Roger Ailes to be fired from Fox News amid sexual harassment claims

Roger Ailes will be dismissed from Fox News, the network he built almost singlehandedly, in the wake of multiple reports that he sexually harassed his female subordinates over a period of decades and a high-profile lawsuit from former top anchor Gretchen Carlson, according to a new report.

Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman writes in New York magazine that Ailes will be asked this week by James Murdoch to resign or face dismissal if Murdoch has his way; his father Rupert Murdoch and brother Lachlan are advocating to hold off until the end of the Republican national convention, an event Fox News covers zealously. The three agree that Ailes’s time at the network is over, according to Sherman.

Ailes is currently the chairman and CEO of Fox News and Fox Television Stations.

Ailes allegedly demanded that women in his employment and applying for employment provide him and his friends with sexual favors including allowing Ailes to take pictures of them in lingerie. Six women, four under pseudonyms, came forward in an article by Sherman earlier this month in the wake of Carlson’s lawsuit.

Carlson alleges that Ailes said she should have had a sexual relationship with him “a long time ago” and that “sometimes problems are easier to solve that way” when Carlson came to him with concerns about how being under promoted and subject to casual sexism from co-anchor Steve Doocy.

A parade of Fox News employees from Maria Bartiromo to Greta Van Susteren have taken to media platforms to vouch for Ailes. Van Susteren called the timing of the lawsuit “suspicious.” Sherman has reported that Ailes solicited public support from his employees.

Ailes has tried twice to have the lawsuit’s venue changed. Carlson sued only Ailes, rather than the network itself, in an apparent effort to avoid the arbitration proceedings that might have kept the suit out of the public eye. A publicist for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.