Comments (18)

• Why wasn’t O’Reilly fired over the Andrea Mackris scandal? Maybe Friedman should ask that question in his suit.

  Comment by Bill O'Vibrator — Friday June 12, 2009 @ 6:57pm PST  Reply to this post

• It’s hard to have sympathy for anyone who works/worked for Fox News…
  I’d have more honest pride telling my kids I was a garbage collector.

  Comment by ib — Friday June 12, 2009 @ 7:16pm PST  Reply to this post

• What’s his argument?

  “I illegally downloaded material that belonged to the company I worked for and then publicly endorsed the practice of doing so. Then they fired me! Why oh why?”

  Comment by B — Friday June 12, 2009 @ 9:14pm PST  Reply to this post

• I admittedly read his blog, but Roger “I Love Harvey” Friedman has needlessly crapped on so many people, ya gotta say, Karma’s a Bitch, Rog!

  Comment by Dixon Steele — Friday June 12, 2009 @ 9:20pm PST  Reply to this post

• Roger paid sources for information in Hollywood and threatened people one after another. I should know since he tormented by deceased wife and made her last few years a living hell. Roger deserves to burn in hell.

  Comment by H. Chase — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 1:30am PST  Reply to this post

• Roger continues the legacy of George Christy who was paid to write stories and mentions. Robert Dowling may not have been perfect as a Publisher but he wouldn’t have hired such a loser. Roger joins a sad trade paper where there’s no exclusives to be found anymore. The paper once boasted page after page of advertising and spine-backed editions. Today they’re lucky to have one full-page ad and an exclusive story. They have a inferior staff since they fired everyone else for making too much money. Now they have the nerve to hire Roger, who writes pure fiction. He sells his space to the highest bidder. Fox should boycott THR, and for that matter all the studios. I used to hate Variety when I worked at THR but at least they have it together today. Variety isn’t perfect but they also wouldn’t consider hiring Roger. They already pushed Peter Bart aside. So they’ve already done right by me!

  Comment by LisaDM — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 1:40am PST  Reply to this post

• I’m always mad at Fox, but the fact that they are calling for Letterman to be fired for a bad joke (for which he has manned up for), but have not fired this guy (Don Broderick) is absolutely hypocritical to say the least and totally unacceptable.

  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/10/2009-06-10_fox_news_don_broderick_hit_me_with_hi

  There were witness and he did leave the scene. So jail time and I would think a pink slip is definitely in order!

  Comment by Etoro18 — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 7:33am PST  Reply to this post

• Tonight the role of “the victim” will be played by Roger Friedman…

  Comment by Edguardo — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 9:55am PST  Reply to this post

• To whomever posted the quote: “It’s hard to have sympathy for anyone who works/worked for Fox News…I’d have more honest pride telling my kids I was a garbage collector.”

  What are you, a feudal lord overseeing the unwashed heathen of the world? For your information, kind sir or madam: a lot of really decent, kind, professional people (journalists and non) work and have worked for Fox News over the years, and not all of them embody or embodied a work ethic that you obviously perceive (in your very ill-informed opinion) to be embarrassing either. Regardless of whatever reputation you and so many others perceive Fox as having publicly (whether it’s among liberals or conservatives or media critics or what have you), it doesn’t give you the right to cast such a wide net of aspersion. Thousands of people are/were hired to do one simple job for that network over the years (i.e. report the news) and not all of them had a political agenda when they did it.

  I’m not saying you don’t have a right to an opinion either. If you don’t like Fox News, fine. If you find their political stances on world issues obnoxious and inflammatory, trust me: you’re not alone. Then again, no one forces you or anyone to watch Fox News, and YOU DON’T HAVE TO WATCH IT. God knows quite a few people who work there don’t watch it either. If you think others should STOP watching, organize a boycott! Do something with your moral indignance! Or if you don’t have the time/energy/outrage to do that, then simply change the channel. But the next time you get the urge to trot out an ill-informed judgement from such a moral high horse and/or cast aspersions on the work of so many people you don’t even know, just remember that doesn’t make you any better a human being.

  With good-natured warmth and sincerity,

  A Former Fox Employee-turned-Garbage Collector

  Comment by Fmr Foxer — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 11:31am PST  Reply to this post

• To ib:

  You are in an extreme minority. I suggest you do a little research and look at the ratings…. Viewers are leaving CNN, HLN, and MSNBC in droves. Fox News has been giving those three cable outlets a drubbing lately. The ratings for the three competing cable news channels combined can’t match the ratings for FNC during prime time. I just wish they would put out a weekday broadscast to compete against the CBS, NBC and ABC “Barack Obama News and Entertainment Repertoire,” or “BONER” for short. It’s nauseating to watch and listen to their blathering night after night. There seems to be an absence of journalism anywhere other than Fox News. Of course you libs despise Fox—you hate anything that challenges the left-wing’s conventional wisdom. Nowhere else is this administration being asked tough questions. I guess the rest of the media has the same thrill running up their legs as Chris Matthews of MSNBC. When the shit hits the fan over the next year, I just hope the vast majority of the American people wake up and remember who in the media had a slobbering love affair with this incompetent President. We were told the “economic stimulus” plan had to be quickly passed in order to, a-hem, “save and create” jobs and keep the unemployment rate from topping eight percent. So now we have a president who has racked up a deficit greater than ALL THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS COMBINED and thanks to President BO, we are heading towards double digit unemployment, high interest rates, increasing inflation, soaring gasoline prices and a foreboding nuclear threat. But Newsweek’s resident lib, Evan Thomas was still able to proclaim that BO is a “sort of God.” Can you just imagine the hissy fit the media would have if it was a Republican President being called “God-like?” Good Lord, talk about double standards! Yep, the Democrats are in charge. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Jimmah Carter was in office again. Hopefully, there’ll be another Ronald Reagan on the horizon to clean this mess up in four years.

  Comment by AaronSch — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 6:47pm PST  Reply to this post

• Former THR Publisher John Kilcullen sowed the seeds of the magazine’s destruction. Dowling, at least, knew the business and had a journalism background. Kilcullen had no publishing experience and never worked a day in a newsroom. He even ran the successful Dummies books into the ground. At a time when the mag should have been reinventing itself, he made one dumb move after another and sparked a ruinous lawsuit against the company. For those of us who remember what the magazine once was, this is a sad legacy of years of incompetence.

  Comment by DoubleThink — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 8:46pm PST  Reply to this post

• as if garbage collectors were somehow less than human. what a dick…

  Comment by whatever — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 9:37pm PST  Reply to this post

• Agency-wise, friedman spent a lot of time spinning as gossip everything Huvane told him.

  I’m surprised people are so punchy about Fox and Friedman’s dismissal…the guy never had an opinion that someone else didn’t give him.

  Comment by charlotte a. cavatica — Saturday June 13, 2009 @ 11:48pm PST  Reply to this post

• i dont care if there is another reason. he touted the fact that he ILLEGALLY downloaded wolverine a month before release, and even mentioned he was going to go see another (was it Yes Man?)
  granted, plenty of people do download movies, but nobody is dumb enough to state that in a freaking internet news column. especially wolverine….fox AND fbi were out for blood with that one.

  Comment by nick — Sunday June 14, 2009 @ 7:51am PST  Reply to this post

• This lawsuit seems frivolous.

  Comment by Jasper — Sunday June 14, 2009 @ 10:38am PST  Reply to this post

• Friedman seems to have good sources for Michael Jackson information. And a few other pet stories of his. Other than that, his column makes for strange reading. Filled with gratuitous flogging of various personal obsessions/agendas. Eg., for a long time he never passed up a chance to plug a certain brand of non-Apple MP3 player, and get an anti-Apple dig in. And always shoe-horned into his column in such a way as to leave no doubt that he’s either getting paid for it, or he’s doing someone a favour. Sticks out like a sore thumb. Odd, and unprofessional.

  Comment by Jike Spingleton — Sunday June 14, 2009 @ 10:53am PST  Reply to this post

• OK I just read the Rush and Molloy column. If it’s true that the Scientologists caused him to get fired, then I’m on Roger’s side. He had interesting scoops about Isaac Hayes’s death.

  http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/06/14/2009-06-14_foxs_axed_man_blames_scientologists.html

  Comment by Jike Spingleton — Sunday June 14, 2009 @ 11:00am PST  Reply to this post

• It may have been true that Fox was just looking for a reason to fire the guy after being harassed to do so by Scientology celebrities. Still, it appears Fox was entirely within its rights to fire him for viewing an illegally obtained copy of the movie.

  He clearly knew the movie wasn’t supposed to be available for viewing…and instead of reporting it and helping to stop a criminal act, he watches it and then is stupid enough to write about having done so.

  No doubt his lawsuit will fail. Doesn’t matter if they were caving to Scientology in looking for a reason to fire him — he was stupid enough to hand deliver on a silver platter a very legitimate cause for dismissal. His suit doesn’t have a snowball’s chance.

  I think it’s just a way to embarrass and seek revenge against both his former employer and Scientology. I don’t care for Fox and I consider Scientology a cult…but he’s nuts if he thinks he can overcome having being fired for cause, regardless the backstory.

  Comment by Bunny — Sunday June 14, 2009 @ 7:24pm PST  Reply to this post