‘It’s a Sh*t Network’: New Texts Reveal Ex-Fox News Reporter Claiming Network ‘Muzzled’ Her for Fact-Checking Trump
New texts from from documents released as part of Dominion’s lawsuit show former Fox News White House correspondent Kristin Fisher complained that the network “muzzled” her after she fact-checked 2020 election claims from then-President Donald Trump and his team.
A new trove of evidence was released on Tuesday in the Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which Dominion said aired false claims about a stolen election and the company’s involvement in that conspiracy theory. Included in the new documents was a text message exchange between Fisher and Fox News host Gillian Turner.
“[Fox & Friends] has stopped taking me when I fill in on morning [White House],” Turner wrote in an exchange from Dec. 9, 2020, a month after the election. “For the whole pandemic, they took me every time at 7 & 8 and that seems to have ended.”
“That makes two of us,” Fisher replied.
“I was wondering what your experience was with them lately…So it’s back to being a shit shift again,” Turner wrote.
“It’s a sh*t network,” Fisher replied. “I’m 100% being muzzled.”
Fisher said her live reports from the White House have been restricted to Special Report ever since she fact-checked Rudy Giuliani and Trump.
From Fisher’s texts:
After my Giuliani live shot and that 6 min long fact check of Trump on SR [Special Report]. I have had zero live shots from the WH (except for SR). They give all my morning live shots to Griff [Jenkins]. when I’m filling in for John. And They even pulled me from anchoring the 2PM last Friday.
I’m supposed to fill in on [America’s Newsroom] for a few days over the next few weeks, and I have hunch they’re going to pull me from that too.
“F*ck. Really?” Turner replied. “You think they pulled you from anchoring over that sh*t?”
“A hundred percent,” Fisher replied. “Griff is doing my 2 pm hit today. I’m being punished for doing my job. Literally. That’s it.”
The Fisher texts come as the Dominion filings show Fox News opinion hosts engaged in a cold war with the news anchors and reporters that tried to fact-check or push back on Trump’s lies about the election. Tucker Carlson pushed for White House reporter Jacqui Heinrich to be fired for fact-checking Trump (despite Carlson’s private disdain for the ex-president) because he thought it was hurting the network’s bottom line. Carlson also had a group text with Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham where they took turns ripping their straight news colleagues, including ex-Fox News hosts Leland Vittert and Chris Wallace.
The filings have also shown that Fox’s top executives admonished members of the news team for their “disrespect” to the network’s audience.
Another exhibit on Fisher shows a text exchange with former Fox producer Phil Vogel, who told her he was taking a pay cut and forgoing six weeks paid leave to get out of the network because “I couldn’t defend” their voter fraud coverage to his daughter.
The post-election coverage of “voter fraud” was probably the complete end. And once Alice was born I realized I couldn’t defend my employer to my daughter while trying to teach her to do what is right. I couldn’t get over that. So I’m leaving 6 weeks paid leave on the table and taking a paycut to leave. They removed every panelist on SR who spoke out against Trumps false election shit. Parenthood adds perspective in a harsh way sometimes I guess.
Fox News offered this statement on the new evidence to Mediaite:
Dominion has been caught red handed again using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear FOX News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.
