The Guardian view on Fox and O’Reilly: more bad news | Editorial

The Fox News presenter Bill O’Reilly was forced out of his job in April after the New York Times alleged that five different cases where women who had made sexual harassment charges against him had settled either with Fox or with Mr O’Reilly directly. The payments totalled $13m. Mr O’Reilly’s golden farewell was reported to be $25m. Last month he was back on screen condemning the liberal elite. Last weekend, the New York Times returned to the trail, alleging a sixth payment, to Fox’s legal affairs analyst Lis Wiehl, of a whopping $32m. It also claimed that Fox News renewed the O’Reilly contract knowing of this other payment. Fox News denies being aware of its size, while acknowledging that the contract was renewed in the knowledge that another case had been settled. The pressure is back on Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, already under investigation in the UK by the Competition and Markets Authority in the context of its bid to take over Sky. If the Murdochs did not know about their employee’s conduct, they should have. If they did, and ignored it, they are part of the magic circle of silence that has allowed the abuse of women to continue unabated for so long.