FOX PREZ IS LATEST OuT DOOR
Tarnished Shine follows O’Reilly
ANOTHER DAY, another earthquake in the executive suite at Fox News.
Bill Shine, the right-leaning news channel’s co-president and a loyal lieutenant of disgraced Fox News boss Roger Ailes, has resigned just a week after the network axed its star, Bill O’Reilly, under a roiling cloud of sexual harassment allegations.
Fox chief Rupert Murdoch broke the news to staffers in a memo Monday.
“Sadly, Bill Shine resigned today,” Murdoch wrote. “I know Bill was respected and liked by everybody at Fox News. We will all miss him.”
Murdoch named Suzanne Scott the channel’s new president of programming, and Jay Wallace as president of news. Scott and Wallace have both been with Fox News since 1996, serving in multiple production and creative areas, a Fox News spokesman said.
Shine, a 20-year veteran of the channel, had been elevated to the lofty position he shared with Jack Abernethy by Murdoch last summer in the wake of Ailes’ sudden exit, also under an avalanche of sexual harassment accusations.
Last week, Murdoch took Shine and Abernethy to lunch at the Central Park South restaurant Marea, and the outing was interpreted as a public show of support.
However, there were also reports that Murdoch declined Shine’s request to issue a statement publically supporting the embattled executive.
Shine has been named in multiple lawsuits targeting the network, along with Ailes and O’Reilly.
Among them is a complaint from Andrea Tantaros, a former Fox News host, who stated that she once turned to Shine about sexual harassment at the hands of Ailes, and Shine advised her not to cross the then-CEO.
Shine was also front and center in a blockbuster New York magazine report last summer about Laurie Luhn, a former Fox News booker who has alleged a longtime, abusive affair with Ailes.
And Shine has been mentioned in a racial discrimination class-action suit led by anchor Kelly Wright. He is not named in the suit, but Wright claims that Shine “demonstrated an obsession with race.”
Shine has denied all the allegations, as have Ailes and O’Reilly.
Shine started his career at Fox News as a producer on Fox’s popular program, “Hannity & Colmes.”
Last week, Sean Hannity took to Twitter to defend Shine following a report in New York magazine that he would soon be leaving Fox. “I pray this is NOT true because if it is, that’s the total end of the FNC (Fox News Channel) as we know it. Done.”