Gabriel Sherman: Murdoch's dismissal of sexual harassment at Fox shows he doesn't care about workplace culture

Sherman: “I've been hearing from women ... that not much has changed” and that “there are people at Fox News, men at Fox News, who are known to be harassers who are still there”

From the December 15 edition of MSNBC Live with Craig Melvin:

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CRAIG MELVIN (HOST): Gabe, as we talk about men's attitudes, there's something that Rupert Murdoch said today in an interview about Disney buying most of 21st Century Fox that caught our attention. This is just part of what Rupert Murdoch said.

[BEGIN VIDEO]

RUPERT MURDOCH: That's all nonsense. There was a problem with our chief executive. Sort of over the year but isolated incidents. As soon as we investigated, he was out of our place in hours -- well, three or four days. That was largely political because we're conservative. All the liberals are going down the drain.

[END VIDEO]

MELVIN: Your reaction?

GABRIEL SHERMAN: I mean there's so much there. I mean I think the fact that Roger Ailes, the former chair and CEO of Fox News, got away with almost two decades of sexual harassment is illustrated in that quote by Rupert Murdoch. The fact that he just dismisses this whole scandal with dozens of women had come forward at Fox as “not much, nonsense, there was sort of a problem.” I mean, that blase attitude, the hear no evil, see no evil attitude, is this permissive culture that allowed this toxic workplace at Fox News to fester for so long. And I think, women at Fox News are very troubled by that attitude. I've been hearing from women over the last several months that not much has changed. Yes, the people are gone at Fox News, Roger Ailes and a lot his loyalists are gone, but they really feel a lot of this is window dressing, and that there are people at Fox News, men at Fox News, who are known to be harassers, who are still there and I think women are feeling terrified that the company has not fully cleaned up.

MELVIN: It was bizarre to hear him essentially, basically, sort of blame this vast left-wing conspiracy for sexual harassment at Fox News.

SHERMAN: Yeah, I mean that's the victim line that Bill O'Reilly took, that Roger Ailes took, and I think that is reflective of, again, Rupert Murdoch runs a company where profit matters above all. And he doesn't really care about workplace culture. Yes, when he gets found out and caught, he'll take some moves to clean up but it's not necessarily because he truly believes this fundamental change should happen.

Previously:

Former Fox News anchor Juliet Huddy explains how nondisclosure agreements hid Bill O'Reilly's harassment

Rupert Murdoch says Fox News harassment stopped with Roger Ailes. He couldn't be more wrong. 

The infrastructure that enabled serial sexual harassment at Fox is still working