Former Fox News writer who was allegedly shut down when reporting on Trump's payments to Stormy Daniels calls on Rupert Murdoch to lift NDA
- Diana Falzone, the former Fox News reporter who was allegedly shut down when she tried to report on Donald Trump's payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels, is calling for the network to lift the non-disclosure agreement it has with her.
- In a statement Saturday, Falzone said, "the public has the right to know the truth," and accused a former Fox News executive and a current Fox News reporter of defamation.
- Fox News executive Ken LaCort argued in a Friday piece that he killed Falzone's story because it lacked evidence.
Former Fox News journalist Diana Falzone, who was reportedly shut down by the network when she attempted to report on Donald Trump's alleged hush money payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels, is asking that her NDA with Fox News be lifted "because the public has the right to know the truth."
In a statement distributed to journalists, Falzone's attorney said that her client was calling on Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch to lift the non-disclosure agreement between her and company as it "pertains to the topic of her reporting in October of 2016 regarding Donald Trump paying hush money to Stormy Daniels."
In a The New Yorker magazine investigation by Jane Mayer published earlier in the week, it was reported that Falzone had confirmed before Trump's election that he had arranged payments to Daniels to keep her silent about an affair he had with her. The story that has now been reported by numerous outlets (first by the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal) and supported by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, but at the time went unreported.
She was reportedly told by former Fox News executive Ken LaCort "Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go." LaCort has denied saying this.
In January 2017, she was reportedly demoted and went on to sue Fox News for gender and disability discrimination relating to a piece she published about her struggles with endometriosis, a condition that can cause pain and menstrual irregularities for women. Fox News settled with Falzone out of court, and the agreement included an NDA that would bar her from speaking about her work with the company.
But in light of recent comments from LaCorte and Fox News host Howard Kurtz that Falzone's attorney called "false and defamatory," Falzone would apparently now like to tell her side of the story.
Along with her statement, Falzone wrote a piece for Vanity Fair that criticized NDA's, saying that they "enable companies to buy their way out of sexual harassment and discrimination claims, without having to come to grips with the corporate culture that allowed or even encouraged that very behavior."
On Friday, LaCorte published a piece on Mediaite calling Falzone's submitted draft "a 9-paragraph story that sorely needed backup," claiming that it only used anonymous second-hand accounts that lacked "any mention of payments, a hush money contract or any corroborating evidence[.]"
Howard Kurtz, a Fox News media reporter, has repeatedly spoken about The New Yorker story on Fox News, calling it "way off base," and repeating LaCorte's claims about Falzone's piece on Trump and Daniels. "When you don't have the goods, you don't publish," Kurtz said in a Friday evening Fox News interview.
Fox News, Ken LaCorte, nor Falzone's team immediately returned requests for comment.