Fox News Cites Newly Discovered Maria Bartiromo Emails In Defense Of Dominion Lawsuit; Judge Indicates Jurors Won’t Be Selected Based On Who They Voted For In 2020

dropped a gag order against her on March 21. Her lawyer, Parisis G.

Fox News has fired a producer who filed a lawsuit against the network in which she claimed that she was coached and coerced by the network’s lawyers to give misleading deposition testimony in the defense against Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News cut ties with Abby Grossberg Friday, Variety has learned, after the booker and producer for such hosts as Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo alleged in court filings earlier this week that she was coerced by executives into providing misleading testimony in the $1.6 billion defamation suit that Dominion Voting Systems has levied against the Fox Corp.-backed outlet. Grossberg, who had worked as a senior booking producer for Bartiromo and head of booking for Carlson, alleged in filings in Delaware Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that Fox attorneys worked to “coach, manipulate, and coerce Ms. Grossberg to deliver shaded and/or incomplete answers during her sworn deposition testimony, which answers were clearly to her reputational detriment but greatly benefitted Fox News,” according to her Delaware lawsuit.

embraced her son during a live broadcast while reporting on the scene of a shooting at his high school.Acuna was outside East High School in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday, following a harrowing incident in which a student brought a handgun to campus and opened fire on school administrators during a search.The emotional reunion between Acuna and her son happened during her report when she saw her child emerge from the school across the street and excused herself to run and hug him.«I’m sorry, I have not seen my kid since this all went down,» Acuna said to camera as she stepped away to give her son a hug. As they embraced, Acuna told her son she had to finish her report «real quick.»When she returned, Acuna said that her son was OK, and explained that her son was the one who first alerted her to the shooting.Denver-based Fox News reporter @aacuna1 sees and embraces her son as he leaves East High school after today’s shooting.

is asking $1.6 billion in damages – significant, but not a potential death-blow for the crown jewel of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire – for what it says are defamatory statements about its voting machines in multiple reports, guest segments and host commentary immediately following the 2020 election. Defamation cases hinge on “actual malice,” proof that the defendant intended harm – and Dominion has been pushing hard on that front in it pretrial efforts.Fox has maintained it was merely doing the news, and was protected by its framing of even the wildest election conspiracy theories as allegations and speculation.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor A producer for Fox News who has worked for Maria Batirormo and Tucker Carlson alleged in court filings Monday that she was coerced by executives into providing misleading testimony in the $1.6 billion defamation suit that Dominion Voting Systems has levied against the Fox Corp.-backed outlet. In filings made Monday Delaware Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Abby Grossberg, who had worked as a senior booking producer for Bartiromo and head of booking for Tucker Carlson, alleged that Fox attorneys worked to “coach, manipulate, and coerce Ms. Grossberg to deliver shaded and/or incomplete answers during her sworn deposition testimony, which answers were clearly to her reputational detriment but greatly benefitted Fox News,” according to the Delaware lawsuit.

A Fox News producer claims that she was “coerced” and “intimidated” by the network’s legal team into providing misleading and evasive testimony in a deposition in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News Media, known best for shows led by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, is placing new emphasis on programming that relies more heavily on Kevin Costner, weather emergencies and Greg Gutfeld. In a meeting with advertisers slated to be held Tuesday, executives at the Fox Corp.-backed operation, will spotlight a growing array of lifestyle content, while continuing to nod to the political programming that draws some of its networks’ biggest audiences. Among the Fox News Media executives scheduled to be on hand were Suzanne Scott, the CEO, and Jay Wallace, president and executive editor. “If you take a look at our overall audience across all of Fox News Media, 40% comes from lifestyle – sports, weather, entertainment offerings,” says Jeff Collins, executive vice president of advertsing sales for Fox News Media. “We just want to reiterate to our clients the depth and breadth of this type of content that we have outside of just hard news.”

by the New York Times, Grossberg says she was coached in “a coercive and intimidating manner” by Fox News lawyers prior to giving testimony last September in the Dominion case. The network’s goal, she said, was to to position her and Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who Grossberg worked for at the time, to take the blame for airing false conspiracy theories alleging Dominion somehow rigged the 2020 election.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The battle for cable-news viewers is coming to March Madness. CNN intends to run a new promo during the heavily watched NCAA men’s basketball tournament that throws a sharp verbal elbow at Fox News Channel and the legal defamation case filed against it by Dominion Voting Systems. The promos will air starting this weekend on TNT, TBS, TruTV and CBS, all of which carry the games under a joint rights agreement held by the owners of those networks, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, which is also the parent of CNN. Fox News Channel is not mentioned in the promo script, reviewed by Variety, but the references are clear. “What should you expect of a news network?” asks the narrator. “Some bury the truth, while we fight to reveal the facts. The only side we are on is yours.” Viewers see images of CNN correspondents and anchors such as Abby Phillip and Clarissa Ward.

Fox News Channel viewers are less trusting of the cable network in the wake of publicly disclosed text messages and emails from Fox executives and on-air personalities, according to a new survey.  But only 9% of Fox News viewers say they aren’t watching the network as much as they used to, per research provided exclusively to Variety Intelligence Platform by consumer insights specialists Maru Group. (Click to an expanded subscriber version for full results.) A representative for Fox News told VIP+, “There has been no impact to advertising, with no advertisers dropping or pausing.” 

Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch for creating “monsters” like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, then trying to disavow their words.Those words, of course, came in the form of emails and text messages, which have been steadily released in court filings from Dominion. Quite a bit has come out, so here’s what you need to know: At the end of February, Dominion docs revealed that several Fox hosts, including Ingraham and Hannity, were privately bashing election deniers that were being brought on their shows in 2020.Among the messages: “Sidney Powell is lying,” sent from Tucker Carlson to his producer Alex Pfeiffer on Nov.

Lachlan Murdoch, in his first public comments about a defamation lawsuit against Fox News that’s been grabbing headlines, said he believes the network is even handed and the “noise” is more reflective of the nation’s divided politics than anything else.

Dominion Voting Systems and Fox offered dueling views of defamation law in their latest filings, as each side seeks a summary judgment ruling that could forestall a planned trial in April.

A huge release of text messages, emails and deposition transcripts dropped today in the Dominion vs. Fox litigation sheds further light on the scramble among Fox News personalities and Fox Corp. executives to respond to the backlash in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and then the repercussions after the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

filing earlier this month: That top hosts including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo were privately horrified that their network was pushing Trump’s “stolen election” narrative – but went on-air with it anyway.“Is there really that much going on at two in the afternoon on Fox News that you can’t cover him live?” the popular “War Room” podcaster asked the crowd. “They don’t respect you, read the depositions.

Semafor. Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.Meanwhile, his main rival (as yet unofficial) candidate, Florida Governor Ron Desantis, has been on Fox regularly.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seized on the latest revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News, as they called on Rupert Murdoch to curb hosts from spreading election conspiracy theories.

Fox News dominated its rivals in February viewership and landed the top ten shows in total viewers and a key demographic.