A new Wrinkle in the EEOC FNC Complaint

Media Matters Joe Strupp writes about a filing in the EEOC lawsuit against FNC regarding Catherine Herridge. What’s interesting here is the implied linkeage between Herridge’s internal complaint and Roger Ailes now infamous FNC wide “get with the game or get off the bus” email…

In her latest declaration, which appears to tie Ailes’ e-mail to the internal investigation, Herridge states that after claiming she was losing assignments and potential anchor slots because of her age (43) and her gender she was the subject of retaliation.

Her declaration states, in part:

Beginning in or around December 2007, Senior VP [Dianne] Brandi began an internal investigation on behalf of Fox, into the allegations of discrimination that I made.

Around January 15, 2008, I restated my age and sex discrimination complaint to Ms. Brandi. Ms. Brandi told me that if I did not like how things were going that I was free to go (sic) the EEOC. Later, around February 7, 2008, I e-mailed Ms. Brandi and questioned her about her investigation and expressed concerns that Ms. Brandi’s investigation was neither thorough nor impartial. Ms. Brandi had informed me that she had promised to keep CEO Ailes fully informed about her investigation into my discrimination complaint. The next day, February 8, 2008, CEO Ailes sent a company-wide email (the email was sent to the entire company, not just the D.C. Bureau).

Free for All: 11/24/10

What’s on your mind?

Death to the Crawl!

Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik writes about whether the crawl should go; a subject near and dear to my heart…

And it was a microcosm of the hyperagitated news culture in general. The nine years that followed 9/11 were years of genuinely big headlines: Iraq, Katrina, Lehman Brothers. Yet it was sometimes hard to distinguish truly monumental events from ordinary news amplified by monumental technology. Every natural disaster, it seemed, was the worst ever, every potential pandemic the most deadly, every financial crisis the most dire, every terrorism alert the scariest, every political division the deepest and most acrimonious.

Of course, just as you occasionally make a vow to turn off your ringer and stop taking text messages at dinner, the networks have tried lately to set up ticker-free zones. It now disappears during some news specials and opinion shows. In 2008, CNN substituted a more genteel “flipper,” which turns over lazily like a line on an old arrivals-departures board.

But nine years later, our news screens remain cluttered with data. Once the media’s volume level goes up, it’s hard to take it back down. It just keeps ticking … on … and on … and on …