Fox News... in the news again

It seems there is a culture of sexual harrassment and bias at Fox News. First, our favourite piece of slime, Bill O'Reilly takes a hit for sexual harrassment and now we learn that it may just be that he was aping his superiors. So, it's not really O'Reilly's fault; maybe he's just too stupid to know when he's doing something wrong.

This from the New York Times....

By JULIA
PRESTON
Published: November 8, 2005
The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against the Fox News network,
claiming it harassed and discriminated against its female employees, creating a
"hostile work environment because of their sex."
The suit, filed in Federal
District Court in Manhattan, is based on an investigation by the commission,
with headquarters in Washington, of a claim brought by a former Fox employee,
Kim Weiler.
"We investigated the allegations and charges that were made and
found them to be baseless," said Steven Mintz of the New York law firm Mintz
& Gold, which represented Fox News in the commission's investigation. "Fox
News questions the motivations behind the charges." Mr. Mintz declined to
elaborate further yesterday evening.
The commission claims that a Fox vice
president, Joe Chillemi, "routinely used gross obscenities and vulgarities when
describing women or their body parts," language that it says Mr. Chillemi "did
not use with male employees." The suit contends that Mr. Chillemi "routinely
cursed at and otherwise denigrated women employees," telling them to "be a man."
The suit charges that Mr. Chillemi, in a discussion about a television
segment focusing on sexism in the workplace, said, "Of course I'd pick the man"
if he had to choose between a woman and a man for the same position, because he
was concerned that a woman could become pregnant and leave her job. Mr. Chillemi
is described in the suit as the supervisor of the Fox Advertising and Promotions
Department.
The suit became public on the courthouse docket in the late
afternoon.
The suit charges that Fox routinely relegated female employees to
freelance work and less secure jobs. It says that Ms. Weiler was "constructively
discharged" as a result of the network's practices. It was not clear whether Ms.
Weiler was fired.
The lawsuit seeks to force Fox to institute policies to
correct what it calls the discrimination against women at the news network and
demands punitive damages.