Ex-Fox Business anchor Francis receives $15 million settlement

Fox Corp. agreed to a roughly $15 million settlement with former Fox Business anchor Melissa Francis who complained about gender-based pay disparities at the cable news network, reports Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post.

Ellison reports, “Although the kind of sum won by Melissa Francis, an on-air personality for several shows on Fox News and Fox Business Network from 2012 to 2020, is unusual in television news, it underscores perennial concerns that women do not prosper as well as men in this industry — an issue Francis says she personally attempted to investigate by researching what her peers earned at Fox.

“Francis and her attorney declined to comment on the settlement, which has not been previously reported. Francis separately filed a complaint with the New York State Department of Labor claiming that Fox retaliated against her after she pointed out pay disparities at the network. Her attorney, Kevin Mintzer, said she filed the pending complaint with the state ‘not for herself but for the women of the company who remain behind.'”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.