Fox News has fired The Five co-host Bob Beckel after he allegedly made an intensive remark to a black employee. Fox News issued a statement announcing his termination on Friday. The employee has already retained an attorney and plans to file a lawsuit against the embattled network.

The cranky and surly Beckel provided a liberal perspective to counterbalance his conservatives and centrist co-hosts on The Five. He had a few months left on his contract.

Attorney Douglas Wigdor, whose firm is representing the employee and dozens of ex-Fox News employees, issued a stern statement chastising the network for keeping Beckel in his position while relegating the network’s only male black anchor to the night shift.

Statement of Douglas H. Wigdor (founding partner Wigdor LLP) and Jeanne Christensen (Partner Wigdor LLP):

“In yet another example of the 18th Century Fox mentality, Fox permitted Bob Beckel to remain in his role as a prime time co-host despite his many prior insensitive and racist comments. All the while, Kelly Wright, the only black male anchor at Fox News, has been relegated to an overnight position.

This time, Mr. Beckel stormed out of his office when our client, a Black IT employee came to service his computer, telling our client that he was leaving his office because he is Black. To make matters worse, after our client lodged a complaint about Mr. Beckel’s racist behavior, Mr. Beckel, in front of Chief Human Resource Officer Kevin Lord, attempted to intimidate our client and persuade him to withdraw his complaint.

Because he would not do so, Fox, in what has now become common place, leaked the story on a Friday to minimize the attention drawn to Mr. Beckel’s racist behavior. Fox also neglected to inform the media of what was actually said, as well as the attempt to convince our client to withdraw the complaint.

As with our other 22 clients, we intend on holding 21st Century Fox accountable for these actions and will be filing multiple other complaints in other matters next week. We also intend on updating Ofcom with these new developments as they may be relevant in their consideration as to whether or not to approve the purchase of Sky.

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