Last week, we reported that Sean Hannity, one of Fox News’ few remaining star on-air dum-dums, was worried that it would be “the total end” of the Fox News Channel if rumors about network co-president Bill Shine being ousted were true. Hannity is evidently one of Shine’s biggest supporters, and he believed that someone “high up and inside” the network was essentially trying to pin the blame for all of Fox News’ recent problems on Shine. Supposedly, Hannity was even trying to throw some of his weight around at the network to make sure that Shine stayed on board, suggesting that he could threaten to quit if the Murdoch family—which has been running Fox News since Roger Ailes left—decided to let Shine go.
Unfortunately for Hannity, his worst nightmare has now come true. According to Variety, Bill Shine has resigned from Fox News, with longtime network executive Suzanne Scott replacing him as president of programming and “up-and-coming news executive” Jay Wallace becoming president of news. This comes in the wake of Shine’s name popping up in some legal filings against Fox News that claimed he “failed to intervene” when people brought up accusations about sexual harassment against Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes, with some even suggesting that he purposefully tried to protect them from having to face the allegations.
Of course, Fox News would never actually say that was why he’s leaving the network, with Rupert Murdoch even going so far as to release a public statement that highlights the role Shine played in turning Fox News into “the nation’s biggest and most important cable channel in the history of television”—which seems wildly hyperbolic, but whatever.
As for Hannity, he hasn’t said anything about Shine on Twitter just yet, but he has been going on a vague tirade over the last few days about someone supposedly spreading defamatory lies about him.