Over the weekend, CNN published an op-ed from former Fox News anchor Eric Bolling, who left the network last year following a sexual harassment scandal. The piece did not address his departure from the network, and CNN declined to force the matter, either in the final copy or in its own description of Bolling.
“It was a Friday evening. My wife and I had gone out to dinner to mark a new chapter in our lives. I had just separated with Fox News after a decade as a host of several shows,” Bolling wrote in the reference to the incident. CNN described him as “a former anchor at Fox News.”
Bolling’s career at the network began to collapse in August 2017 after Yashar Ali published a story in HuffPost saying that the anchor sent sexually suggestive text messages to several female Fox News and Fox Business employees, and made lewd remarks to female employees. Bolling was suspended and ultimately left the channel following an investigation into his actions.
Bolling’s CNN article focused on his recent efforts to combat America’s opioid crisis after his own son, Eric Chase, died from an accidental overdose. News of Bolling’s departure from Fox and Chase’s death both came on Sept. 9, 2017.
“Over the next several months I became the ‘accidental expert’ on opioid deaths,” wrote Bolling. “For the past few months I’ve been working directly with President Trump and his senior advisers handing the White House’s opioid awareness initiatives.”
Last week, Bolling appeared on “Morning Joe,” which also didn’t ask any questions related to his alleged professional misconduct.
“Eric, you lost the job that you loved at Fox News amid controversy and a lot of people might want us to ask you a lot of questions around the circumstances around that departure,” said show co-host Mika Brzezinski. “But for this segment, we’re going to leave those questions for another time.”