WOLVERINE - GOSSIP COLUMNIST SUES FOX NEWS FOR $5 MILLION

GOSSIP COLUMNIST SUES FOX NEWS FOR $5 MILLION

Former FoxNews.com entertainment columnist Roger Friedman is claiming in a $5-million lawsuit against News Corp that the copy of Wolverine that he viewed online had previously been in the possession of of News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch. He maintains that the principal reason for his dismissal was that News Corp wanted to cover up the real truth about how the film ended up online. Details of the lawsuit were first published Tuesday by the Huffington Post, which noted that it barely mentions the Church of Scientology. Earlier reports had quoted Friedman as saying that he had fired because of pressure from members of the controversial church, which Friedman has often castigated in his columns. The lawsuit further observes that although Fox had ostensibly fired him for describing how to download pirated movies over the Internet, the Times of London had run a similar story in January 2009, giving detailed instructions on how to download pirated movies.

01/07/2009