So now in the middle of everything it still comes down to the oldest story, relationships between men and women and the friction thereof.
The story began with Adam and Eve and won’t end with Roger Ailes and Gretchen Carlson, but that is the latest episode in terms of two sides and two different points of view. In a move that’s been rocking the world of broadcasting, Carlson has been dismissed from her anchor chair at Fox News; for low ratings, she was told.
She claims in a lawsuit that she’s the victim of sexual harassment, and names Roger Ailes who runs the Cable giant for Rupert Murdoch. Her lawyers say that other women suffer the same treatment in the same newsroom; all of it vigorously denied by the company and by a number of female staffers who are rallying to support Ailes.
Ever since the news broke a few days ago, I have been swamped with requests to comment, since “News Anchor Sweetheart” broke at about the same time -- my book that goes behind the scenes at a newsroom similar to Fox’s, and deals with an anchor whom readers identify as Megyn Kelly.
Call her what you will, my book is fiction.
A novelist’s main tool is his imagination, so I imagined, but as the great John W. Cassell used to say, “There is no fiction. Everything is fact.”
The book, readers say, mirrors elements of the late-breaking event at Fox.
Don’t blame me or credit me. I write. You decide.
I like Fox News and I like Roger Ailes, so I hope nobody gets hurt. Fox News is the only network that is proud to be American and it is certainly the only major news outlet (print or broadcast) that gives Israel an even break…to the relief of many who were fed up with only the leftist side of the story from dial to dial.
Upon the arrival of Fox News, Conservatives finally had a voice and no longer did we have to listen to CNN’s Ashley Banfield or Hanan Ashrawi justify the latest Arab atrocity against Israel, or hear correspondent Ben Wedeman complain that Hamas rockets were failing to reach their targets.
A newsroom is no place for the squeamish. The talk can be rough and raunchy.
We had choices. We had Fox News. Murdoch and Ailes played fair. If for whatever reason Ailes gets pushed out, he’d likely be replaced by someone far less favorable to Israel. Murdoch’s sons, gradually taking over the business, are no friends of the Jewish State – so the stakes are high.
On Ailes, who built the operation from the ground up, he can surely be called a broadcast genius. He took this late coming network and zoomed it over and above the competition within a couple of years. He dropped the traditional format of giving us dull white males to deliver the news.
Instead, he packed the house with brainy blondes. To sell news he chose sex appeal “Chick Power” in the novel). Is that sexist?
I grappled with that in the writing and concluded that indeed there is nothing new under the sun. So far as the warfare between men and women as to proper behavior, nothing has been settled. To insist on intimacy upon an unwilling partner, that is obviously wrong, criminally wrong and sinfully wrong.
But is it wrong to offer a compliment, to admire a woman for her appearance? That used to be okay, within limits.
Today that can be hazardous and is called objectifying. Tough call if you’re a guy and mean no harm. It’s for the woman to decide – or the courts.
Whatever your thoughts, it worked, the plan to staff Fox News with the finest minds in the business, who happened to be mostly female.
No bimbos in that building, but a newsroom is no place for the squeamish. The talk can be rough and raunchy.
There is no blushing in the news business. (Strangely, no word from Megyn on Ailes.)
Yes, lechery happens, as it happens in any workplace. As for Fox News, that’s for others to arrive at the truth.
The universal truth is that in the game between men and women, we still haven’t figured it out.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. New fiction from the novelist: “News Anchor Sweetheart.” Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” He is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com