Business

Fox News Nabs the Gawker Mole

At last, the Fox News mole has outed himself in a post on Gawker's web site. His name is Joe Muto and he is (or was) an associate producer at The O'Reilly Factor.

By Eric Randall and Alexander Abad-Santos
This article is from the archive of our partner .

Update 9:40 p.m.: At last, the Fox News mole has outed himself in a post on Gawker's web site, saying his bosses confronted him when he left a digital trail that made him "the only suspect" in their hunt. His name is Joe Muto and he is (or was) an associate producer at The O'Reilly Factor (which perhaps explains why he knows the intimate details of Bill O'Reilly's bathroom habits.) "I am a weasel, a traitor, a sell-out and every bad word you can throw at me... but as of today, I am free, and I am ready to tell my story." We bet you are, especially after catching wind of the potential for a six figure book deal.

Update 2:54 p.m.: This is getting exhausting. Fox News reiterated that they "know who it is" to Mediaite's Jon Bershad, and he adds, "It’s important to note that their first statement did not say that they had confronted or fired the person yet." Stay tuned, we suppose, for even more updates from this edition of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Media Gossip Blogger as Fox News closes in on the scurrying little mole in Manhattan.

Update 1:57 p.m.: The "mole" revealing Fox News's dirty secrets in several Gawker posts has just put a post up at Gawker saying, "If Fox has smoked me out, it's news to me. I'm still here." The plot thickens...

Original Post: We don't want to believe Mediaite's Jon Bershad, but he's reporting that in less than 24 hours from the Fox News mole's first posting on Gawker, the network has found the embed-- just when we were getting to the good stuff (Bill O'Reilly's bathroom).

Ok, so we don't really care about the O'Reilly's bathroom etiquette or Fox's deplorable bathrooms that much, but we would be lying if we said our interest wasn't piqued by the mole's posting about the journalistic gripes of working at Fox News. A Fox News Spokesperson contacted Mediaite, stating ominously, " We found the person and we’re exploring legal options at this time." More to come, we're sure.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.