“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’m gathering, I’m not the only reporter being subjected to this,” FOX 26 Houston reporter Ivory Hecker said during a live broadcast on Monday.

A FOX News affiliate reporter has accused her employer of “muzzling” her and other journalists. In response, she says she plans to expose the FOX corporation with the help of the far-right nonprofit, Project Veritas, Insider reports. 

During a live broadcast on Monday, 32-year-old FOX 26 Houston reporter Ivory Hecker announced her intention to expose FOX before quickly transitioning to a regularly scheduled segment about a local heatwave. “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’m gathering, I’m not the only reporter being subjected to this,” said Hecker.  

Video still of FOX 26 reporter Ivory Hecker (Source: YouTube)

“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 put that out tomorrow, so tune into them.” 

The Houston-based journalist, who is a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor for FOX 26/KRIV, did not say anything else about what information was being held back from viewers or the ways that other FOX reporters were being “muzzled”, but a Project Veritas spokesperson told Insider that Hecker would be doing an interview on Tuesday with the organization to discuss her claims. 

Project Veritas was founded by controversial conservative activist James O’Keefe in 2011 and aims to” investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions.” In April, Twitter permanently suspended O’Keefe’s account for violating the Twitter Rules on “platform manipulation and spam” the New York Times reported. 

On Monday, Project Veritas posted Hecker’s news clip to their YouTube channel. While the subject matter of the recordings provided by Hecker and set to be released by Project Veritas are unknown, Hecker told Newsweek that FOX mismanaged an interview she did with an unnamed person. 

“They decided they didn’t like what the interview subject had said, and they went on to internally harass and defame me,” Hecker said in the statement. “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.”

In her Newsweek statement, Hecker also said that “True journalism can’t exist in an environment of censorship. True journalism needs an environment of free speech.” Hecker’s Twitter bio still names FOX 26 Houston as her employer and mentions that “a free press= a free people”. 

Have you subscribed to theGrio’s new podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!

TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. Download theGrio today!

The post Fox reporter accuses network of ‘muzzling’ her, vows to expose corporation appeared first on TheGrio.