Families of two journalists killed in Ukraine in 2022 sue Fox News over safety warnings

Left · 1Family members of two Fox News journalists killed while covering the war in Ukraine are suing the network, saying it put getting the story ahead of its people. 1 Right · 1The two killed were 24-year-old Ukrainian producer Oleksandra 'Sasha' Kuvshynova and veteran cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, who died in a Russian strike outside Kyiv on 14 March 2022; correspondent Benjamin Hall was badly wounded and two Ukrainian soldiers travelling with them also died. 2 Right · 1Kuvshynova's parents, Andriy Kuvshynov and Iryna Mamaysur, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Fox News and Hall, alleging their daughter's death was preventable and that repeated security warnings were ignored. 2

Right · 1Two former Fox security advisers told NPR the network and Hall were repeatedly warned to stay away from the area; Aaron King said, 'If you took Benji out of the equation, this never would have happened,' and Shane Thomson, who has joined the parents' lawsuit, said, 'There was no way we were going there.' 2 Right · 1The suit alleges a Fox security meeting the evening before said crews were to stay within Kyiv's city limits, and that the adviser told Hall not to go anywhere unassessed or beyond the checkpoint where they planned to film; it says the team went beyond it anyway. 2 Right · 1Hall has said the crew's 'explicit intention was to avoid the front lines' and that they believed Russian troops were at least 30 miles away. Fox's attorneys acknowledged in a court filing that Hall believed the location was safer than it was and that he and the soldiers were wrong, while the family's lawyers call Hall's account 'patently and knowingly false.' 2

Right · 1The parents say nobody from Fox contacted them on the day of the attack and that they learned of the death from their daughter's boyfriend, Ukrainian lawmaker Sviatoslav Yurash. Days later Fox offered a payment covering wages, benefits, funeral costs and a sum approximating life-insurance proceeds. 2 Right · 1Fox says the payment exceeded its contractual obligations and was offered 'as a show of sympathy and goodwill', and argues that a document Kuvshynova's father signed released it from liability, calling it 'the beginning and the end of the case.' The family says they did not understand what they were signing amid grief and the invasion. 2 Right · 1Fox says it will 'respectfully defend against the inaccurate claims within this lawsuit' and that the safety of its journalists 'has always been our number one priority.' 2

Right · 1A New York judge, Mary V. Rosado, has allowed significant portions of the case to proceed to discovery, saying it would be 'a grave injustice' to prevent the parents from investigating whether they were told the truth; Zakrzewski's widow, Michelle Ross-Stanton, is pursuing a separate case in Britain. 2