Fox News sued by parents of Ukrainian journalist killed near Kyiv in 2022
A lawsuit accuses Fox News of misrepresenting details around the 2022 death of a Ukrainian journalist reporting on the war, allegedly to deceive her family.
The family of Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, a 24-year-old Ukrainian journalist killed while reporting on the war in Ukraine on 14 March 2022, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Fox News, according to the Business Insider.
The suit, filed in New York State Supreme Court by Kuvshynova’s parents and Shane Thomson, a security advisor, accuses the news organization of neglect, saying it took journalists into an active war zone despite multiple warnings from local officials and a security consultant.
Andriy Kuvshynov, Sasha’s father, previously expressed concerns, saying, “I don’t understand how a decision was taken for Fox News to go where it was dangerous, where there was a live threat.”
According to the Business Insider, the lawsuit alleges Fox News by omitting details of the warnings to journalists to avoid the conflict area.
It claims Benjamin Hall’s book “Saved,” which recounts his experience, contains a “false account” of her death, accusing Fox of promoting the book “to deceive Sasha’s parents and the public about Fox’s wrongful conduct and accountability for Sasha’s death.”
According to the report, Fox News left an “overworked” and “understaffed” crew in Kyiv as Russian forces advanced, despite multiple warnings, including from Irpin’s mayor, who banned foreign journalists after another American journalist’s death on 13 March. The suit alleges Fox’s security consultant also vetoed going to Irpin on 13 March due to danger.
Yet on 14 March, the lawsuit states, the Fox team headed to Irpin-Hostomel with Ukraine soldiers as escorts, stopping on the road back when “two explosive rounds hit near” their vehicle before “a third round hit the car, with Sasha inside,” killing her and cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski.
The suit accuses Fox of violating “any reasonable standard of care in allowing the team to proceed” and withholding information about Kuvshynova’s death.
Fox News released a statement saying that they continue to mourn the deaths of Kuvshinova and Pierre Zakrzewski but will “respectfully defend against the false allegations in this lawsuit.”
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