EXCLUSIVE! Retaliation at Fox O&O?
/
In what appears to be nothing more than straight up retaliation by The Firm, Fox O&O WNYW has cut ties with Reporter Lidia Curanaj.
In December, Curanaj filed a lawsuit against WNYW and parent company 21st Century Fox, alleging that her superiors were taking their cues from then Fox News boss RogerAiles.
The suit alleges that the Fox5 news director, Byron Harmon, penned a soft-core novel titled “All the Women I’ve Loved,” about the exploits of a Fox5 executive producer. The suit alleges that the station overlooked Harmon’s behavior because it was consistent with the misogynistic culture of the parent company.
Curanaj alleged that she was denied an anchor position because she was “not attractive enough” and was discriminated against due to her Albanian heritage. She also claims she was treated wrongly when she became pregnant.
Since filing the lawsuit, sources tell FTVLive that Curanaj was then being written up for small things, including simple typos in a script.
"There was no doubt that they were retaliating against her for filing the lawsuit and were trying to build a paper trail against her," said one Fox insider to FTVLive.
What is really disturbing, it appears that the station gained access to her personal email account and accused her a leaking the Lori Stokes story to FTVLive.
Almost no one in the WNYW newsroom knew that Stokes was being hired and most found out about the move by reading FTVLive.
"Even the Anchors didn't know, so how the hell would Lidia know?" said a newsroom insider.
Full disclosure, FTVLive has been friends with Curanaj for some time along with others that work at WYNW. We can absolutely say as 100% fact that Curanaj did not give us the Stokes story and was not an FTVLive source.
She is a friend, not a source.
The idea that a media company has gained access to a Reporter's private email (not their station account) is mind-blowing. Word is that Fox demanded that Curanaj hand over all her PERSONAL emails that she exchanged with FTVLive. Again, this is a media company asking for one of their own Reporters to hand over emails from a private account.
Unbelievable.
Then to accuse her of leaking stories to FTVLive and writing her up for small items shows that the station wanted her out and it all appears that it is nothing more than straight up retaliation for filing a lawsuit against them.
This type of behavior is not just happening at WNYW. Other employees at Fox O&O's around the country have been threatened with termination if they contact FTVLive.
FTVLive has a number of longtime friends at many of the O&O's and they tell us that the culture inside the company is that of a hostile and paranoid environment.
"I rather work for Sinclair then I would at a Fox station," said one O&O staffer to FTVLive.
Ouch!
It appears that Fox Television is acting more like a TV station you would find in Russia or North Korea, than a company based here in the United States.
Stay tuned...
