Douglas Wigdor raced out of his law offices near Union Square in Manhattan, jumped on a bike, and, still wearing his navy suit and purple tie, pedaled furiously toward a BBC TV studio downtown. It was a mild evening in mid-September, and once again the news bookers had beckoned him to weigh in on the ongoing drama surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. Wigdor was eager to oblige.
As Wigdor settled in on-set, an anchor in London caught viewers up on the latest development. That morning, 21st Century Fox had been dealt a serious setback in its $15.5 billion bid to take over Sky, the European pay-TV giant. Karen Bradley, the U.K.’s culture secretary, had just revealed that she’d be referring the deal to regulators for more scrutiny—in part over concerns raised by Wigdor and others about whether the company would comply with British broadcasting standards.
The BBC anchor turned to Wigdor, who said a new probe would be a step in the right direction. He represented more than 20 current and former 21st Century Fox employees, he explained, in lawsuits involving claims of sexual harassment, retaliation, and racial discrimination. And there was still more to uncover, he said. Past settlement agreements had prevented many potential witnesses from speaking out. The government ought to lift the gag orders and hear every voice. “I refer to 21st Century Fox as 19th Century Fox,” Wigdor said.
A few days later, back in his office, he admits he flubbed the punchline—in past interviews, he’d placed Fox in the 18th century. In his defense, it had been a crazy day. The same morning news broke about the Sky deal, Wigdor had filed a defamation suit in Manhattan federal court on behalf of Charles Oakley, the erstwhile NBA power forward, who’d been forcibly removed from Madison Square Garden during a Knicks game earlier this year. Afterward, James Dolan, the team’s owner, suggested on ESPN Radio that Oakley has a drinking problem. In the suit, Oakley claimed he hadn’t been intoxicated that night and alleged that Dolan had a history of haphazardly accusing his critics of alcoholism. Dolan’s legal team called the lawsuit “frivolous,” but the sports mediascape went nuts, discussing Wigdor and Oakley’s assertions endlessly.
AAN Staff
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