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Read the press release here.

Bedbugs Feared at News Corp. HQ, Again

By Della Hasselle | October 5, 2010 4:18pm
The News Corporation on 1211 Avenue of the Americas was steam cleaned for bedbugs after dogs signaled
The News Corporation on 1211 Avenue of the Americas was steam cleaned for bedbugs after dogs signaled "concern."
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DNAinfo/Della Hasselle

By Olivia Scheck

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — News Corporation's New York headquarters, which houses the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Fox and Barron's, was treated for bedbugs Monday, according to an item on the WSJ's Metropolis blog.

Monday's scare began when an employee for the financial newspaper Barron's reported a bedbug outbreak in his apartment building, the blog said.

Exterminators did not see any bedbugs around the employee's desk, but a sniffer dog "did signal concerns," leading the company to "steam clean" the area, a News Corp. spokeswoman told Metropolis.

"We are acting out of an abundance of caution to forestall your worries and help reassure you that your workplace is safe," a company e-mail circulated to staff explained, according to the blog.

A Fox News employee who brought the bed bug infestation to the company in 2008 had
A Fox News employee who brought the bed bug infestation to the company in 2008 had "the worst infestation" the exterminator had seen in 25 years.
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DNAinfo/Della Hasselle

The building, at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, was infested in 2008 when an outbreak occurred in the Fox newsroom, as reported by the New York Times in March of that year.

The exterminator hired to handle the 2008 infestation said the Fox News employee who brought the bugs had "the worst infestation he had seen in 25 years in the business," the Times said.

The employee was later fired, according to Gawker.

Another Fox News staffer, Joan Clark, later filed a workman's compensation suit against News Corp, claiming she had suffered post-traumatic stress as a result of the outbreak, a press release posted on Gawker said.