A man who fatally shot himself outside News Corp’s New York headquarters was a former employee of a Fox News affiliate, Pervaiz Shallwani and Heather Haddon wrote Monday for The Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal report, attributed to “a law enforcement official,” says the man, Phillip Perea, worked out of a station in Austin, Texas. He was “handing out fliers” that blamed his employers for having “ended my career,” right before he shot himself:
A suicide note and a gun were recovered at the scene, the official said. Mr. Perea took to his Twitter page about an hour before the shooting, further criticizing his former employer and linking to a more than 8-minute YouTube video laying out his complaints.
A Twitter account registered to a user matching the name given to The Wall Street Journal tweeted Monday about workplace bullying and linked to a YouTube playlist called “The American Workplace Bully: How FOX News Ended My Career.” There are 35 videos in the playlist, and many feature a narrator discussing perceived conflicts with his employer.
Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy released the following statement in response to the incident:
To All Employees—
This morning, a former employee at FOX 7-KTBC (Austin) committed suicide outside FOX Television Stations’ (FTS) headquarters in New York City. He was employed at our Austin television station for ten months and has not been with the station or FTS since June 2014. We are deeply saddened by this tragedy.
Correction: An earlier headline on this story incorrectly stated that Perea was a former employee of Fox News. In fact, he was an employee of a Fox affiliate.
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