The dismissal of Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo last week signals a more-cautious stance by Fox in the wake of multiple lawsuits, reports Jim Rutenberg, Erik Wemple and Benjamin Mullin of The New York Times.
Rutenberg, Wemple and Mullin report, “That was clear in July, when the network was sued for defamation after Kevin O’Leary, the investor of ‘Shark Tank’ fame, used Ms. Bartiromo’s show to settle a score with his detractors. He baselessly claimed that two nonprofit founders in Utah who were opposing his plans for a 40,000-acre data center near the Great Salt Lake were Chinese agents.
“According to the lawsuit, Ms. Bartiromo not only failed to challenge Mr. O’Leary, she ‘legitimized’ his accusation.
“The network’s response afterward was more reflective of the post-Dominion shift. Whereas the network stonewalled Dominion when it initially complained about its election-fraud coverage, it moved more quickly to apologize after Mr. O’Leary retracted his claims.”
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