Eric Bolling Suspended At Fox News With Claims That He Sent C#ck Shots To Fox Women

Fox News' Eric Bolling

Birds of a feather do flock together. Yet another white male is taking a tumble at Fox News for sexual harassment, with Fox's suspension of yet another Fox personality who acts like god, when the subject is women. To be reasonable here, 'The Specialist's' co-host Eric Bolling's c#ck photo was sent to multiple women colleagues at Fox News Channel and sister network Fox Business several years ago, not last week. 

The intended recipients and others in and out of Fox -- a total of 14 people -- confirmed the story, which broke on Friday, written by HuffPost's Yashar Ali. While an investigation is conducted, Bolling is suspended from his broadcasts. 

We've written before about Bolling, a former commodities trader, working at Fox News and Fox Business since 2007, arriving from CNBC. Ali writes that Bolling regularly made sexist comments on-air. He got our attention in September 2014 while discussing the first woman fighter pilot from the United Arab Emirates leading a bombing of the Islamic State. 

Bolling asked on air if instead of speaking of “boots on the ground” in a military sense, it would be more appropriate to say “boobs on the ground.” The crass host apologized the next day, saying that his wife gave him “a look” when he arrived home. Presumably, Bolling slept in the guest bedroom this weekend. 

In a note of irony, Eric Bolling engaged in a major Twitter war in 2014 with disgraced former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, himself involved in a major texting scandal.  “He is a sick human being, to continue to do this time and time again, continue to get caught, saying he’s not going to do it again, gets caught again," Bolling pontificated. 

Meet Emily Steel, Dedicated New York Times Reporter Who Is Bill O'Reilly Enemy #1

Marie Claire interviews New York Times reporter Emily Steel, who insists "I'm not the story" when talking about Bill O'Reilly's epic fall at Fox News. Perhaps not, but the investigative research approach that she took, together with her Times colleague Michael S. Schmidt, was absolutely awesome, inventive, meticulous and truly original. 

Three weeks ago, Steel and Schmidt dropped their explosive Times article, documenting settlements with at least five accusers over the last 15 years, to the hefty sum of $13 million. Within two days of their report, over 50 advertisers had fled O'Reilly's show. And now he's gone from his perch as the biggest anchor on cable TV.

We learn that Emily Steel has been a thorn in O'Reilly's big toe for years. She reported on his false claims about covering the Falklands War in the 1980s, when he was actually in Buenos Aires more than 1,000 miles away.  "I am coming after you with everything I have," O'Reilly said in an on-the-record phone call to Steel. "You can take it as a threat."

She may wear pearls and a pussycat bow blouse, but Steel doesn't scare easily. With the strong backing of their editor, the two reporters continued to mine Fox News for sexual harassment stories. 

In her more defeated moments, Steel found inspiration—in an instance of life imitating art imitating life—in the movie Spotlight. "I would listen to what Rachel McAdams would say. She would say things like, 'The words are really important.' And when we're telling these stories, the details are really specific," she says. She tried mimicking McAdams' character, Sacha Pfeiffer of the Boston Globe. "I'd say to sources, 'I know it's hard and I know it's scary, but we need to know. We need to know.'"

Steel put in the time to get those sources to trust her. "I think my editors thought I was crazy because I would spend two or three hours on the phone at a time, just to make people feel comfortable and get them to talk. But that's what it took," she says. "When you're talking about something that's so sensitive like sexual harassment, you can't just call somebody up and say, 'What happened to you?' You need to make them feel comfortable."

Steel's biggest get was Wendy Walsh, and Marie Claire writer Kaitlin Menza shares a good story.  The article doesn't share the background on Steel and Schmidt watching endless hours of Fox News footage, documenting women on air and then suddenly gone. This included not only the obvious Fox anchors but female experts who regularly appeared on O'Reilly shows and then 'poof', no more.

A cardboard cut-out of Donald Trump leans against a window in the New York Times building, not that any of the reporters and editors could forget about him. But Steel finds the present a "really invigorating" time to work in journalism.

"It's given people a sense of purpose of why we're doing the work that we do," she says.

Related:

Andrea Tantaros Sues Fox News, Alleging Operatives Hacked Her Phone & Emails In Smear Campaign

Former Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly may be gone, but that doesn't mean the lawsuit faucet is turned off. Former Fox host Andrea Tantaros filed a suit in federal court today, alleging that key Fox News operatives hacked her phones and emails to conduct a smear campaign against her after she reported sexual harassment complaints against former CEO Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reily. In addition to Ailes, the suit names current co-president Bill Shine, PR executive Irena Briganti, and social-media consultant Peter Snyder as defendants, writes New York Magazine. 

Tantaros’s suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, details a shadowy plot that evokes the current season of Homeland. Tantaros accuses Peter Snyder, who runs the investment firm Disruptor, of orchestrating an army of Twitter sock-puppet trolls to harass her. Fox News operatives, according to Tantaros, also monitored her phone calls and emails, and used the information they acquired “to intimidate, terrorize, and crush her career through an endless stream of lewd, offensive, and career-damaging social media posts, blog entries and commentary.”

Tantaros alleges the hacking began around the time she was taken off the air in April 2016, after speaking up to network bosses about harassment at Fox News. (The network said her removal was for failing to get a sign-off from the company on her book.) According to the suit, “a forensic analysis of Ms. Tantaros’s computer revealed that it contained unique surveillance viruses that are not found in any mass malware.” Tantaros says that she has information that proves “a person working for Fox News was responsible for hacking [her] computer so that she could be spied upon.” The suit cites multiple examples of things Tantaros discussed in private phone conversations that soon ended up in tweets directed at her.