Fox News anchor and reporter Howard Kurtz proclaimed he “strongly” disagrees with the media outlet forbidding him from covering the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion voting systems against the network.
“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,” Kurtz reportedly announced during an airing of “MediaBuzz” on Sunday. “I strongly disagree with that decision. But as an employee, I have to abide by it.”
Kurtz appeared to put out the statement because viewers have been asking why there has not yet been coverage of the topic.
“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,” Kurtz said. “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.”
Fox News’ @HowardKurtz explains why he’s not covering the Dominion lawsuit against Fox for now
pic.twitter.com/2r4aiJ5k9K— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) February 26, 2023
These remarks come days after court documents surfacing from the lawsuit featured messages that seemingly revealed at least some of Fox’s executives and TV show hosts did not agree with allegations by former President Trump that he lost the 2020 election due to widespread voting fraud, all while they reportedly brought attorneys on-air to make similar accusations.
Alleged bombshells of the lawsuit include that Rupert Murdoch told Fox News President Suzanne Scott to “concentrate on [the Senate runoffs in] Georgia, helping any way we can,” and that some Fox News executives described a few of the network’s hosts as “crazy.”
Fox has said that these discoveries are “noise,” and are “irrelevant” to the case.
“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” the outlet said in a statement.
A Fox spokesperson additionally said, “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.”
Fox has filed a counterclaim against the suit, arguing Dominion Voting Systems has not provided evidence to prove the alleged $1.6 billion in damages suffered by the company as a result of unproven claims surrounding the 2020 election.
