Kisses, propositions and fears of reprisal for women at Fox News

In 2006, after nearly a decade at CNN, Rudi Bakhtiar came to the Fox News Channel’s headquarters in New York with a command of foreign policy, an appealing personality and a delivery that easily switched between light and serious.

After a six-month freelance arrangement, the network signed her to a three-year deal. Pretty quickly, she said, she was spending half her time in Washington, where the network sent her to fill in temporarily as a weekend correspondent, a post she hoped to win permanently.

Her break seemed to come a few months later, she said, when she met for coffee in the lobby of her Washington hotel with a friend and colleague, Brian Wilson. He told her he would soon become Washington bureau chief and wanted to help her get the weekend job. Then he said, “You know how I feel about you, Rudi.”

Recalling the encounter in a recent phone interview, Bakhtiar said she was thrilled and told Wilson she would make him proud. But, she said, he repeated himself, asking, “You know how I feel about you?” When she asked him what he meant, he said, “Well, I’d like to see the inside of your hotel room,” adding that he wanted a friends-with-benefits relationship.

She politely rebuffed him, apologizing for giving him any wrong impression. After that rejection, she felt caught in a whirlwind in which, she said, network executives canceled her Washington appearances, directed her to report her allegations to human resources and, a few weeks later, let her go. She said the Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, told her that her tenure was ending because of her performance — an assertion a senior Fox News executive repeated Saturday.

In a short time, she went from thinking she was in line to land the job she coveted to unemployment. After a mediation process, she reached a settlement in which Fox News paid her an undisclosed amount.

Contacted on Friday, Wilson, who went on to get the bureau chief job, said of Bakhtiar’s account: “I take strong exception to the facts of the story as you have relayed it to me, period. Beyond that, I will have no further comment.”

Bakhtiar concedes that she agreed in her settlement not to speak of her experience. But she said she was emboldened to step forward by the sexual harassment lawsuit that former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson brought against Ailes this month, and a subsequent investigation that has brought to light at least 10 other claims of improper behavior involving him. Ailes resigned from Fox News on Thursday.

The investigation by Fox News’ parent company, 21st Century Fox, focused narrowly on Ailes. But in interviews with The New York Times, current and former employees described instances of harassment and intimidation that went beyond Ailes and suggested a broader problem in the workplace.

The Times spoke with about a dozen women who said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment or intimidation at Fox News or the Fox Business Network, and half a dozen more who said they had witnessed it. Two of them cited Ailes and the rest mentioned other supervisors. With the exception of Bakhtiar, they all spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing embarrassment and fear of retribution. Most continue to work in television and worry that speaking out could damage their careers.

They told of strikingly similar experiences at Fox News. Several said that inappropriate comments about a woman’s appearance and sex life were frequent. Managers tried to set up their employees on dates with superiors.

In a statement Friday, Julie Henderson, a spokeswoman for 21st Century Fox, said, “As we’ve made clear, there’s absolutely no room anywhere at our company for behavior that disrespects women or contributes to an uncomfortable work environment.” The company also pointed out that its business standards manual includes instructions on how to report harassment and inappropriate behavior. There are several options, including an anonymous hotline.

Fox News has fostered many successful female careers, and promoted female stars and managers.

Still, the women interviewed by The Times described troubling experiences at Fox News and the Fox Business Network, a sprawling operation with about 2,000 employees on several floors of 21st Century Fox’s headquarters on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

One woman who is still there said that a producer of a show on which she frequently appeared persuaded her to go on dates with him. When she decided after two uneventful outings that she had had enough, he ceased to have her on his show, she said.

One former Fox News staff member described walking into a dark office in 2009 to find a senior manager receiving oral sex from a junior employee.

It is difficult to know exactly how much Ailes set the tone. The investigation into his conduct revealed findings troubling enough to compel 21st Century Fox executives to move quickly and arrange his exit. Beyond inappropriate language, Ailes was also accused by employees of kissing and intimate physical contact, according to three people briefed on the investigation, and of making propositions that included quid pro quo arrangements.

One former reporter said that behind closed doors, Ailes often made provocative comments about her appearance, her body and the dresses she wore. She also said that each meeting with Ailes began and ended with a hug and a kiss, a ritual that made her uncomfortable and sometimes prompted her to turn her head to avoid being kissed on the lips.

Messages sent to Ailes’ lawyers seeking comment were not returned.

Female staff members told of problems with other supervisors as well. One current employee said she was with a male supervisor in a closed-door, one-on-one meeting in 2009 when she asked to work on an assignment. He turned to her and said, “Sure,” then conditioned it on oral sex. The woman said she laughed it off, thinking that she would face retaliation and be demoted if she told him that the comment was inappropriate.

Other women, however, said the environment was not as bad as recent news suggested. Ashana Clark, who worked as a makeup artist for Fox News from 2003 to 2014, said in an interview that the company held sexual harassment training sessions at which employees were instructed not to make sexual jokes or references. “After that,” she said, “you didn’t see a lot of it.”

She also said many of the women she worked with “loved Roger Ailes” and were “very grateful to him.”

Several former Fox News employees said that people were afraid to speak up but that many women viewed the behavior there as par for the course in the broadcasting industry, where appearance is so highly valued.

“There is a culture where, not that you accept it, you just deal with it,” one former employee said.

In the weeks since Carlson filed her suit, more than a dozen prominent Fox News personalities, including anchors Greta Van Susteren and Jeanine Pirro, have publicly defended Ailes — though others have questioned why they would defend him before the results of the investigation are known.

Bakhtiar, who now works as a producer for Reuters, said she was risking a lawsuit to speak out because her experience “ruined my life” and also because she said she believed that “this environment has to change.”