Who is Abby Grossberg? Fired Fox Producer Testifying Against Network
Senior Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who had worked on shows with Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson shows, was fired last week, after launching legal action against the network. She claimed Fox News had coerced her into providing misleading testimony in a $1.6 billion defamation case.
Grossberg also claimed she had to endure a sexist and discriminatory working environment at Fox News, and was being lined up to take the blame in the network's ongoing legal battle with Dominion Voting Systems. Fox has strongly denied the claims, and insists Grossberg was sacked for ignoring instructions not to disclose privileged information about the Dominion case.
Dominion Voting Systems is seeking $1.6 billion in damages from Fox News, after guests on the network falsely claimed its polling machines were part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump.
According to her profile on Staff Me Up, a website where media professionals can sell their services on a freelance basis, Grossberg graduated from Maryland's Johns Hopkins University in 2003.
In 2007 she started a job with CNN as an associate producer, before switching to Fox News the following year as a segment producer.
Grossberg later returned to CNN, before taking producer jobs with CBS This Morning, NBC's The Meredith Vieira Show and CBS's The Rachael Ray Show in 2011, 2014 and 2015, respectively. The account doesn't appear to have been updated for several years, and doesn't mention Grossberg's return to working for Fox News.
According to Grossberg's legal team, she was fired after launching a pair of lawsuits against Fox News, in New York and Delaware, alleging she was pressured into giving misleading evidence for the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit.
In a statement, Parisis G. Filippatos, Grossberg's lawyer, said: "The frivolous litigation tactics by Fox News punctuate its blatant disregard for the law, which is further underscored by the company's recent retaliatory firing of Ms. Grossberg."
As part of Grossberg's legal filings, she updated testimony she had given for the Dominion case, describing producers as "activists, not journalists, who impose their political agendas on the programming." On whether she trusted Fox producers, she changed her answer from "yes" to "no."
Speaking to the New York Times, a Fox News spokesperson said Grossberg was fired for sharing privileged information, and that her lawsuits "are riddled with false allegations against Fox and our employees."
The spokesperson said Grossberg was told not to share important information relating to the Dominion case, adding: "We were clear that if she violated our instructions, Fox would take appropriate action including termination."
Newsweek has contacted Fox News and Filippatos for contact by email.
Grossberg is due to give an interview to NBC about the situation on Thursday evening.
