Fox News Drops Gag-Order Lawsuit Against Tucker Carlson Producer

Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” with Colin Jost and Michael Che took multiple swings at Fox News and Donald Trump on the show.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch could be called upon to testify in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit suit against Fox News and Fox Corp., per a Delaware judge who says he is not against calling upon the media moguls. If the attorneys for Dominion issue trial subpoenas to force a testimony from the Fox leaders, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said at a public hearing Wednesday he, “would not quash it and I would compel them to come,” per NBC News. “It would be my discretion that they come,” Davis said. Dominion’s attorneys requested in a letter to the court Wednesday that live testimony be required from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, as well as Fox board member and former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Fox exec Viet Dinh. Davis approved the request to compel each of them to testify, according to NBC News.

 Unless Rupert Murdoch and Fox News settle soon, Dominion Voting Systems will have its day in court in its defamation case against the combative conservative cable newser.

Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have made Fox News’ witness list for its defamation trial against Dominion Voting Systems. On Tuesday, a legal filing submitted by the network revealed a slew of people for it submitted as potential witnesses in the $1.6 billion lawsuit against the network. Among them were several Fox News other personalities including Bret Baier, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox News president Jay Wallace also made the list.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News is about to have one of its biggest events in years, and everyone from CEO Suzanne Scott to prominent anchors like Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo to primetime chief Meade Cooper is likely to attend some part of it. If Fox’s parent company has its way, however, Rupert Murdoch, the guiding force behind much of Fox Corporation, will not. Starting as soon as April 17, Fox Corp. could square off in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware and face allegations of defamation from Dominion Voting Systems in a whopping $1.6 billion-dollar suit that is sure to generate headlines. Before any of that can start, however, the two sides appear to locked in a battle over whether the Fox Corp. executive chairman, and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, should be present in court to give testimony.

Dominion Voting Systems’ upcoming defamation trial against Fox News and Fox Corp., scheduled to begin on April 17, may very well feature a parade of the network’s news personalities taking the stand, with both sides in the case planning to call figures including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Bret Baier.

dropped a gag order against her on March 21. Her lawyer, Parisis G.

Fox News has fired a producer who filed a lawsuit against the network in which she claimed that she was coached and coerced by the network’s lawyers to give misleading deposition testimony in the defense against Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News cut ties with Abby Grossberg Friday, Variety has learned, after the booker and producer for such hosts as Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo alleged in court filings earlier this week that she was coerced by executives into providing misleading testimony in the $1.6 billion defamation suit that Dominion Voting Systems has levied against the Fox Corp.-backed outlet. Grossberg, who had worked as a senior booking producer for Bartiromo and head of booking for Carlson, alleged in filings in Delaware Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that Fox attorneys worked to “coach, manipulate, and coerce Ms. Grossberg to deliver shaded and/or incomplete answers during her sworn deposition testimony, which answers were clearly to her reputational detriment but greatly benefitted Fox News,” according to her Delaware lawsuit.

passionately,” Tucker Carlson remains, publicly, one of Trump’s biggest media allies. So it comes as no surprise that the star of Fox News’ primetime lineup is very, very opposed to the idea of Donald Trump being arrested.But on Tuesday Carlson had a highly idiosyncratic hope for how Trump might be saved from legal accountability: Help from President Joe Biden. Now as a reminder, on Saturday, as part of a larger ALL CAPS rant on his Twitter clone, Truth Social, about various things that make him angry, Trump claimed that we would likely be arrested on Tuesday (today).

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor A producer for Fox News who has worked for Maria Batirormo and Tucker Carlson alleged in court filings Monday that she was coerced by executives into providing misleading testimony in the $1.6 billion defamation suit that Dominion Voting Systems has levied against the Fox Corp.-backed outlet. In filings made Monday Delaware Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Abby Grossberg, who had worked as a senior booking producer for Bartiromo and head of booking for Tucker Carlson, alleged that Fox attorneys worked to “coach, manipulate, and coerce Ms. Grossberg to deliver shaded and/or incomplete answers during her sworn deposition testimony, which answers were clearly to her reputational detriment but greatly benefitted Fox News,” according to the Delaware lawsuit.

A Fox News producer claims that she was “coerced” and “intimidated” by the network’s legal team into providing misleading and evasive testimony in a deposition in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox News Media, known best for shows led by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, is placing new emphasis on programming that relies more heavily on Kevin Costner, weather emergencies and Greg Gutfeld. In a meeting with advertisers slated to be held Tuesday, executives at the Fox Corp.-backed operation, will spotlight a growing array of lifestyle content, while continuing to nod to the political programming that draws some of its networks’ biggest audiences. Among the Fox News Media executives scheduled to be on hand were Suzanne Scott, the CEO, and Jay Wallace, president and executive editor. “If you take a look at our overall audience across all of Fox News Media, 40% comes from lifestyle – sports, weather, entertainment offerings,” says Jeff Collins, executive vice president of advertsing sales for Fox News Media. “We just want to reiterate to our clients the depth and breadth of this type of content that we have outside of just hard news.”

by the New York Times, Grossberg says she was coached in “a coercive and intimidating manner” by Fox News lawyers prior to giving testimony last September in the Dominion case. The network’s goal, she said, was to to position her and Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who Grossberg worked for at the time, to take the blame for airing false conspiracy theories alleging Dominion somehow rigged the 2020 election.

It looked like a good week for Fox News on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver today as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and uncertainty in the financial world replaced the searing revelations resulting from Dominion Voting’s lawsuit against the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable newser on the HBO series.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The battle for cable-news viewers is coming to March Madness. CNN intends to run a new promo during the heavily watched NCAA men’s basketball tournament that throws a sharp verbal elbow at Fox News Channel and the legal defamation case filed against it by Dominion Voting Systems. The promos will air starting this weekend on TNT, TBS, TruTV and CBS, all of which carry the games under a joint rights agreement held by the owners of those networks, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, which is also the parent of CNN. Fox News Channel is not mentioned in the promo script, reviewed by Variety, but the references are clear. “What should you expect of a news network?” asks the narrator. “Some bury the truth, while we fight to reveal the facts. The only side we are on is yours.” Viewers see images of CNN correspondents and anchors such as Abby Phillip and Clarissa Ward.

the Rodney Dangerfield of world leaders,” but Tucker Carlson inadvertently defended the president Wednesday night after pinning the South Carolina senator as a peddler of “anti-American stupidity.” And it all goes back to Russia.The takedown began Tuesday when Graham, speaking on “Hannity,” shared how he thinks the United States, specifically President Joe Biden, should respond after a Russian jet reportedly collided with a U.S. drone and sent it crashing down into the Black Sea. “We should hold them accountable, and say that if you ever get near another U.S.

Fox News Channel viewers are less trusting of the cable network in the wake of publicly disclosed text messages and emails from Fox executives and on-air personalities, according to a new survey.  But only 9% of Fox News viewers say they aren’t watching the network as much as they used to, per research provided exclusively to Variety Intelligence Platform by consumer insights specialists Maru Group. (Click to an expanded subscriber version for full results.) A representative for Fox News told VIP+, “There has been no impact to advertising, with no advertisers dropping or pausing.” 

Colin Jost kicked off Weekend Update with a couple of Oscar yuks, including one that reference John Travolta and how he botched Idina Menzel’s name at the 2014 Academy Awards.

Former Vice President Mike Pence was one of the featured speakers at the white tie Gridiron Club dinner in Washington on Saturday, an event that typically is a showcase of sometimes biting humor.