Bill Shine, Fox News Co-President, Resigns

MANHATTAN, NY — Bill Shine, the co-president of Fox News who was given the position after the former chairman and founder of the news channel Roger Ailes was ousted in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal, is no longer with the network, marking the exit of another old hand at the company as viewers question the future the news channel sees for itself.

Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns the news channel, announced the news in an email to employees on Monday, saying Shine had resigned. A screenshot of the email was tweeted by Oliver Darcy, a senior media reporter at CNN.

According to the email, Suzanne Scott is the new president of programming, and Jay Wallace is the president of news.

Shine's ouster comes shortly after it was announced that Bill O'Reilly, the network's star who drew in massive ratings during the 8 p.m. slot, would not be returning to the company after allegations of sexual and verbal abuse were made against him. An investigation by the New York Times found that Fox News and O'Reilly himself had paid out about $13 million in settlements to five different women who made allegations against him. Two of those settlements came after the ouster of Ailes, the investigation found.

Once the allegations against O'Reilly became public, there was a massive advertiser boycott and protests outside the Fox News headquarters. O'Reilly then went on vacation and shortly afterwards the network announced that he would not be returning to Fox News. The Times reported that he left with a $25 million exit package.

Both O'Reilly and Ailes have denied the charges against them.

The ouster of Shine also comes at a time when the network is facing a major test about whether it can change the culture that exists at Fox News, which female contributors have described as being hostile towards women. According to multiple reports, Murdoch's sons, Lachlan and James, are forcibly trying to steer the network in a different direction.

Jesse Watters, another Fox contributor who frequently appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show and hosted "Watters World," which once featured a blatantly racist segment about New York City's Chinatown, is on vacation after he made remarks about first daughter and special assistant to the president Ivanka Trump that were construed as being sexually suggestive. Watters' vacation was seen by some as another sign that the younger Murdochs were looking to reshape the network.

Another question raised by Shine's departure is whether Sean Hannity, who currently holds the 10 p.m. slot on the channel and is now arguably one of the biggest stars at the network, will stay. In several tweets, Hannity asserted that he stood behind Shine, even tweeting with the hashtag #Istandwithshine. The Daily Beast, citing sources, reports that after Shine's exit, Hannity is looking to leave Fox News.

Hannity himself pushed back on the report, tweeting a link to an Independent Journal Review article that cites sources as saying that he in fact is not looking to exit Fox News.

Patch will update this breaking news story.

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