The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove wrote that the ousting of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes amid a sexual harassment lawsuit -- and the numerous other allegations of sexual harassment that have surfaced since the lawsuit was filed -- has made it “depressingly clear” that a culture of sexual harassment in newsrooms still exists “across an industry that continues to be dominated by men on top.”

Earlier this month, former Fox host Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit that alleged Roger Ailes fired her from the network after she declined his sexual advances. Since Carlson’s lawsuit, an additional 25 women reportedly came forward to make similar claims, including Fox host Megyn Kelly. On July 19, Fox’s parent company 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would leave Fox News as a result of the allegations. According to a New York magazine report, Fox executives knew about, and covered up, Ailes’ sexual harassment for over 20 years.

In a July 31 article, Grove highlighted that revelations about Ailes “make it depressing clear” that a culture of sexism and harassment “has apparently persisted well into the 21st century, not only at Fox News but across an industry that continues to be dominated by men on top.” Grove noted that “With the exception of NBC News president Deborah Turness … no woman has ever led an American broadcast or cable news division” and highlighted Betsy West, a professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, explaining that “When women are in positions of authority, that makes a huge difference.” From the article:

Yet the revelations surrounding Roger Ailes—resulting in the Fox News founder’s shocking forced resignation—make it depressingly clear that the Age of Enlightenment is still a long way off.

The allegations exposed by fired Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson’s sensational July 6 lawsuit against the network’s ex-chairman were only the beginning as multiple women have come forward in the past three weeks to tell their own stories of harassment and abuse.

[...]

At a moment when one of the major political parties has just nominated a woman to be president of the United States—and women are running S&P 500 companies like General Motors, Xerox, Occidental Petroleum, PepsiCo, and General Dynamics (with Sheryl Sandberg the No. 2 executive of the planet’s sixth largest company, Facebook)—the television news business is a sociocultural anachronism.

With the exception of NBC News president Deborah Turness (whose authority was abruptly curtailed after less than two years, during the Brian Williams scandal, when former NBC News chief Andy Lack returned in April 2015 to take charge), no woman has ever led an American broadcast or cable news division.

“When women are in positions of authority, that makes a huge difference,” says West, a professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism after three decades in broadcast news,  “but if you look at the statistics, about 70 percent of the news directors are men at the local-station level. And in network, there just aren’t that many uber-bosses who are women…Ultimately what will change this whole picture is when women are really represented at all levels.”

It’s revealing that of the possible Ailes successors mentioned in recently published speculation, not one has been female—even though Rupert Murdoch (who owes the 76-year-old Ailes bigtime for creating a rich profit center for Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox) and  Rupert’s sons Lachlan and James (who by most accounts leveraged Carlson’s lawsuit into Ailes’s swift departure) could reap significant PR rewards, and possibly help fix a festering problem, by appointing a woman to run the place.