Maria Bartiromo’s lawyer is pushing back on reports that Fox News fired her, and another report offers a possible explanation for the conflicting accounts.

Attorney Bryan Freedman says claims that she was fired or is no longer a Fox employee are false. John Solomon reports that Bartiromo has been removed from the air but remains under contract and receiving pay through 2029.

Those are two different questions: Does she still have a show, and does Fox still have an employment relationship with her?

Dylan Byers shared Freedman’s statement Friday:

According to TheWrap, Freedman rejected both the firing reports and claims that Bartiromo is no longer an employee, calling them “absolutely and unequivocally false.” He also said he has evidence and witnesses, and warned that the dispute could reach a courtroom.

ADVERTISEMENT

That was a denial from her attorney, not an announcement that she would resume hosting. The statement challenged the reporting about her employment status and the accounts offered to explain her departure.

Fox, meanwhile, directed TheWrap back to its Thursday announcement when asked for comment Friday. The network had previously described the move to the outlet as a business decision.

Freedman has represented other prominent television personalities in disputes over their departures, including Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo and Megyn Kelly. His statement gives Bartiromo’s side of this dispute a clear public position, but does not itself resolve the competing accounts.

Solomon’s report addresses the distinction between her on-air role and her contract:

Solomon says Bartiromo will not return to the air, while Fox continues paying her under a pay-or-play provision. He reports that her contract runs through 2029.

If his account is accurate, being removed from the schedule would not necessarily mean that Fox had terminated her contract or stopped paying her.

That would allow two things to be true at once: Bartiromo could be finished as a Fox host while still having a contractual relationship with the company.

In everyday conversation, someone might describe that as being pushed out. But calling it a completed firing can imply something different about the employment relationship, which is precisely what her lawyer is disputing.

The available statements do not establish whether Bartiromo agreed to leave the air, and Solomon’s reported contract terms have not been independently verified here. It would go too far to state as fact that she was removed against her wishes or to treat the payment arrangement as a publicly disclosed contract.

ADVERTISEMENT

There is also a real conflict in the wording. Fox News Media announced Thursday that Bartiromo was no longer with the company, effective that day, and thanked her for more than twelve years of work.

The announcement laid out immediate changes to all three of her programs. Mornings with Maria would become Mornings with FOX Business on Friday, with rotating anchors taking over.

Her weekly Wall Street program would become FBN’s Wall Street, with Cheryl Casone hosting this week’s broadcast and rotating anchors afterward. Fox also said a new weekday business-channel schedule would be announced in the coming weeks.

For Sunday Morning Futures, the network named Jason Chaffetz as this Sunday’s host and said a permanent replacement would be announced later. Those concrete programming changes confirm that Fox is moving ahead with other hosts.

Fox’s release did not publish Bartiromo’s contract, spell out continuing pay obligations or describe a negotiated settlement. It therefore establishes the programming changes without settling the contract dispute now raised by her attorney.

Earlier reporting also offered an explanation for the split that remains contested. On Thursday, Byers reported an internal dispute involving proposed coverage of China and the 2020 election:

TheWrap summarized reporting from Status and Puck that Bartiromo shared internal Fox guidance with the White House. Those accounts relied on sources describing events inside the network; Freedman’s subsequent statement disputed the firing narrative and the claims supporting it.

For now, the clearest distinction is between what viewers will see and what the contract requires. Fox has announced replacement programming, her lawyer denies a firing, and Solomon reports that the pay continues.

Her absence from the air would not, by itself, tell us whether Fox has ended its financial obligations to her.

ADVERTISEMENT

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.