Fox News anchor Howard Kurtz said the network has forbidden him from reporting on the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against the network over its 2020 election coverage.
“Some of you have been asking why I’m not covering the Dominion Voting Machines lawsuit against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020, and it’s absolutely a fair question,” Kurtz said Sunday on “Mediabuzz.”
“I believe I should be covering it. It’s a major media story, given my role here at Fox. But 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. I strongly disagree with that decision, but as an employee, I have to abide by it. And if that changes, I’ll let you know.”
Fox News, whose hosts routinely rail against censorship, issued HuffPost a lengthy statement Monday and key points from its opposition brief in the lawsuit. It did not mention Kurtz’s comments.
“Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims,” the statement said.
“Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear FOX for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”
Earlier this month, court filings revealed text messages that Dominion said were sent by senior Fox News executives and major hosts. The texts suggested that network talent and decision makers did not believe the false claims of election fraud that they were amplifying on air.
Tucker Carlson, for example, allegedly referred to the Trump campaign’s election grievances as “ludicrous” and “totally off the rails” in private text exchanges. Sean Hannity at one point referred to people promoting the lies as “lunatics.” And Raj Shah, senior vice president of Fox Corporation, apparently described the voter fraud claims as “mind blowingly nuts.”
The star hosts named in the filings have been silent on the allegations. In a statement shortly after the story broke, a Fox News spokesperson 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.”
Dominion is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, accusing the company of promoting damaging lies that Dominion helped rig the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump. The case is scheduled to go to trial in April.