Fox News is currently under fire for renewing Bill O’Reilly’s contract while apparently being aware of his alleged history of sexual harassment (O’Reilly, who was fired this summer, denies any wrongdoing). Countless stories and cable news segments have been devoted to lambasting Fox News over this, with no end in sight.
Although no one in our corrupt media will ever have the moral courage to say so, ABC News and the Walt Disney Company appear to be guilty of the exact same thing.
We will start with ABC News.
According to five women, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Mark Halperin, the political director for ABC News at the time, allegedly engaged in harassment and sexual misconduct ranging from unwanted advances to grabbing one woman’s breast to rubbing his clothed but erect penis up against three others. Halperin, who was with NBC News until being fired Thursday morning over these allegations, has admitted to propositioning subordinates but denies touching anyone.
While ABC News claims that no one ever filed any kind of complaint against Halperin during those years, the left-wing CNN reports that, “One person who formerly worked with Halperin … believe they had heard enough to warrant reporting the whispers to management.”
Moreover, CNN’s Clarissa Ward tweeted out that while she worked at ABC News, Halperin’s behavior was an “open secret.”
If in fact Halperin’s behavior was an “open secret” and management knew about it, ABC News is just as guilty of looking the other way as Fox News.
ABC News is owned by the Walt Disney Company, but Disney’s “Fox News problem” goes much deeper than this.
Between 1993 and 2005, Disney owned Miramax while it was being run by Harvey Weinstein, the now-disgraced movie mogul currently facing more than 50 allegations of everything from sexual harassment to rape (Weinstein denies any nonconsensual sex). According to the New York Times, during Weinstein’s tenure under Disney, Weinstein paid out at least one settlement brought on by charges of sexual misconduct. In 1997, actress Rose McGowan received $100,000.
McGowan now alleges Weinstein raped her.
Over the decades, the New York Times claims Weinstein paid out at least eight settlements, but we do not yet know the dates.
Moreover, a number of people who worked with Weinstein during the Disney era claim that his behavior was an “open secret.” Matt Damon admits that he and Ben Affleck knew that Weinstein had harassed actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Director Quentin Tarantino said he knew. Screenwriter Scott Rosenberg says “everybody f**king knew.”
If McGowan was paid off with corporate cash, with Disney’s dollars, is it possible Disney did not know?
Furthermore, is it possible no one at Disney was aware of this “open secret?”
At the very least, if the stunning reports are true about the Weinstein Company — this is the company Weinstein and his brother Bob co-founded after leaving Disney in 2005 — Weinstein was not exactly hiding his alleged predations from his fellow executives. Apparently, Weinstein’s contract with the Weinstein Company allowed for sexual harassment.
If our corrupt media does not dig into what Disney and ABC News knew and when they knew it, lawsuits might be the only way to get to the truth.
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