‘I Can’t Talk about It’: Fox News Media Columnist Says Company Won’t Let Him Cover Dominion Voting Case
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Fox News media columnist Howard Kurtz revealed Sunday that the network is not allowing him to cover a defamation lawsuit against Fox filed by Dominion Voting Systems.
The country’s most-watched cable news network is facing considerable jeopardy from the suit, with Dominion asking for $1.6 billion in damages. Fox is accused of knowingly broadcasting false information about Dominion machines in order to promote claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former president Trump.
Kurtz is well-known for his media coverage, having worked for The Washington Post and CNN before joining Fox in 2013. He publicly protested the network’s decision to keep him from discussing the case.
“Some of you have been asking why I’m not covering the Dominion voting machines case against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020,” said Kurtz. “It’s absolutely a fair question. I believe I should be covering it, it’s a major media story, given my role here at Fox.”
“The company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now,” explained Kurtz. “I strongly disagree with that decision. But as an employee, I have to abide by it.”
A legal filing from Dominion last week revealed prominent hosts like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, as well as others at Fox, repeatedly insulting and mocking Trump advisors, including Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The filing asserted that not a single Fox witness had testified that he or she believed any of the allegations about Dominion.
Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch also expressed doubt about Trump’s statements that the election had been stolen, calling the voter-fraud claims “really crazy stuff.”
The filing paints a picture of a network afraid to lose viewers after stunning the Trump campaign by being the first to declare Arizona for Biden.
After one Fox reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, fact-checked a tweet from Trump and asserted there was no evidence of voter fraud, Carlson, who consistently gets some of the network’s highest ratings, demanded that Heinrich be fired.
“Please get her fired,” said Carlson. “It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
In its own filing, Fox declared it had covered the voter fraud claims fairly.
“In its coverage, Fox News fulfilled its commitment to inform fully and comment fairly,” the filing read. “Some hosts viewed the president’s claims skeptically; others viewed them hopefully; all recognized them as profoundly newsworthy.”
A statement from a Fox News spokeswoman last week hit back against Dominion’s accusations.
“Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law,” the statement read.
In a similar case in 2020, Fox reached a private settlement with the parents of a slain Democratic National Committee staffer. The family of Seth Rich had sued Fox for spreading damaging rumors relating to his death.
In May 2017, the network published an online article that suggested Rich was killed in retaliation for leaking damaging DNC emails to WikiLeaks in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. Hannity repeatedly promoted the false theory on his program.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
According to its latest quarterly earnings report, as reported by The New York Times, Fox Corporation has about $4 billion cash on hand.
