Awful news to share on this Friday late-afternoon: Fox News svp of news and politics Alan Komissaroff suffered a heart attack at his home nearly two weeks ago, and died today at the age of 47.
“Alan was a leader and mentor throughout FOX News Media who was integral to our daily news operations and played an indispensable role in every election cycle,” Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace wrote in an internal memo to Fox News Media staff. “The recent midterm election coverage was easily one of the finest nights of special coverage he produced throughout his career. And he was the ultimate producer: breaking news, politics, special events — there was no steadier or more trusted colleague to be with in the control room during the most consequential events of our time and his incisiveness and passion for news made our work better.”
Komissaroff was a “Fox News original,” having joined the network in 1996 straight out of college. He rose through the ranks to become a writer, producer, showrunner and eventually svp of news and politics, overseeing the network’s political coverage, including 2020 presidential election night and 2022 midterm elections night broadcasts.
We caught up with Komissaroff days before Fox’s 2022 midterms broadcast. When asked about lessons learned from 2020, he told us, “As always, we will be focusing on constant communication between our decision desk, on-air talent and producers. As well as putting an emphasis on transparency, so the viewer knows exactly what’s going on at all times. We want to educate viewers on how we are doing what we do… and why we are making a call or not.”
Komissaroff is survived by his wife Rachael and children Ben (17) and Olivia (13).
Here’s the remainder of the memo, obtained by TVNewser:
