O'Reilly's Spin
From the Drudge Report Archives:
From April 2000 through January 2004, Fox employed [Andrea] Mackris as an Associate Producer on The O’Reilly Factor, a cable television news show hosted by O’Reilly. O’Reilly and Mackris maintained a good and productive working relationship for the almost four years of her initial employment....Then in January 2004, Mackris ultimately decided to leave the show to accept an even higher-paying position with CNN, Fox’s major competitor. A few months after leaving Fox, however, Mackris spoke with O’Reilly and expressed unhappiness with her new job at CNN. She said that her boss at CNN had been terminated for sexual harassment, and asked O’Reilly if she could return to The O’Reilly Factor at the higher salary she then earned at CNN. Mackris returned to Fox in July 2004 as an Associate Producer for The O’Reilly Factor at a salary of $93,200.
Prior to September 29, 2004, Mackris never complained to anyone in authority at Fox about sexual harassment by O’Reilly....
On September 29, 2004, however, Defendant Morelli, Mackris’s attorney, sent a letter to several executives of Fox and News Corp which is attached as Exhibit C. Morelli stated in his letter that he represented a Fox employee who was allegedly being harassed by “one of Fox’s most prominent on-air personalities.” Although he did not identify O’Reilly or Mackris by name in the letter, Morelli wrote that he and the Fox employee were then prepared to sue Plaintiffs, and therefore a settlement discussion would be in Plaintiffs’ best interests because the lawsuit “would be extremely damaging to both Fox’s reputation and the reputation of the individual involved.”
Fox and News Corp representatives spoke with and met several times with Morelli and his associate, David S. Ratner. Mackris attended one of the meetings. At those meetings and during telephone conversations, Defendants demanded $60 million in hush money to keep quiet and never once lowered this outrageous, extortionate demand. At one of the meetings, Morelli allowed the Fox and News Corp representatives to read a draft of a harassment complaint (“the draft complaint”) that he threatened to file on Mackris’s behalf. The draft complaint contained several lengthy block quotes of statements that O’Reilly allegedly made to Mackris. The length of the quotes and the specific verbiage used made it appear that Mackris was taping O’Reilly during the conversations. Morelli, though, refused to permit the Fox and News Corp representatives to have a copy of the complete draft complaint, providing them only with an excerpt.
The draft complaint does not assert that either Fox or O’Reilly has caused Mackris to suffer any adverse employment action. Nor does it assert that Mackris complained to anyone in authority at Fox about any unwelcomed or inappropriate conduct by anyone. Moreover, Defendants never claimed otherwise in any of the aforementioned telephone conversations or meetings....
The extortive nature of Defendants’ demands and the baseless nature of Mackris’s claims are further revealed by the recent September 7, 2004 e-mail that Mackris sent to a friend at CNN who asked, “How are things?” Just three weeks before Morelli’s September 29 letter and years after her claimed tribulations began, Mackris responded:
to answer your question, things are: wonderful, amazing, fun, creative, invigorating, secure, well-managed, challenging, interesting, fun and surrounded by really good, fun people. i’m home and i’ll never leave again....
The extortion attempt is timed to cause the maximum disruption and damage to Fox and O’Reilly. Fox News coverage and O’Reilly’s program in particular have consistently drawn higher ratings during election periods....In fact, Fox News Channel is the most highly rated cable news network in the United States and has continued to increase its lead over CNN in recent years. Its expectation has been that viewership, and thus revenues, will continue to increase, particularly as the electorate becomes even more involved with the presidential race....
It's interesting to note that the suit does not explicitly deny the allegations of harrassment.
It's also absurd to infer that Mackris' threatened suit would hurt ratings - if anything, they would boost ratings. In fact, O'Reilly's and Fox's suit could also boost ratings. In retrospect, Dan Rather should have sued someone.
This is a timely reminder that we should not have human heroes. And to think that some people worship the ground that Ralph Nader walks on....
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