Fox News Killed Stormy Daniels Payoff Story Before Election
In a must-read exposé of Fox News in the Trump era, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer reveals that Fox reporter Diana Falzone uncovered Trump’s hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election only to have the story killed by the network.
According to Mayer, Falzone began working on the Stormy Daniels story in March, 2016 and by October, she had confirmed, via sources and documents, that Trump had had an extramarital affair with Daniels and that there was a contract offering her a payout along with a nondisclosure agreement:
But Falzone’s story didn’t run—it kept being passed off from one editor to the next. After getting one noncommittal answer after another from her editors, Falzone at last heard from [Ken] LaCorte, who was then the head of FoxNews.com. Falzone told colleagues that LaCorte said to her, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” LaCorte denies telling Falzone this, but one of Falzone’s colleagues confirms having heard her account at the time.