Fox News sure seems like it wants to keep its Tucker Carlson-associated secrets very secret.
On Friday, the network settled a lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, a former employee who was the chief booker for Carlson’s program.
Fox News will fork over $12 million, a substantially large amount for a toxic work environment suit.
Grossberg must have endured an almost impossible situation.
And Fox News is giving every appearance that it doesn’t want details concerning that environment hitting the press.
Grossberg issued a short statement through her attorney, as NPR reported:
“I am hopeful, based on our discussions with Fox News today, that this resolution represents a positive step by the Network regarding its treatment of women and minorities in the workplace.”
Despite Fox News’s best efforts, some details regarding the disgusting work environment did emerge, giving one a sense of why the networkwas willing to pay such a large sum.
Grossberg worked in hellish conditions.
The suit alleged a hostile work environment riven by sexism and antisemitism.
As but one example, Grossberg described images around the office featuring then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a bathing suit covering very little of her chest.
She also accused a supervisor of polling staffers twice (!) to call out which of two female candidates for the Michigan governor’s race they would rather have sex with.
As if that were not enough, she endured “jokes” about her Jewish heritage.
Finally, perhaps because this is Fox News, she learned she was paid less than male colleagues in the same position despite working on Fox News’s highest-rated show.
And those are just the allegations that made it to the outside world.
One can rest assured that Grossberg — like all sophisticated plaintiffs — held some of the worst facts back to spring during discovery.
Grossberg’s complaints were not only unaddressed but offensively answered, according to NPR’s report:
“At the crux of her suit was the assertion that the culture echoed Carlson’s own sensibility — and the often harshly sexist and racist remarks he made on his program. In an interview in late April, Grossberg told NPR that her complaints were dismissed by a supervisor. ‘His response to me was, “We’re just following Tucker’s tone,”‘ she said on Morning Edition. ‘And I do really believe that it all trickles down from the top.’”
Now we understand a bit more about why Tucker, the human ATM machine for Fox News, couldn’t be kept around. His show would be an open ATM machine for more lawsuits.
It is also a look into Tucker’s personality, though there seem to be quite a few staff members on the show that contributed to the environment.
It also forces one to wonder whether Tucker Carlson is capable of learning anything, given that he is talking about new ventures, including his new show on Twitter, cleverly titled Tucker on Twitter.
And while Grossberg is now done with Fox News, Tucker is back into “Lawyer v. Lawyer” over whether he’s violating the non-compete clause in his contract.
It sounds like competing with the horrific work environment would be tough.
But if anyone could.
“It came from the top down.”
Original reporting by David Folkenflic of NPR
I can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com and on Twitter @JasonMiciak.
Editor’s note: This is an opinion column that solely reflects the opinions of the author.
The post $12 MILLION: Fox News settles toxic workplace suit from Tucker Carlson’s producer appeared first on Occupy Democrats.
This content was originally published here.