The allegations Fox News is facing from an ex-producer
Abby Grossberg, a Fox News producer for hosts Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo, was chased with a restraining order by the network and eventually fired after Fox alleged she disclosed private information about the Dominion lawsuit. Her dismissal came after Grossberg sued Fox, claiming that the network had pressured her into lying under oath, and evidence just unveiled in an amended batch of her legal filings outlines additional allegations against the network. Here is just some of what Grossberg has alleged the company was up to:
Fox allegedly pressured Grossberg to give false testimony
A large portion of the papers were filed by Grossberg to try and correct what she claims was a false narrative that Fox forced her to tell regarding the network's coverage of the Dominion voting machines. Dominion has sued Fox for $1.6 billion for allegedly spreading false claims about their use to perpetrate fraud in the 2020 election. Grossberg gave a sworn deposition about the case on Sept. 22, 2022, but says in these new legal filings that she was pressured to twist facts of the case by Fox executives.
Grossberg alleges that Fox pressured her to downplay any role that ratings may have had in the network's coverage of the election, and she felt "pressured to respond with a generic 'I do not recall' whenever she had the opportunity, even if she, in fact, did have a recollection, albeit perhaps not a perfect one," according to legal filings obtained by NBC News.
Grossberg goes on to describe her preparations with Fox as "coercive and intimidating," and adds that she "felt that I had to do everything possible to avoid becoming the 'star witness' for Dominion or else I would be seriously jeopardizing my career at Fox News." She also said that Fox did not allow her to review a transcript of her testimony prior to it being entered into court, The Daily Beast reports, and has asked to be allowed to correct what she says is false testimony. In multiple instances, when asked if she trusted her fellow producers at Fox, Grossberg changed her answers from "yes" to "no," NBC reports.
Grossberg says she was subjected to discrimination and misogyny at Fox
In addition to alleged coercion, Grossberg claims that Fox News employees were subject to sexism and misogynistic sentiments at the network, The New York Times reports, and adds that she was "being set up to take the fall for Fox's actions because of the company's culture of misogyny and discrimination at Fox." In her legal filings, Grossberg describes the company's work environment as "toxic" and says she was continually harassed by male producers.
Grossberg also writes that she eventually resigned herself to "knowing that I would have [to] endure abhorrent discrimination and misogynistic remarks on a regular basis" in order to stay within the network's ranks, according to CBS News.
This is not the first time that Fox has been accused of having a hostile workplace for women. This includes sexual harassment allegations involving embattled former Fox host Bill O'Reilly, and the now-deceased chair and CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes.
Grossberg was allegedly fired by Fox as retaliation
Fox has pushed back against Grossberg's allegations, with the network saying in a statement obtained by CNN that she was "free to file whatever legal claims she wished" but was not legally allowed to share "privileged information" about the Dominion case. The network added that they told Grossberg that if she "violated our instructions, Fox would take appropriate action including termination."
Grossberg, however, has a different version of the events, and calls her firing "yet another thinly veiled act of retaliation" in legal filings, per HuffPost. Lawyers for Grossberg go on to say that when the network realized they could not stop her "from speaking her truth to the world in her immutable 'public filings' — either by intimidation, obfuscation, or baseless attempts at judicial intervention — it terminated her employment."
"They're activists, not journalists, and impose their political agendas on the programming," the filing adds.
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