By: Erin Olson Newspapers were faced with a touchy and sexually graphic subject after Andrea Mackris, a producer for the Fox News Channel, dropped a bombshell Wednesday by accusing Bill O'Reilly, star of Fox News' top-rated cable "The O'Reilly Factor," of sexually harassing her on several occasions over the years. O'Reilly responded with a legal action charging her and her attorney with an attempt to extort $60 million from him.
There was plenty of steamy material to quote from, should the newspapers choose, with a pair of legal documents posted on the Web.
USA Today, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Long Island's Newsday all printed lengthy stories about the sexual-harassment lawsuit and O'Reilly's countersuit. The Los Angeles Times story, reprinted in the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle, was among the more graphic, reporting that the woman's suit claims, among other things, that O'Reilly told Mackris to "use your vibrator to blow off steam" at a dinner in May 2002.
Newsday's Pradnya Joshi wrote that the suit detailed O'Reilly's conversations with Mackris (possibly caught on tape or in detailed notes): "In other discussions, which the suit called 'perverted ravings,' he allegedly approached Mackris and a college friend, saying, 'Boy, I would've had fun with you two,' and told Mackris of his trysts with a pair of 'really wild' Scandinavian airline stewardesses and a 'girl' at a Thai sex show."
Many papers provided plenty of R-rated material. New York's Daily News carried raunchy excerpts, including one where O?Reilly allegedly told Mackris that every woman owns a vibrator. Mackris insisted she did not, and shot back, "Does your wife?"
"Yes, in fact she does," O'Reilly replied, according to court papers. "She'd kill me if she knew I was telling you."
Even the New York Post, which shares a corporate parent (News Corporation) with Fox News, could not resist a reference to a vibrator in its account. It also noted allegations that as recently as Sept. 21 O'Reilly had suggested that the next time they met she should come to his hotel room and "we'll make this happen."
The New York Times focused its article on the he said/she said lawsuit battle between O'Reilly and Mackris, with only a brief description of her allegations: "of repeatedly engaging in offensive sex talk with her, of having unwanted phone sex with her while using a vibrator on himself, and of describing his fantasies about having sex with her in a shower."
The L.A. Times and USA Today articles both noted that O'Reilly is married, with the Los Angeles paper throwing in the additional detail that he is the father of two.
With the exception of the Sun-Times, all of the papers mentioned that Fox has accused Mackris' lawyer, Morelli, of being politically motivated to file the lawsuit just weeks before the presidential election. Morelli is a supporter of the Democratic Party candidates, and "Fox News has often been accused of being biased toward Republican candidates," according to New York Times reporter Bill Carter.
Only one paper, Newsday, reported that Fox had produced an e-mail Mackris sent to a friend last month gushing that her job was "wonderful" and saying, "I'm home and I'll never leave again."
The New York Times and USA Today both noted that O'Reilly did not specifically deny any of the accusations.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here