After an apparent protest against the broadcasting company Fox, a man shot himself in the chest in front of the News Corp building in New York on Monday morning and later died. The man was a former employee of a local Fox affiliate in Texas, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, and had been claiming the company “ruined his life”.

A gun and a suicide note were found at the scene, a New York police department spokesman told the Guardian. Nobody else was injured.

Unnamed sources told the New York Post, a News Corp-owned newspaper, that the man had been asked to move away from the building – on the busy Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan – before he was found slumped outside at around 9am.

He had been handing out leaflets accusing News Corp of ending his career, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The man, described by the NYPD as 41 years old and “Hispanic”, was taken to Bellevue hospital but died shortly after.

News Corp directed all requests for comment to the police department, which did not provide the man’s name.

• If you are having suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline on 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 08457 90 90 90. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.