Fox News Ignored Guilfoyle, Then Reported She Might Be Fired
Kimberly Guilfoyle was the subject of a scandal Fox News had not put online.
Kimberly Guilfoyle was the subject of a scandal Fox News had not put online. Then a former Fox executive said so publicly, and within four hours the network published a story saying President Trump might fire her.
That sequence is hard to read as ordinary newsroom timing. Ken LaCorte, who once ran FoxNews.com, posted on X at 3:21 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, October 11. He said Fox had “0 reporting online” about the allegations involving Guilfoyle, a former Fox employee and then U.S. ambassador to Greece.
Less than four hours later, Fox News published an article reporting that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were weighing whether to remove her. The story said Guilfoyle “may soon be fired” amid reports that she had sought a six-figure credit card bailout from a Trump donor while offering access to administration officials.
What was documented
The documented facts are narrow but sharp. LaCorte said the most recent FoxNews.com article mentioning Guilfoyle was dated December 10, 2024, the day Trump announced her nomination as ambassador to Greece. He called the absence of coverage “journalistic malpractice” and described it as a conscious choice to ignore a major story.
Fox News did publish online after that criticism. Its article appeared shortly before 7 p.m. Eastern and cited an Associated Press report that a senior U.S. official said Trump and Rubio were considering Guilfoyle’s removal. Fox had also briefly addressed the matter on air on October 8, according to reporting cited by The Independent.
The allegations themselves came from outside Fox. The Wall Street Journal reported that Guilfoyle had asked a Trump donor for $100,000 to pay a credit card bill, while allegedly offering access to administration officials. The BBC reported that text messages it reviewed, initially reported by the Journal, appeared to show Guilfoyle requesting money from Eric Deters, a longtime Trump supporter.
Guilfoyle has denied wrongdoing. Her lawyers said she was owed money for speaking engagements and consulting work for the donor. Trump, when asked whether he was considering firing her, said, “We’re looking at it. Yeah, we’re not happy.”
The uncomfortable timing
I keep thinking about the order of events. A network is accused of ignoring a story. Then it publishes not the underlying scandal, but a story about the political consequence of that scandal: possible dismissal.
That does not prove why Fox moved when it did. LaCorte’s claim of deliberate avoidance is his interpretation. Fox has defended its reporting, and the public record does not establish an internal decision to withhold the story until LaCorte posted. The timing is documented. The motive is not.
There is a precedent here, though not a perfect one. News organizations have often been slowest to cover stories that touch their own former employees, political allies, or business relationships. Outlets report. Institution stays quiet. Story enters through safer paths: personnel, legal, or official.
The pattern holds in one respect. Fox did eventually report on Guilfoyle’s possible removal, and it cited AP reporting rather than presenting the allegations as its own original investigation. But the pattern breaks in another respect. Fox’s sister publication, The Wall Street Journal, had already reported the central allegations. A news organization with that reporting available nearby did not have to wait for a former executive’s social-media post to have the story in front of it.
Why the online gap mattered
Fox News is not merely a television channel. FoxNews.com is a large digital operation, and LaCorte said he ran it for a decade before leaving in 2016. When he says the website had no coverage, he is not describing a missed segment. He is describing an absence on the platform most people use to search for a story after they hear about it.
That matters because online coverage creates a record. A television mention can disappear into the day’s flow. A website article can be found, linked, updated, and read later. No record on major claim. Question arises. Network avoids answering.
LaCorte also said he believed the lack of coverage came from “fear and inaction by middle management.” That is an accusation, not an established fact. But it points to a real institutional problem: editors do not need a formal order to avoid a story. They can simply decide that another story is more urgent, that the sourcing is not yet strong enough, or that the subject is too close to home.
What could come next
The immediate question is Guilfoyle’s job. Trump has said he is considering firing her, and the AP reported that Trump and Rubio were weighing her removal. If she leaves the ambassadorship, the story will shift from allegations to consequences, and Fox will have little choice but to cover the personnel decision.
The longer question is whether Fox News treats the episode as a one-off or as a test of its editorial judgment. A network can say it eventually covered the story. It can also be asked why the coverage arrived only after public criticism from someone who once ran its website.
Social media has become part of that accountability loop. LaCorte did not publish an internal memo or reveal a private conversation. He made a public claim about an absence, and the absence became harder to defend once thousands of people could check it themselves. Social media news: not every post is reliable. It’s the credible insider’s challenge that forces answers.
The honest reading is not that Fox News necessarily suppressed the story. The honest reading is that it had every reason to cover it, did not for a long time, then covered the possible firing within hours of being called out. That gap deserves an explanation. So far, the public record offers timing, criticism, denial, and a very fast change in coverage. It does not yet offer a satisfactory reason for the change.