The Real Reason Why Alisyn Camerota Left Fox News For CNN

This article mentions instances of sexual harassment. 

Alisyn Camerota is one of those rare journalists who managed to leave Fox News and continued to have major success at a rival network. Why? Because she's always tried to put her job before politics. It seems at Fox News, you can expect to get some serious stink eye if you're not a die-hard conservative, and outsiders will make assumptions about your political standing. "I resented being put in a partisan box," Camerota told The New York Times. "'Oh, you work at Fox News, so you're obviously an archconservative.' No, I'm a journalist, and I'm trying to cover the news."

After spending 16 years at Fox and weathering several wildly unpleasant experiences, Camerota decided enough was enough. She left the network, wrote a novel titled "Amanda Wakes Up," which, technically, chronicles her time at Fox and reads like the lyrics to a Taylor Swift song — you can make of the incidents and characters what you will — while also giving readers a glimpse into what it's like working at national cable.

In interviews, Camerota has spoken candidly about her time at Fox, telling The New York Times that former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes often made her work life unbearable. "Roger liked competition, so he would pit us against each other to see who got the best ratings," she recalled. "It bred more tension than I've felt anywhere else." Since her exit from Fox News in 2014, Camerota has thrived at CNN and opened up about why she decided to leave Fox after dedicating almost two decades to the network.

During her time at Fox News, Alisyn Camerota and her colleagues were subjected to former Fox CEO Roger Ailes' whims and world views. According to Camerota, the network's former slogan, "fair and balanced" had a very different meaning behind the scenes — they were to focus on what viewers wanted to hear and see, whether that was fair and balanced or not. "Fair and balanced," Camerota later told CNN, was simply fancy jargon for "Roger's vision." As it happened, the former CEO didn't appear to be a fan of the LGBTQ+ community, so when Camerota set out to do a piece about gay marriage rights in Massachusetts, he killed the story before it could air.

Camerota interviewed two women with children who wanted to get married but couldn't because gay marriage was not yet legal in the state at the time. In her piece, she talked about the couple and their kids, referring to them as a family. "Roger went berserk," Camerota said. "And I said, 'What other word is there?'"

Anyone who's been keeping tabs on Alisyn Camerota knows that one of the reasons she left Fox News was because of harassment, but she also told BuzzFeed News that the network playing fast and loose with the facts left a bad taste in her mouth. She shared that she was often asked to pose questions on air that had no factual basis, and this topic came up again years after she left Fox.

While many news anchors have gotten fired in the past for crossing lines, Camerota claims that misinformation wasn't considered a serious violation at Fox News. When Fox News host Jeanine Pirro (who reportedly granted some favors to Donald Trump's campaign in the past) took jabs at Representative Ilhan Omar on air for wearing a hijab, claiming her adherence to Sharia Law went against the United States constitution, Camerota set the record straight on CNN the next day. She recalled that segments on Sharia Law have always been commonplace on Fox, and their aim was not to be informative. "This did not surprise me when I worked at Fox. Sharia Law was one of their favorite boogeymen," Camerota said. "We did a lot of segments on Sharia Law, none of them were fact-based, or there was no emphasis on them being fact-based, they were fear-based."

Camerota argued that Fox News continuing to push this narrative was for no other reason than maintaining their ratings and keeping their conservative base happy and engaged.

Not only did former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes make Alisyn Camerota's work life unpleasant, he also accused her of not sharing Fox's strict conservative views. "Roger Ailes ruled with an iron fist, and he wanted us all to fall in line and have his world view and say the things that he wanted us to say on Fox News," Camerota told CNN. She didn't fall in line that easily, however, which led to unpleasant confrontations with Ailes, who was as right wing as they come and often countered Camerota's resistance to biased reporting with insults. "He said 'There is no other side.' In Roger's world view, there was no other side. Liberals were always wrong, conservatives were generally right, and that's what he felt that we should be reflecting on the air," she said.

Fox's one-sided reporting was one of the things that led Camerota to question her job — and her morals. After she left the network in 2014, she watched it slowly turn into Former President Donald Trump's personal platform. "The president has given up thinking that they're a news outlet. The president has given up thinking that there is any semblance of balance. He believes they are his channel," Camerota told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019.

While she weathered insults and accusations of not being conservative enough to do her job at Fox News, Alisyn Camerota also had to deal with sexual harassment. Speaking to The Doctors, she recounted the work environment at Fox, explaining that she wasn't the only woman who was subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace. She shared how it was nearly impossible to get promoted if you didn't meet former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes' demands first. "[He set up] a quid pro quo, that in order to advance, in order to get the job we wanted, there would be a sexual favor that had to be exacted," Camerota said.

When Camerota shared her story on CNN in 2017, she described such an encounter with Ailes. She approached him with a request to be granted more opportunities at the network, and he assured her he could make that happen — for a price. "He said, 'Well, I would have to work with you. I would have to work with you on that case. I would have to work with you really closely, and it may require us getting to know each other better, and that might have to happen away from here, and it might have to happen at a hotel. Do you know what I'm saying?'" she recalled.

Camerota walked away from that conversation feeling utterly humiliated, knowing she would never give in to his demands but at the same time questioning whether that might mean her job was on the line. At the time, she kept the encounter to herself, telling The Doctors that she used to think her ability to survive in such a volatile workplace was a sign of strength and resilience.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

After Alisyn Camerota refused to give in to Roger Ailes' demands in return for more opportunities at Fox News, he resorted to bullying her. "It was sort of emotional harassment," she told CNN. Speaking to BuzzFeed News, Camerota explained that the working environment at Fox was as toxic as they come. Ailes knew he was the man who could make or break the careers of the women who worked for him, and he made sure they knew it. "[He] wielded power in a really sort of unpleasant, bullying way," she said. "The things that stick with me are leading by fear and leading by bullying, and I hope that tide is turning."

Camerota can still recall the ideological and emotional harassment she and her colleagues had to endure under Ailes' reign. She says their biggest mistake, in retrospect, was keeping quiet and enduring Ailes' behavior. "It was very hard to stand up to him," she admitted. "He kept everyone sort of silent and secretive." But Camerota learned her lesson — speaking up is the only way to hold people like Ailes accountable and prevent their bad behavior from continuing. "Imagine the strength that we all would have had if we'd locked arms and marched into HR, or locked arms and marched into his office and said, 'No more,'" she mused. She told BuzzFeed News she hoped that, with the #MeToo movement emboldening survivors to seek help, men like Ailes would finally cease to exist in the workplace.

It might be safe to say that leaving Fox News was one of the best decisions Alisyn Camerota ever made, but that doesn't mean she enjoys pointing out her former colleagues' faults. "I don't like being in this mortal combat position," she admitted to The Hollywood Reporter. When asked how life at CNN differs from Fox News, Camerota couldn't sing the network's praises enough. "It's just night and day. On every level, it is dramatically different," she said. "I never, ever have had Jeff Zucker [former CNN CEO] tell me what I need to say. Never. And with Roger that was a weekly occurrence." She continued to explain that she and Zucker didn't always agree on everything, but that there was always room for discussion and healthy debate. "In terms of journalistic standards, there are some. CNN is built on them. CNN is built on the mechanics of journalism," Camerota said. "At Fox, nobody ever asked me for a second source. Nobody ever mentioned it."

Camerota's admiration for Zucker stood in stark contrast to her dislike of former Fox CEO Roger Ailes, and when the former was ousted from CNN after it came to light that he had a consensual romantic relationship with network executive Allison Gollust who resigned shortly after, Camerota described it as "an incredible loss" for the network. "Jeff is a remarkable person and an incredible leader," she said (via X), adding that he made his employees feel respected and valued. "I don't think that comes around all the time," she argued, likely referring to the volatile relationship Ailes had with those who worked for him.