How did *this* one slip under the radar? Judith Regan "terminated" from HarperCollins

But then the statement was made “late Friday”, when everybody was probably at a Christmas party somewhere. (Or NewsCorp hoped they were.) (Sorry, the only link I have at the moment is to a registrant-only story at Variety.)

News Corp.-owned HarperCollins announced the news late Friday on the East Coast with a terse press release headlined “Judith Regan Terminated.” Termination was effective immediately, the statement said.

Move was clearly a reaction — albeit a delayed one — to the embarrassing scandal involving a Regan tome and T.V. special with O.J. Simpson titled “If I Did It,” in which he described the way he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. That event earned across-the-board condemnation and a statement from Murdoch, who called the event “ill-considered” and yanked both the book and special.

…Over the last few weeks, Harper topper Jane Friedman came under fire for her silence about the Regan incident, and it seemed no accident that the statement declared that it was Friedman who was announcing the termination.

Regan has apparently moved herself and her staff to LA in hopes of working on some TV production deals, but, Variety says, “few had yet to materialize.”

(Thanks to all who suggested alternate links.)

Update: The details continue to trickle out…

…her firing swiftly followed a Friday afternoon phone call from her Los Angeles office to a HarperCollins attorney that included comments that were characterized as offensive, two highly placed corporate sources said Saturday. HarperCollins announced Saturday that Cal Morgan, her longtime editorial director, would take over the leadership of her division, which recently moved its offices from New York to Century City. The company “will continue operations under the able leadership of Editorial Director Cal Morgan, reporting to Michael Morrison, president and group publisher of Harper/Morrow,” according to a statement issued by Jane Friedman, HarperCollins CEO and president.

[tags]Regan, Judith, HarperCollins, O. J., O.J., Simpson[/tags]