UPDATE: On Wednesday, Dec. 6, Fox News filed a motion to dismiss Donner’s lawsuit:
“Once the inflammatory rhetoric is stripped out of the Complaint, it is apparent that Plaintiff Jason Donner has no actionable claims against his former employer, Defendant FOX News…While Plaintiff, a former Capitol Hill producer for [FOX News], alleges that his employment was terminated because of discrimination based on “political affiliation” or in retaliation for opposing such discrimination against other employees, the facts alleged in the Complaint do not remotely state such claims.”
By A.J. Katz
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ORIGINAL:
Jason Donner, a former Fox News reporter, is suing the network for retaliation and discrimination after being let go for allegedly speaking out against the network’s “false coverage” of the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, according to recent court filings filed Sept. 27, 2023.
The Daily Beast was first to report on the lawsuit.
Donner, who worked for Fox News for 12 years, claims that the work environment at the network turned toxic for those who were trying to report truthfully the outcome of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In his lawsuit, Donner also claims that he had been targeted after continually raising concerns with his managers about false statements being allowed on the air.
“To win back viewership and pledge its loyalty to President Trump, Fox’s corporate leadership purged the news division and those reporters who spoke out against claims of election fraud,” says the suit, filed in Washington, D.C., Superior Court.
Donner, who had been reporting from Capitol Hill since 2018, was working inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 when insurrectionists stormed through the doors. He and other reporters were hiding in news booths when he heard that Fox was reporting that the attack was “peaceful.”
Donner says he called the Fox News control room, and told them that tear gas was going off, rioters were storming the building; shots had been reported fired, and that false reports on the news were “gonna get us all killed.”
In the aftermath of the insurrection, Donner said he had complained to his bosses about Fox News’s “lack of support.” His gripes with the network also included former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s false claims and conspiracy theories about the day, saying that “it was demoralizing that Fox News would allow Carlson to gaslight the country with false information.”
On Sept. 26, 2022, Donner said he called in sick to work and was fired two days later, with the network saying that he was dismissed because he was “late for work and did not show up for work.”
According to the New York Times, lawyers for Donner and Fox News did not respond when reached for comment.
Donner’s lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Sept. 27 and transferred to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday. The lawsuit did not specify the amount of damages sought.
This is the latest lawsuit Fox News is facing within this past year that involves the 2020 election and its aftermath. In June, it settled with former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg for $12 million as a result of a hostile-workplace lawsuit. The network, in April, paid the hefty sum of $787.5 million to settle with Dominion Voting Systems over a defamation suit about the false conspiracy theories it broadcast on its air about voter fraud.