The family of a producer killed while covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine has filed a lawsuit against Fox News, saying the network's negligence led to her death.
The wrongful death lawsuit filed by Sasha Kuvshinova's parents in a New York court on Thursday alleged that Fox News ignored warnings from local officials and security experts not to travel to the dangerous area near Kiev where another journalist was killed the day before.
Shortly after the conflict began, Kuvshinova, 24, was hired as a local travel coordinator with Fox News correspondent Ben Hall and photojournalist Pierre Zakrowski. On March 14, 2022, a car carrying the trio, near the border of the cities of Irbin and Hostomil in Ukraine, was hit by Russian artillery shells.
Kuvshinova and Zakrojski were killed while Hall was seriously injured and lost part of a leg and an eye.
Hall returned to work at Fox News and wrote a best-selling book about the accident and recovery. He recently returned to Ukraine for an interview with the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Shane Thompson, a security consultant who worked for Fox News in Ukraine, is also one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which says the network tried to make him a scapegoat for the tragedy. Thompson, who was not with Hall's staff at the time of the incident, said he and another security consultant warned reporters not to travel to the area where the attack occurred.
The lawsuit said that Ukrainian authorities and the mayor of Irbin imposed a ban on journalists in the area. A local driver who was working with Hall's crew also refused to travel in the vicinity due to the danger.
A Fox News representative said in a statement that there are a number of falsehoods in the lawsuit.
Benjamin Hall, a correspondent for Fox News, was injured while covering events in Ukraine.
(Fox News)
“While we understand the grief and continue to mourn the loss of both Pierre Zakrzewski and Sasha Kuvshinova, we will respectfully defend against the inaccurate allegations in this lawsuit,” the statement read. “The safety of our journalists has always been our first priority and we are deeply grateful to the Fox News reporters who covered the war in Ukraine and remain committed to reporting from the region.”
Koshenova's parents, who are seeking unspecified punitive damages, said they were pressured by Fox to waive all claims against the company and sign a non-disparagement agreement in exchange for salary owed to their daughter and payments from the company's insurance company.
Hall and HarperCollins, the publisher of the reporter's memoir, are also named in the suit. Prosecutors say Hall's book, “Saved: A War Correspondent's Mission to Return Home,” falsely describes details surrounding the deadly attack in order to cover up Fox's alleged wrongdoing.
“The actual circumstances of Sasha’s death — which contradict the official accounts given by Fox, Ben Hall, and Harper Collins — were only revealed through an investigation conducted by their attorneys nearly two years later. New information and new inconsistencies continue to emerge to this day,” the lawsuit states. this.
Hall's book said Russian forces were “understood” 30 miles from the area where the attack occurred. “In fact, upon information and belief, the crew, returning from Horinka, via Hostumel, was one mile from Russian forces when they were killed, and less than a quarter mile from the city limits of Irpin,” the lawsuit states.
