According to a recent report, Fox News is laying off employees; however, the extent of the layoffs and the rationale behind them are still up for debate.
On Friday, the investigative unit at Fox News was reportedly disbanded, as stated in a piece published in Rolling Stone.
According to the article, the layoffs were connected to the settlement Fox reached with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. Dominion Voting Systems had sued Fox for defamation.
“The rank and file journalists are getting let go. Meanwhile, upper management are sitting pretty while they are the execs responsible for the Dominion debacle” Rolling Stone cited a source that it said was an unnamed Fox journalist. “We are the sacrificial lambs,” the source added.
The magazine reported that a second source said, “Yes, [layoffs] have happened and continue to happen.”
“I think producers, management, et cetera [are being laid-off],” a former Fox staffer whose name was not used is quoted as saying. “They are trying to get money off the books before June 30. They have to save money because of the [Dominion] lawsuit.”
The New York Daily News published an article that presented an opposing viewpoint.
Changes to the investigative unit have “nothing to do with Dominion,” according to what a “source with knowledge of the situation” told the Daily News.
According to the story in the Daily News, the unit was not disbanded but rather reformed.
“There were three employees in the seven-person unit impacted, while four employees were offered different positions within the company,” the Daily News quoted its source as saying.
According to the source, the members of the investigative unit’s employees had been working in other departments for the most part and had not been conducting investigations.
On the other hand, the piece from Rolling Stone made hints about tensions within Fox News.
“The outrage is that Suzanne Scott and Maria Bartiromo keep their jobs. Meanwhile, the journalists get let go. We are in shock,” one of its employee sources was quoted as saying, referring to the Fox News CEO and a high-profile host.
Since Fox News removed host Tucker Carlson from the air a month ago, the network has been in a state of disarray. According to a claim that was published in Variety, Fox News made an unspoken commitment to Dominion that they would fire Carlson.
According to Variety, which cited what it called “multiple sources with knowledge of the conversation,” it was during a conversation with a member of the Fox News board on April 26 that Tucker Carlson heard the reason why his show was canceled.
Carlson was advised by the board member, who did not reveal their identity, that Carlson’s dismissal was an unwritten condition of the settlements.
According to the article from Variety, Dominion advised Fox that the settlement was off the table if it refused to make Carlson collateral damage and that Fox News could take its chances in a jury trial if it continued to refuse. Both Dominion and Fox have responded by challenging the assertion.
