Fox News journalist's widow sues the publication over her husband's death in Ukraine

Michelle Ross-Stanton, the wife of Fox News video journalist Pierre Zakrzewski, has filed a lawsuit against Fox News. She expressed doubts about the circumstances of the death of her husband, who covered the war in Ukraine in March 2022, writes UNN with reference to The Washington Post.

Details

Ross-Stanton filed a lawsuit against Fox in Britain, claiming that the publication did not adequately protect her husband and did not have the necessary insurance to be able to pay full compensation to the family after his death. She demands that Fox News pay $11.6 million.

Ross-Stanton's lawsuit alleges that Fox is responsible for not having a security consultant and for what she says was an inadequate risk assessment prior to the trip. She claims that the TV channel failed to "determine or ignored that the trip was not safe enough and exposed the deceased and his colleagues to an unjustified risk of serious injury or death."

Ross-Stanton is also demanding that Fox provide evidence of whether a company official approved her husband's team's reporting trip on the day of his death. She recalled that the day before, American journalist Brent Reno was killed in the neighboring city of Irpin, and the mayor of the city ordered journalists to stay away from the area.

"Zakrzewski, who worked in combat zones for the first time, was convinced that Fox "has high-limit insurance in case of serious injury or death when he was reporting from conflicts with a high degree of risk for Fox News," his widow claims in the lawsuit.

If the TV channel had proper policies, according to her, the family would have received a "significant insurance payment."

In response to a request to comment on the lawsuit, Fox News provided a statement about its memory of Zakrzewski. The TV channel dedicated its London bureau to him in 2023.

"We remain devastated by the death of Pierre Zakrzewski. His extraordinary dedication to telling the story of the war in Ukraine has drawn attention to the atrocities taking place there, and we are immensely grateful for his dedication to journalism and his self-sacrifice. We have done everything in our power after this unprecedented tragedy in the chaos of the war zone," the statement reads.