My FX career was in hindsight shorter than a lot of others’ but it could have been way shorter than that had the kind of human resources policies that seem to be in vogue today been in place then.
Shortly into my tenure, I was hauled into a daunting conference room where a prissy outside investigator was sitting side by side with our otherwise intimidating “HR business partner”. I learned that one of my colleagues was suspected of stalking our boss and that it had escalated to the point where he had contacted authorities about it. The investigator had already scraped his e-mail to determine who he had communicated with most often and mine had bubbled toward the top of their list.
I had been in a bit of a spiral at the time while I was dealing with the aftermath of my first divorce and coming to grips with my ballooning weight and declining health, so I know I indulged my colleague more than I otherwise should have. That probably saved me, since I spent way more time sharing my own issues than I did reacting to what he would frequently confess to me. While the details that emerged–thankfully privately–were embarassing they didn’t quite escalate to the level that they deemed one of my more understanding and stable staffers’ did. She was placed on suspension with pay, leaving my already small team depleted and bereft just as our workload was beginning to increase as the network’s revamping unfolded. You could not have found a less conspiratorial or devious human being if you had hired three of the outside investigators to work nonstop to find one. She was devastated, and I wound up often consoling her through the process–not by e-mail, of course.
Eventually, it was determined that she had done nothing illegal or even immoral—quelle surprise—and she was quietly allowed to return back to work. She actually wound up staying there slightly longer than I did. Indeed, different times than there are now.
These uncomfortable memories were triggered by yesterday’s news of how FOX dealt with one of its current employees–releasing a terse statement that TOO MUCH TELEVISION’s Rick Ellis recapped in his newsletter last night:
Fox News said Thursday that it had parted ways with longtime anchor Maria Bartiromo, a vocal defender of President Donald Trump who hosted Mornings with Maria and Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street on Fox Business, while also anchoring Sunday Morning Futures on the Fox News Channel. “We thank Maria for her work over the lasts 12½ years and wish her all the best on her next chapter,” a spokesperson said in a statement that did not elaborate further. The statement also noted her departure was “effective immediately.”
More significantly, Ellis also chose to share through his free-to-subscribers site what Puck’s Dylan Byers and his capitalistic partners had earlier used as clickbait catnip:
| (T)he firing was over some leaked emails:
Maria Bartiromo wanted to pursue a story related to China and 2020 election voting conspiracies… a major sensitivity for the network given its Dominion and Smartmatic lawsuits. |
| A Fox Business executive sent a text to Fox Business producers informing them that that story could not go to air. |
| Bartiromo took a screen shot of the guidance and sent it to senior White House officials. |
| Fox News leadership learned about that after receiving a call from the White House, which they viewed as a fireable offense. |
| Fox pulled Bartiromo from air after Aug. 9. She was fired today. I have also learned that her executive producer Patrick Ignozzi was also fired after the announcement. |
| Maria had resigned her contract with Fox last February. |
Look, assuming that’s all true, Bartiromo absolutely deserved to be let go. That said, she’s hardly the first of her team to engage in such behavior–and given the track records of who’s still there, I can’t fathom she’ll be the last. In this wake, reminders are out there that FOX had previously been bold enough–or perhaps financially at enough risk–to part ways with Tucker Carlson, who meant way more to their bottom line that Bartiromo currently does. That said, Sean Hannity is still gainfully employed. Hannity’s equally fealty communiques–especially those involving the programming decisions post-2020 election-are a matter of public record. Lara Trump, FFS, has a primetime show of her own. One would suspect more than a few e-mails involving her pop-in-law might exist, especially the ones that might have inferred she’s hot enough where she could have done better than the idiot son.
It’s this sort of selective enforcement that even had a competitor expressing sympathy, as THE DAILY BEAST’s Ewan Palmer reported early this morning:
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins has detailed the ruthless way Maria Bartiromo was fired by Fox News for allegedly leaking confidential company information to Donald Trump’s White House…“It was a pretty unceremonious exit, with no televised sign-off or real acknowledgment beyond a terse statement thanking her for her 12 and a half years of work at the network,” Collins said.
As to next steps, it’s got the political yentas and the prediction markets ablaze. Per Ellis, Bartiromo has retained shark Bryan Freedman as counsel, so don’t run her a church bazaar any time soon. And you can apparently get some pretty decent odds on Polymarket on where she might land. Wonder what Lara’s e-mails are saying about that?
A far less consequential but equally disingenuous handling of an internal manner is also unfolding at another one of my former employers. Yesterday’s alerts were also abuzz with this revealing update from THE DAILY MAIL’s Brian Marks:
Jim Thornton, the suspended announcer of Wheel of Fortune, is reportedly being cut out of the show’s new season now that he’s the subject of an investigation by Sony Pictures Television Studios. According to TMZ, sources with behind-the-scenes knowledge said that a month’s worth of episodes for the new season have already been shot ahead of its September 14 premiere…It’s unclear if the change in announcers is intended to be permanent, or if Thornton could return to the series at the conclusion of his suspension.
The publication previously reported on Tuesday that the longtime Wheel of Fortune announcer had been suspended from the series while an investigation was launched by Sony Pictures Television Studios…In a statement to the Daily Mail, Sony said: ‘We have recently been made aware of allegations concerning Jim Thornton. He has been suspended from Wheel of Fortune and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation.’ The statement notably didn’t give any indication of what allegations had been leveled.
TMZ reported that the investigation stems from a commercial American Airlines flight Thornton took in May, during which another passenger allegedly complained about him to a flight attendant. The situation was apparently serious enough that the plane’s pilot arranged to have law enforcement waiting for Thornton once he reached the gate.
Thornton’s attorney told TMZ that the announcer ‘did not engage in any illegal conduct, was not arrested, and has not been charged with any crime.’ ‘When questioned about the complaint made by a fellow passenger on the flight, law enforcement spoke to him for five minutes or less, immediately determined that no wrongdoing had occurred and told my client he was free to go.
Now add to that what THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS’ Jessica Schladebeck shared mere minutes ago:
Thornton’s suspension was triggered after he was allegedly spotted looking at a pedophile support chatroom onboard an American Airlines flight back in May, according to a report. In images obtained by TMZ, the longtime television host can be seen seated on the plane, his laptop out in front of him on his tray table. He appeared to be scrolling on a website called lifeline.chat, a web service apparently dedicated to helping those with pedophilic thoughts. One message appeared to refer to the eatery, Golden Corral, as “an all-you-can-eat Boyfett” while another mentioned a “Couple of cute boys and a hot little girl.”
In a statement to TMZ, Thornton’s lawyer Allison Hart, said he was on the page by mistake and that he instead intended to visit the suicide prevention website, 988lifeline.org. Thornton has “become active in suicide-prevention advocacy since losing a close family member to suicide two years ago, and he has spent time visiting chat rooms offering support to individuals suffering from suicidal ideation,” Hart said, adding that the announcer exited the chatroom when he realized his mistake. Timestamps from the images indicate that the announcer was in the chatroom for at least 57 minutes.
I know plenty of folks that personally know Thornton, and if it indeed turns out he was an active participant in such environs that would be a complete shock to those much more connected to him and indeed he would be revealed to be as career suicidal as was Bartiromo. But that’s hardly established fact at this point. Aside from the fact that a would-be citizen journalist couldn’t help but stare at his laptop screen in lieu of anything else to do on that flight, those same folks would likely swear that at worst he was using the alone time to deal with a personal issue that he never intended to share with anyone else–especially a random Karen on a plane.
I can also attest that that is not the most egregious and arguably suspendable behavior any Sony employee has ever engaged in on a flight. I’ve seen a couple myself, including what appeared to be an actual Mile High club encounter. Funny, no one ever got suspended over that. Maybe had I chosen to be as “high-minded” as Thornton’s cabin-mate things might have gone down differently. But I usually tended to bury myself in newspapers or a Kindle book.
Is Sony THAT concerned that sponsors will flee their high-rated show if Thornton’s voice is associated with reading prize copy? I would love to see the e-mails from the parties responsible that would allege that. I guarantee they’d be even more troubling than the ones I got from my FX colleague.
Zero tolerance for some. Overtolerance for others. For as much as I yearn to work again in that world, it’s days like this I’m kinda glad I don’t.
Until next time…