The only surprise about Les Moonves’s forced exit from CBS is that it took so long.

Because of Moonves’s power and long tenure as chairman of CBS, where he brought the network from last place to first and became one of the highest-paid US executives, many thought he would hold on to his job and ride out sexual misconduct accusations from multiple women.

If more women were in charge, sexual harassment would be dealt with far more aggressively and would be less common to begin with

The sluggish reaction of the CBS board and the company’s other senior executives to Ronan Farrow’s initial disclosures in the New Yorker last month that Moonves had sexually harassed multiple women and retaliated against them was outrageous. Although Moonves sat atop one of the country’s premier news institutions, it looked like CBS was asleep as the force of the #MeToo movement crested. Or it was too arrogant to face its own endemic cultural problems, starting at the top. The company’s flat-footedness was deeply discouraging to many women in the news division, according to friends I spoke to who have worked at CBS for many years.

Les Moonves resigns from CBS after six more women accuse him of sexual harassment Read more

Last week, finally, news reports indicated that Moonves might be on his way out, but with a golden parachute worth more than $100m, despite his flagrant misconduct. (Moonves, like Harvey Weinstein, has denied the sexual misconduct and claims the numerous encounters meticulously described by Farrow were consensual). This justifiably outraged people even more.

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Even though Moonves is now out, and CBS says he may not get a rich payout after all, incredible damage has been done to the company’s reputation. The exact terms of his departure await the findings of a so-called “independent” investigation that has been dragging on for 10 months, since on-air correspondent Charlie Rose was forced out over allegations from 30 women.

After Farrow’s latest article, with even more damning accusations about Moonves, was published by the New Yorker on Sunday, the company hastily announced that it had named six new members of its board of directors and would donate $20m to organizations that support the #MeToo movement and workplace equality. (The donation will be deducted from any severance payments Moonves may still win.)

Now, women inside CBS are holding their breath to find out the fate of Jeff Fager, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, who has also been accused of sexual misconduct in Farrow’s pieces. CBS allowed him to return to work while its investigation is pending, a move that one producer there told me was deeply discouraging to some members of the staff.

CBS could pay ex-CEO Les Moonves $120m despite harassment claims Read more

It isn’t as if CBS didn’t know that it had a problem with women. According to Farrow’s reporting, men who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted during Moonves’s tenure, and when Fager was chairman of CBS News. This was happening even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints.

According to Farrow, 19 current and former employees alleged that Fager allowed harassment in the division, something he has denied. A belated investigation into these allegations was sparked only by the publication of the allegations against Rose, Moonves and Fager published in the Washington Post and the New Yorker.

The mishandling of the sexual abuse allegations against the most powerful men in the company has put senior CBS women in an excruciating position. That was evident went Norah O’Donnell talked about Moonves’s departure on Monday on the CBS morning news show she co-anchors. She repeated what she said after Rose’s firing, that “women cannot achieve equality in the workplace or in society until there is a reckoning and taking of responsibility”.

But the reckoning has been agonizingly slow. In an earnings call only last week, Moonves sounded on top of the world and the sexual misconduct allegations were not mentioned. Maybe the storm had passed, he and his supporters hoped. Business could proceed as usual.

But the thing about sexual abusers and harassers is that there are always more. And on Sunday came a second, even more devastating takeout on Moonves and women, involving episodes of forced oral sex. By Sunday night, he was gone.

His downfall proves that the #MeToo movement still has powerful momentum, but that equally powerful retrograde forces still stand in its way. A protection racket still exists when successful men at the top of the corporate ladder are accused. It is especially concerning that the institution in question here is CBS, once the most prestigious name in network news.

From Farrow’s intrepid reporting and earlier fine investigative reporting work on Rose done by Amy Brittain and Irin Carmon at the Washington Post, it seems clear that CBS has an institutional problem and a culture of toleration involving sexual harassment. According to female CBS producers I know, the bad treatment of younger female producers and production assistants doesn’t only involve sexual misconduct, but also women receiving inferior story assignments and being reassigned to different beats against their will.

Part of the problem is endemic. At CBS, like most companies, men rule the roost. It’s shocking how few women are in the most powerful jobs in America’s leading news organizations, whether the broadcast networks, cable or national newspapers and other publications. If more women were in charge, sexual harassment would be dealt with far more aggressively and would be less common to begin with.

Until the Weinstein scandal, which Farrow also helped disclose, the #MeToo movement was still in its infancy. After all, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton, the most powerful men in government in the 1990s, were known harassers. Congress, meanwhile, had a special fund in which millions in settlements were paid to female staffers over the years. Looking at the way the most powerful men in the government skated past charges, it was easy for other powerful men to assume that they could survive sexual misconduct charges.

CBS acted more like the Senate judiciary committee of 1991 than a responsible corporation should in 2018. Back then, the all-male Senate committee at first tried to ignore Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against Thomas, who was her boss at two federal agencies. It was only after female members of the House of Representatives literally marched over to the Senate that the all-male committee agreed to have hearings on Hill’s allegations. But that investigation left much to be desired, to say the least, and Thomas was confirmed. Now he’s the senior member of the conservative wing of the US supreme court that is about to grow even stronger with the expected confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.

CBS’s slow reaction to the Moonves scandal looked like the company was caught in a time warp. But women telling the truth, with the help of diligent reporters, now have the upper hand. It’s about time.