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Newsflash: Fox News Biased

Jill

Only this time it’s not in their coverage, it’s in the workplace.

The commission claims that a Fox vice president, Joe Chillemi, “routinely used gross obscenities and vulgarities when describing women or their body parts,” language that it says Mr. Chillemi “did not use with male employees.” The suit contends that Mr. Chillemi “routinely cursed at and otherwise denigrated women employees,” telling them to “be a man.”

The suit charges that Mr. Chillemi, in a discussion about a television segment focusing on sexism in the workplace, said, “Of course I’d pick the man” if he had to choose between a woman and a man for the same position, because he was concerned that a woman could become pregnant and leave her job. Mr. Chillemi is described in the suit as the supervisor of the Fox Advertising and Promotions Department.

Shocking, just shocking. via Gawker.

23 thoughts on Newsflash: Fox News Biased

  2. After the way O’Reilly has treated this woman, who can possibly be surprised? Fox will have to settle. I hope she does very well, and more importantly, I hope she moves on to a workplace where she can do her job with some dignity and expect to be treated like a human.

  3. I’m not a fan of Fox News, but I think it’s fair to point out that these are (at this point) allegations in a suit. They might all be true, or not.

  4. Well. My links were to the way O’reilly and Hume treat their female co-hosts and guests. O’reilly already settled for an undisclosed amount. ButI think someone already leaked the amount. And they Complaint was so specific, as far as quoting O’Reilly, it leads one to believe there was a tape recording.

    He’s at least guilty of being a big prick.

  7. I hope she moves on to a workplace where she can do her job with some dignity and expect to be treated like a human.

    presumably at Walmart…

    because he was concerned that a woman could become pregnant and leave her job.

    Shocking, just shocking.

    Not really, no. That someone has to make a business decision with this in mind is completely valid. The shocking part is that you, Jill, want businesses to capitulate to your every whim. Yes, you should hire me. Yes, you need to pay me or hold my job during maternity leave, which I’ll take by my own timetable, at considerable cost to you, the business. Shocking?

  8. Unfortunately Rob, you and Justice Aliota lost that fight. It’s now unquestionably the law. So not only is it shocking in the sense that one would openly discriminate on those grounds, it’s shocking in the sense a manager would so vocally express his willingness to violate the law. Now that’s bad business.

  9. Sorry Hubris,

    I was getting the previous suit against O’Reilly mixed up with this suit. I need to pay more attention.

  10. The shocking part is that you, Jill, want businesses to capitulate to your every whim.

    I don’t want businesses to capitulate to my “every whim.” Here’s what I want:

    -Follow the law. Don’t discriminate in hiring practices because of my physical potential to get pregnant.
    -When I’m at work, don’t use obscene and vulgar words to describe me and/or my body parts.
    -As my employer, don’t tell me that you’d rather hire a male employee than me based on our reproductive organs, not our abilities or merit.

    Horrendously unreasonable, I know.

  11. Rob,

    I know O’Reilly told you to hate Media Matters. But do you dispute the transcript from those links?

    Try to defend Fox and the gang on the merits. If you can . . .

  12. Rob, your view is short-sighted. If qualified women cannot both have families and keep rewarding jobs, they will leave the workforce if they can. Some of the best professional women will be lost to our economy. If every company set its own leave policies, each would have to weigh the cost of the leave against the incremental gain in productivity of the better workers — but certainly among quality professionals, the grouping at the top is fairly tight and the next-best male employee would be less costly than a woman who might potentially take leave. Those who were generous would be at a disadvantage. Therefore, the FMLA mandates a floor, to prevent a race to the bottom.

    You are familiar with the “tragedy of the commons” problem?

  13. Sorry, dude, I dont watch O’Reilly. I got the info from MM, actually. He’s too wishy-washy for me. You got O’Reilly dead to rights and I could care less, but the thing on Hume was pretty stupid, really. Who cares, but the SorosMedia?

  14. Look, I’ve used FMLA myself, all right? I just dont see how it’s sustainable. Someone’s paying for it. At some point, it becomes a problem, much like Social Security.

  15. Much like Social Security, some people find it politically convenient to say that it isn’t sustainable. Further, all claims of social security’s unsustainability turn on imbalances in the number of workers/retirees. With birthrates stable or falling and no large shift forseeable in the portion of the workforce taking leave, even the weak arguments made for a social security crisis don’t apply. In short, there is no argument that FMLA is unsustainable.

  17. Here in Quebec the law allows the father and mother to divy up a total 12 months of paid leave how ever they want. They are both guaranteed their old jobs back without penalties. The paid time-off is paid by the tax payer (it is handled as part of the Unemployment Insurance system). Now in the real world, the mother is going to take most of the 12 months. But Quebec businesses can’t assume just because someone in their twenties/thirties doesn’t have a vagina, he won’t be taking time off for a new baby.

  18. Lauren, repeat after me: I will not bother myself with stalkers. I will not bother myself with stalkers. I will not bother myself with stalkers…. 😀

  19. So…..Rob. I take it that you have never:

    * visited or checked books out of a library
    * visited a public park or nature preserve
    * driven a car, motorcycle or bicycle on a public road
    * walked on a public sidewalk
    * used public transportation
    * attended a public school
    * called the police
    * called the fire department
    * used electricity, natural gas, or land-line telephone service (heavily subsidized by taxpayers)
    * ate food that you didn’t grow, gather, or hunt for yourself (again, the food industry is heavily subsidized by taxpayers)

    Who’s paying for all of that, huh? Do you enjoy weekends or other days off? How about holidays? The eight hour day? Who’s paying for all of that?

    Why don’t you protest all of those “perks” by refusing to have any part of them? And while you’re at it, stop cashing your refund check from the IRS, too. Criminy.

  20. And while you’re at it, stop cashing your refund check from the IRS, too. Criminy.

    You had me ’til this point. The government only gives back part of what they have already taken. Getting back what you have already given them isn’t taking from the government.

  22. The thing that gets me is it’s not like there isn’t a risk of the man leaving the job too. Both men and women leave jobs for all sorts of reasons all the time. They get a better offer. They decide to move. Whatever. Any time you offer someone a job, there is a risk they’ll leave. Them’s the breaks in a country with at-will employment (a concept I’m wholly in favor of). Why single out the risk of pregnancy? Unless there is evidence that women are statistically significantly more likely to leave jobs due to pregnancy than anyone is for other reasons, the “business owner needing to factor this into decisions” argument doesn’t wash. I certainly haven’t been able to find a study that indicates pregnancy is one of the major risk factors in employee retention. Not even in the top 10.

  23. Just a quick note:

    * ate food that you didn’t grow, gather, or hunt for yourself (again, the food industry is heavily subsidized by taxpayers)

    The food industry isn’t subsidized by the taxpayer to make it cheaper. It’s mainly subsidized so that domestic growers can stay in business while competing with foreign growers who produce at far cheaper prices–for example, sugar cane growers in Louisiana need free money from the U.S. tax payer so they can charge roughly the same prices as growers in the Carribean, who lose lots of customers in the U.S. The biggest benefactors from farm subsidies are large aggribusinesses, and the people who pay the price are the U.S. taxpayer and foreign producers, who find their businesses strangled by a gamed competition.

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