Fox News staffers are not immune from #FakeNews allegations, ex-staffers tell Polygon
A Fox News employee is suing the network and several former employees, claiming the network’s newsrooms are riddled with “fear mongering and outright fabrication” and that the company’s journalists are “incapable of performing their duties in a professional manner.”
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims Fox News has “failed to prevent and investigate egregious examples of falsified, false, and malicious reporting and falsified and defamatory reports, defamation, libel, and slander” against the network.
The suit, which was filed by a former Fox News staffer and two former Fox employees, alleges that Fox News “has systematically employed the fabrication of and perpetuated the falsification of information about the Fox News and Fox Business News teams in order to cover up the truth and deceive the public and the press.”
In the suit, the former Fox employee claims that his former boss, John Roberts, used to “take dictation” on how Fox News reporters wrote stories, including on whether or not Fox News’ reporting on Trump was accurate.
Roberts allegedly also told him he would write stories for the network that were “unethical, false and misleading,” according to the lawsuit.
Roberts denied any knowledge of the falsified stories, according to a Fox News spokesperson.
The lawsuit further alleges that, in the course of reporting on the presidential campaign, Fox News journalists “fabricated or fabricated facts to falsely portray President Trump and the Republican Party as corrupt and threatening to democracy.”
The complaint also claims that Roberts told the Fox Business reporter in a May 2016 meeting that “the media should not report anything negative about Trump,” despite the fact that the media is covering Trump’s controversial treatment of women.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This is about an employee who was put in a position of trust and trustworthiness that he could not perform as the leader of Fox News, a corporation that he believed to be in the best interests of the company,” the complaint reads.
Fox employees were allegedly instructed to lie about their salaries, the suit alleges, with the company “working overtime to keep them happy, so that Fox would not have to pay them in order for them to perform their jobs.”
“The result was a culture of fear and intimidation that made Fox News employees believe that their bosses were trying to silence them,” the lawsuit reads.
The complaint claims that Fox executives “discriminated against employees for expressing their opinion and expressing their views, including in regards to the Trump administration, the media and President Trump.”
Fox News also allegedly used “false information” to claim that Trump’s inauguration was peaceful and was “not at all what he claimed it was,” the suit states.
The Fox News website, which is run by Rupert Murdoch’s sons Lachlan and James, has been under fire in recent months for its coverage of the presidential election.
A group of former employees who were terminated from Fox News over the last year allege that the network had a policy of retaliating against employees who spoke out against the company.
In February, a Fox Business host was fired after reporting that the Murdochs were planning to cut ties with a number of Fox employees who had criticized their boss over his campaign statements and comments.
The former host, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has filed a lawsuit against Fox News for allegedly “fraudulently and maliciously” threatening her.
“Fox News employees have been subjected to repeated and widespread intimidation, threats and violence,” the group alleges in the lawsuit, which has not been formally filed.
The plaintiffs say they have been harassed and physically assaulted by Fox employees.
Fox, which currently owns and operates Fox Business, is owned by Fox Entertainment Group, which also owns Fox News.
The allegations in the Fox complaint, which were not immediately returned, also cite a number, including allegations of retaliation for the journalists’ involvement in a 2015 New York Times article that criticized the company for its treatment of one of the network ‘s anchors, Megyn Kelly.
In the article, Kelly claimed that Fox employees pressured her to fire a reporter who questioned her sexual orientation and told her that if she continued to work for Fox News she would be fired.
“I have always known that the decision to fire Megyn was made by people who were willing to make the most money, and they did,” Fox News President Roger Ailes told the Times at the time.