Category: News

Roger Friedman, the longtime Fox News online columnist, is no longer working for the news organization after eviewing a pirated version of the X-Men sequel “Wolverine.”

“Fox News representatives and Roger Friedman met today and mutually agreed to part ways immediately,” Fox News said in statement Monday. “Fox News appreciates Mr. Friedman’s ten years of contributions to building foxnews.com and wishes him success in his future endeavors. Mr. Friedman is grateful to his colleagues for their friendship and support over the past decade.”

Two Web sites, The Huffington Post and Gawker, reported that Friedman was scheduled to meet this morning with Roger Ailes, the Fox News chief, and John Moody, his executive vice president for editorial, to plead his case for keeping his job and online column “Fox 411.”

In classic gossip-columnist style, Roger Friedman has for more than a decade raised hackles, nursed grudges, launched vendettas, staged bitch-fests and also broken news in his entertainment column for Fox News, Fox411.

He made plenty of enemies in the process. But Friedman finally did himself in this weekend when he boasted on his blog that he had downloaded the leaked copy of the upcoming blockbuster “Wolverine” and reviewed it in advance — an act of  piracy that the company could not tolerate.

“Right now, my ‘cousins’ at 20th Century Fox are probably having apoplexy,” he blithely wrote in the post, since removed. “But everyone can relax. I am, in fact, amazed about how great Wolverine turned out. It exceeds expectations at every turn. I was completely riveted to my desk chair in front of my computer.”

As a veteran of the world of hard-nosed publicity barter, Friedman probably figured he could squirm out of an uncomfortable situation by praising the film.

Turns out Friedman was working out of an old playbook. The decision to terminate him was made over the weekend, a News Corp executive confirmed. “It’s a matter of principle,” said the executive.