Texas reporter who said 'Fox Corp.' was muzzling her during rogue live shot is fired, says station tried to squash hydroxychloroquine stories



Ivory Hecker, the Fox affiliate reporter who went off-script during a Monday report that went viral, has been fired from her job at the Texas network.

Hecker, who stated that "Fox Corp." was "muzzling" her and stopping viewers from receiving "certain information," now states that the station has been trying to prevent its reporters from covering hydroxychloroquine and its use in treating COVID-19 patients.

What are the details?

Hecker, a general assignment reporter, said Tuesday that she was fired after the viral report.

In an interview with the Daily Beast, Hecker said that she lost her job via text after an initial suspension.

KRIV-TV confirmed to the outlet that Hecker is no longer employed at the station and slammed her for going to James O'Keefe's Project Veritas with the allegations.

In a statement, the station said, "FOX 26 adheres to the highest editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality. This incident involves nothing more than a disgruntled former employee seeking publicity by promoting a false narrative produced through selective editing and misrepresentation."

Hecker told the outlet that she has no interest in working for another news corporation after this experience.

"I have been longing to part ways with this strange, slightly unhinged corporation since last August when I realized what they were," Hecker admitted. "The piece with Project Veritas doesn't touch what they did. Fox 26 knows I'm fearless. ... I have zero interest in working for another corporation. They all toe the same line."

The Project Veritas interview in question featured Hecker speaking with O'Keefe about what she said was an agenda in quashing reporting that didn't follow the line of corporate headquarters.

According to the Daily Beast:

In one piece of surreptitiously recorded footage, Fox 26 assistant news director Lee Meier was seen explaining why the station does not do more stories on Bitcoin. In the clip, Meier said it's “an editorial choice" to not cover the cryptocurrency because it likely would not appeal to the station's early-evening broadcast viewership.

“I have passed on Bitcoin stories by almost every single reporter for our five o'clock audience, because that's not our five o'clock audience," Meier stated. “So, there are lots of reasons. If I know our numbers are tanking from five to six and in one particular segment… I may say, yeah, and Bitcoin for poor African-American audience at five, it's probably not going to play. That's a choice I'm making."

Reacting to Meier's rather mundane remarks about the incentives of broadcast news, Hecker declared to O'Keefe: “I want out of this narrative news telling! I want out of this corruption!"

Hecker also said that the station attempted to prevent her from covering hydroxychloroquine in treatment of COVID-19 patients:

In a recorded call with Meier and Fox 26 vice president and news director Susan Schiller, Hecker was told she “failed as a reporter" for not looking at the “latest research" on the drug before boosting a post from a local doctor hyping it as a COVID-19 treatment.

“You need to cease and desist posting about hydroxychloroquine," Schiller told Hecker.

Station management's critical comments to Hecker appear to center around an August Facebook post the reporter shared last August, featuring Dr. Joseph Varon's claim that he used hydroxychloroquine to “good success."

In the call with her bosses, Hecker claimed the studies downplaying the effectiveness and safety of the drug made Varon's comments more newsworthy. At the same time, she brought up Dr. Stella Immanuel, noting that she also referenced clinical research about hydroxychloroquine's efficacy in her story about the controversial doctor. Immanuel, who believes sex with demons makes you sick, baselessly insisted that the anti-malarial drug is a “cure for COVID," drawing praise from Trump but bans on social-media platforms. Hecker's reporting on Immanuel at the time was largely sympathetic, painting her as a victim of “mass censorship."

“They sent me to interview Dr. Joseph Varon, a highly respected doctor who did 1,600 media interviews," Hecker told The Daily Beast. “They banned me permanently — after my interview — from covering COVID-19 medical treatments."

Fox 26 TV Reporter Ivory Hecker Informs Network LIVE ON AIR She's Blowing The Whistle On Themwww.youtube.com

Texas reporter goes rogue during live shot, says station is ‘muzzling’ her. The video has been viewed more than 2 million times.



A Fox affiliate reporter went off-script during a Monday report on the Texas heat wave, stating that the "Fox Corp." was "muzzling" her and preventing its viewers from receiving "certain information."

KRIV-TV reporter Ivory Hecker said that she planned to release the information — which she'd covertly recorded — to James O'Keefe's Project Veritas.

What are the details?

During a live shot, Hecker — a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor — was preparing to deliver a report on Texas weather when she began, "Before we get to that story, I want to let you, the viewers, know that Fox Corp. has been muzzling me to keep certain information from you. And from what I am gathering, I am not the only reporter being subjected to this. I am going to be releasing some recordings about what goes on behind the scenes at Fox, because it applies to you, the viewers."

"I found a nonprofit journalism group called Project Veritas that's going to help put that out tomorrow, so tune into them," she continued.

Hecker did not elaborate on what she recorded or what she planned to discuss with Project Veritas.

A spokesperson for Project Veritas told Insider that Hecker "will be sitting down for an interview with the group on Tuesday evening to discuss claims of 'corruption' and 'censorship' that she has regarding her employer."

"The spokesman added that Hecker will be, among other things, 'blowing the whistle' and speaking out about how she believes corporate journalism is 'broken,'" the outlet added.

A spokesperson for the organization told the Daily Beast that it plans to publish some of Hecker's recordings, which she says corroborates her accusations.

For a previous story, Hecker herself told Newsweek — which reported that video footage of Hecker's remarks has been viewed more than 2 million times at the time of this reporting — that she has had issues with the network since "last August" when relations reportedly took a "dark turn" following an interview she conducted.

"They decided they didn't like what the interview subject had said, and they went on to internally harass and defame me," Hecker insisted. "I knew I was not working for a journalistic organization when I was called into an HR meeting in December and was told to keep my support for free speech and opposition to censorship to myself — that those were not matters to be publicly spoken about."

"True journalism can't exist in an environment of censorship," Hecker added. "True journalism needs an environment of free speech."

It is unclear at the time of this reporting whether Hecker is still employed at KRIV.

BREAKING: Fox 26 Houston TV Reporter @IvoryHecker Informs Network LIVE ON AIR That She Has Been Secretly Recording… https://t.co/IOISPBbeBZ

— Matthew Tyrmand (@MatthewTyrmand) 1623713488.0