Angelo Carusone Statement On Bill Shine Resigning As Co-President Of Fox News

Media Matters President: “To Truly Remedy Its Culture Of Harassment, Fox News Also Needs To Change Its Attitude About Women”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Media Matters president Angelo Carusone released the following statement after Fox News co-president Bill Shine, a long-time Roger Ailes ally, resigned from the network. Shine’s departure comes just two weeks after Fox News was forced to fire Bill O’Reilly when advertisers boycotted his show because of reports of serial sexual harassment:

The departure of Bill Shine proves what women at Fox News, Media Matters and others have been saying from the beginning: that the epidemic of sexual harassment at Fox News was not limited to the actions of a few well-known figures -- and that instead it was indicative of a deeper culture of harassment. That culture was cultivated by Roger Ailes -- and perpetuated and maintained by Fox News executives, like Bill Shine. What took so long?

I’ll repeat what I said when Fox News fired O’Reilly: Fox News deserves no accolades for this action, only scorn for the industrial scale harassment the network forced its employees to endure.

The Murdochs and 21st Century Fox had no intention of firing Bill Shine or addressing Fox News’ sexual harassment until forced. Even today Rupert Murdoch refused to criticize Shine, let alone fire him. With O’Reilly, it was advertisers leaving. With Bill Shine, it appears that they didn’t want his apparent malfeasance and their neglect to interfere with their efforts to take over Sky News in the U.K. and Tribune Media in the United States.

Carusone added,

Also, this doesn’t fix Fox News’ harassment problem. It’s just the most basic accountability the network could have delivered. All you need to do is watch 30 minutes of Fox News’ programming and you can see that harassment of women goes hand in hand with the right-wing ideology at the network’s core. To truly remedy its culture of harassment, Fox News also needs to change its attitude about women.

Bill Shine was promoted to co-president after former president and CEO Roger Ailes’ ouster in August 2016 over repeated sexual harassment complaints and lawsuits.

Shine has been described as Ailes’ “right-hand man,” and according to New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, Shine “played a role in rallying the women to speak out against Roger Ailes’ accusers and lead this counter-narrative to try to say don't believe Gretchen Carlson.” Shine was also referenced in various lawsuits against the network for his “complicity”.