyer who represented Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky in their lawsuits against former Fox News executive Roger Ailes, said in a statement that "a couple of men close to retirement got pushed into retirement early with a whole lot of money. Until Fox News releases every woman from confidentiality and arbitration agreements and until they get rid of the executives who enabled the harassment, the workplace will not be safe for women."


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

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Bill O’reilly Fox News Sexism