Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/809886
FoxNews,wherewomenworkattheirown risk in a misogynist culture frozen some- where in the 1950s, is back in crisis mode. Nine months a er chairman and accused sexual harasser Roger Ailes was forced out, we're wondering whether accused sexual harasser Bill O'Reilly will be forced out, too. Don'tholdyourbreath. I don't write much about O'Reilly, although it was fun two years ago to recount his phony boasts of covering a war that was actu- ally 1,000 miles away from his hotel. But now attention must be paid, be- cause his new flap is for the highest stakes. It's morals versus money. Advertisers are currently fleeing "The O'Reilly Fac- tor," indicating in press re- leases that they prefer not to be associated with an old- school male chauvinist who has cost his company $13 million to settle sexual ha- rassment claims. The news about O'Reilly — who alleg- edly made sexual advances to his five female accusers, and when rebuked, hurt the wom- en's careers — broke bigly over the weekend, and more than dozen bailing sponsors have scrambled onto the high road. Mercedes-Benz is pat- ting itself on the back: "The allegations are disturbing and, given the importance of women in every aspect of our business, we don't feel this is a good environment in which to advertise our prod- ucts right now." Ditto cloth- ing company UNTICKit: "It is important that our cor- porate partners reflect the same principals of inclusivity and equality upon which we have built our brand." Ditto the pharmaceutical company Bayer, which says it "sup- ports a safe, respectful and non-abusive environment for women." All very noble. But let's not get carried away, because the firms are ultimately beholden to the business of making money. These sponsors are merely shifting their ads to other Fox shows, which means that O'Reilly's notoriety isn't cost- ing Fox News a penny. Plus, the network gets most of its revenue from licensing fees paid by cable and sat- ellite operators, so it's cush- ioned from any sponsor re- bellion. And if the spon- sors truly wanted to take a moral stand, they'd bail on Fox News entirely. After all, the network, which claims to have "zero tolerance" for sex- ual harassment, just renewed its contract with O'Reilly last year after it paid off female accusers. Unfortunately, the sponsors have shown no in- terest in cutting the cord completely. Granted, ad boycotts have worked on occasion. MS- NBC nixed the simulcast of Don Imus' radio show, and Glenn Beck left Fox News af- ter sponsors fled his TV pro- gram. But Bill O'Reilly may be too big to fail. To use the mob's termi- nology, O'Reilly is an earner. He makes $18 million a year, which is dwarfed by the bucks his show brings in: $446 million ad-revenue dol- lars got pumped into Fox cof- fers between 2014 and 2016. That's likely deemed to be more important to Fox execu- tives than the sex harassment stuff — like, for instance, the allegation that O'Reilly told one woman to buy a vibra- tor, and serenaded the same woman by phone with mas- turbation noises. By the way, O'Reilly says he has never harassed any- one, that he routinely draws accusers just because he's fa- mous, and that he and Fox have paid off the women be- cause "I'm a father who cares deeply for my children...I have put to rest any contro- versies to spare my children." In February 2016 he lost cus- tody of his children, who said they wanted to live with their mother. Bottom line is, money talks. One Fox source told New York magazine's Ga- briel Sherman (the journal- ist with the best Fox sources), "The impact of these boycotts can be cosmetic. The feeling is, let's keep our heads down and hope this blows over." Which may well happen. Here's another remark, from a different source: "We've seen this many times in the past. Some of the advertisers that left will come back, and some will be replaced. Life will go on." That remark was uttered in 2012 by Michael Harrison, who publishes a talk radio magazine. He was referring to Rush Limbaugh — who, at the time, was hemorrhaging advertisers after he ridiculed a law student, a birth control user, as a "slut" and a "pros- titute." You may remember that flap. Scores of big-ticket advertisers, from Capitol One to Quicken Loans, said they would no longer do business with Rush. Critics gleefully tallied the boycotters and awaited Rush's downfall. Last August, Rush inked a new contract with his overlords at Premiere Ra- dio Networks — for an- other four years. You get my point. Perhaps Peggy Drexler, an author and gender scholar, is right when she says that the O'Reilly scandal will ultimately help women — "the more we hear about... the mistreatment of women in the workplace and any- where, the more women are likely to band together to hasten that change" — but Rupert Murdoch and his old-boy underlings are fine with Fox's toxic culture if it works for the balance sheet. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. DickPolman IsBillO'Reilly too big to fail? Cartoonist's take A rather obvious, glar- ing note of irony (even hypoc- risy), over Pres. Trump's mis- sile strike on Syria, was ig- nored by our news media, vig- ilant to protect Barack Obama's ephemeral leg- acy, while avoid- ing any vindica- tion of Obama's predecessor. It's simply this: When G. Bush was "wrong" on Iraq's WMDs (remnants but no stockpiles), it was "Bush lied, people died"; but as Obama/ Susan Rice/John Kerry were proven wrong about the "100 percent" removal of Syria's WMDs to Russia, we had vir- tual crickets from the Demo- crat press. A CNN interviewer had a Syrian man responding live over Trump's action; she cued up a softball question and ob- viously expected an answer criticizing Trump for not tak- ing in Syrian refugees while ordering a limited missile strike. To her speechless sur- prise, he praised Trump, lam- basted Obama (over phony "red lines") and insisted on ex- pressing the heartfelt determi- nation of many Syrians to sim- ply be protected from dictator Assad where they live and not become America-bound refu- gees. I recall that we had the same scenario when Bush's military invaded Iraq, to wel- coming cheers and flowers from many Iraqis; the MSN buried that joyous reaction so as not to reflect well on then- President Bush. On a related note, Rush reminded his lis- teners on Monday that during the "Arab spring" upheaval, a CNN reporter urged Egyp- tians, in interviews, to credit community-organizer-in-chief Obama for the fall of strong- man Hosni Mubarak and the election of Mohamed Morsi. "We did this; Obama didn't do anything" retorted one man. CNN amazingly still cred- ited Obama. Had ocean lev- els fallen, sycophantic media would have thanked Obama. Further illustrating the ob- session of mainstream news (MSN) with protecting and burnishing the reputation of Democrats, we had CNN/ NYT coverage of Hillary Clin- ton's first public address at the "Women in the World" summit in New York City. Those who had pinned their fervent hopes for America's first woman president on Hillary probably found reassurance in the as- signing of blame she shared with listeners, as reported by MSN. Those not enamored of the failed candidate probably shook their heads in astonish- ment at the display of contin- ued delusion. Read the CNNPolitics.com article for yourself. "Clinton on Russian election meddling: 'More effective even than Wa- tergate'" sums up Hillary's ra- tionalizations and excuse-mak- ing—or, to paraphrase, "It's ev- eryone else's fault, you idiots." Her actual words: "A foreign power (Russia) meddled with our election and did so in a way that we are learning more about every single day"…The Russian hackings appeared to be a "more effective theft even than Watergate." She accused Russian President Putin of wanting to "sow distrust and confusion, and influence our election." On white women vot- ing for Trump: "certainly mi- sogyny played a role." "Hillary Clinton: A lot of other people are to blame for my 2016 election loss," by John Sexton, also recounted her re- sponses in interviews. The fac- tors that she cited included "The outside intervention—the combination of the [FBI Di- rector] Comey letter on Oc- tober 28th; Wikileaks, which played a much bigger role than I think many people under- stand yet—had the determi- native effect." She described the Wikileaks/Russia interfer- ence as being "successful in in- fluencing voters…It was really the weaponization of informa- tion. It created doubts in peo- ple" and moved the election to- wards Trump in the end. Let's try to "unpack" this, given space constraints. I could provide "The top 10 of the (so far) top 100 wikileaks" (Andrew Bolton, 10/3 016); or "A List Of The 17 Most Dam- aging WikiLeaks Emails Re- leased So Far" (Hannity.com Staff, 10/17/2016). WikiLeaks revelations were simply not very well covered by MSN; you'd be unable to show how any sizable blocks of voters were swayed to abandon Hill- ary for Trump, given her win- ning margin of 2.9 million votes (thanks to LA and SF Bay counties' 5 million Hillary sur- plus over Trump). The blue-collar, working and middle class voting mar- gin in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan gave Trump his winning 46 Electoral College vote win; I assure you they were not Hillary voters that heard about WikiLeaks and went to Trump. The only thin reed on which she (and the en- tire Democrat/media complex) hang their "Russia meddling swung the election" narra- tive is the WikiLeaks expo- sure of the DNC emails (hack- ing of the RNC happened, but failed); John Podesta's em- barrassing emails resulted from his clumsy response to a "phishing" attack. That did not change the election; no way, try again. The narrative fails. Remember, regarding the Comey letter, impartial legal analysis found the only im- pediment to Comey bringing charges against Hillary was her "lack of intent." Hillary's intent was pretty obvious to voters paying attention, Com- ey's exoneration aside. "The Comey letter wouldn't have mattered if it didn't play into pre-existing concerns many people had about Hillary. "Of course there's a very good reason people were sus- ceptible to serious doubts about her character. First, there were the blatant lies she offered the public from before she was a candidate until late in the campaign. Then there was the time she spent avoid- ing questions and the times her subordinates spent pleading the 5th to avoid incriminating themselves. The result is some- one who doesn't appear very trustworthy." (J. Sexton) More should be written on how the real scandal exceeded Watergate corruption and po- litical manipulation; on the real "weaponization" of the federal agencies that worked with a "weaponized" press to engage in unprecedented sub- version and sabotage of Don- ald Trump, America's legiti- mately-elected president, from November through now, as I see it. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The way I see it Syrian praise, Hillary's delusion To use the mob's terminology, O'Reilly is an earner. He makes $18 million a year, which is dwarfed by the bucks his show brings in: $446 million ad- revenue dollars got pumped into Fox coffers between 2014 and 2016. ChipThompson, Editor How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. 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