Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Lawsuit Rocks Fox

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post is the target of some embarrassing and alarming allegations in a lawsuit filed by a fired employee, involving workplace sexual harassment, bigotry, discrimination and an alleged stated goal of the newspaper to “destroy” President Obama. The 38-page complaint filed by former employee Sandra Guzman claims she was fired in retaliation, after publicly condemning a racist cartoon published in the paper depicting President Obama as a dead chimpanzee.

Guzman likened the New York Post newsroom to a frat house, where racism and misogynistic behavior prevailed. The complaint also states that “Charles Hurt, the Post’s Washington D.C. Bureau Chief told Guzman that the Murdoch owned Post’s “goal is to destroy Barack Obama. We don’t want him to succeed.”

Senior Vice President for Programming Bill Shine recently admitted that Fox News had the goal of being “the voice of opposition” to the Obama administration. Murdoch also stated in a recent interview that he agrees with Glenn Beck that President Obama is a racist.

Some of the more salacious allegations in the suit are as follows:
On one occasion defendant Allan approached the group of women, pulled out his blackberry and asked them ‘What do you think of this?’ On his blackberry was a picture of a naked man lewdly and openly displaying his penis. When Ms. Guzman and the other female employees expressed their shock and disgust at being made to view the picture, Defendant Allan just smirked . . .

A White male senior editor sexually propositioned a young female Copy Assistant, telling her that ‘If you give me a blowjob, I will give you a permanent reporter job.’

On another occasion Defendant Allan approached a female employee during a party at the Post, rubbed his penis up against her and made sexually suggestive comments about her body, including her breasts, causing that female employee to feel extremely uncomfortable and fearing to be alone with him.

Also according to the suit, “The last five employees who were recently terminated by Paul Carlucci, the Publisher of the Post…. Have all been black and/or women of color.”

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