Former Fox News host Alisyn Camerota is speaking out about sexual harassment she says she faced at the fair and balanced network.
Camerota, who now co-hosts CNN’s “New Day,” said that powerful men at the company would often “silo” their targets and urge them not to speak about their experiences.
“When you’re at the mercy of a powerful person, one of the things that they do is sort of silo people and say, ‘Now, you can’t tell anybody about these great opportunities you’re going to get, people will be jealous, so whatever we talk about in here you can’t reveal because only you are going to have this opportunity,’” she said during a recent appearance on Aaron Harber’s online interview show.
“There was secrecy [at Fox News], but a culture is built from the top down,” she continued, “I wouldn’t say it was an open-door policy, and so I regret that we [women] didn’t talk more, and I wish that we had all known about each other and could have banded together.”
As we now know, Camerota was one of of many women who said they were sexually harassed by Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chief who died earlier this year months after he was ousted from the network he founded. Camerota told Harber that when the issue came from the very top, it posed a uniquely vexing problem.
“When you have an issue with the top person, it’s hard to find anybody who will speak to the top person,” she said. “When you have an issue with a more junior person, you can go to that person’s boss, but when it’s the boss, it’s really hard to find somebody to talk to about that.”
It’s not the first time Camerota has addressed the issue. Back in April she spoke out at length on the set of her perch at “New Day,” and again to the New York Times in July.