Home » US Business & Employment News • US business news » Fox News sued by former DHS disinformation expert for defamation

Fox News sued by former DHS disinformation expert for defamation

By Nithya Bose in US Business & Employment News, posted May 11, 2023

Fox News faces another defamation suit for allegedly spreading false information which has harmed a woman's career.

The complainant, disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz, was the former executive director of a Department of Homeland Security division dealing with disinformation threats to national security.

Her attorneys wrote Fox's coverage of Jankowicz was neither news nor political commentary but was designed to make viewers believe that Jankowicz could and would suppress their speech.

The lawsuit, filed in Delaware state court, alleges defamation and seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

The complaint says Fox's coverage created a "completely false reputation concerning government censorship."

It claims the coverage has also made Jankowicz toxic and deterred others from working with her as they otherwise would.

Jankowicz was appointed executive director of the DHS board, an internal working group within the agency with no authority, in late April 2022.

However, the board's work was paused just weeks later, on May 18, and Jankowicz resigned.

She said at the time the board's purpose was to ensure that DHS followed best practices in combatting disinformation while protecting Americans' freedom of speech, privacy, and civil liberties.

The suit argues that comments on Fox News portrayed her as censoring Americans' speech.

She was called "unhinged" and a "Minister of Truth," in an apparent reference to George Orwell's dystopian world in "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

The lawsuit included screenshots of comments on Gab and another website, Patriots.win, in which people reacted to Fox broadcasts with comments like "time to kill them all."

Need Career Advice? Get employment skills advice at all levels of your career

It also mentioned tweets that said she should be executed, while other direct messages told Jankowicz to kill herself using vulgar language.

The lawsuit comes after Fox News agreed last month to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems over lies spread on the network about the 2020 election.

A defamation lawsuit Smartmatic, an electronics equipment company, filed against Fox News is pending. Smartmatic's suit seeks $2.7 billion.

Last month, a Fox spokesperson cited freedom of the press and said Fox was confident it would prevail in the Smartmatic case.

Follow us on YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.