Greta Van Susteren defends Fox: A ‘network should never be defined by a handful with bad behavior’

Former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren defended her former network home on Wednesday, saying in a Facebook post that a “network should never be defined by a handful with bad behavior.”

Van Susteren appears to be referring to the recent suspension of host Eric Bolling, who on Saturday was suspended pending an investigation into lewd messages he is accused of sending to multiple female coworkers. And top-rated host Bill O’Reilly was ousted in April, shortly after a New York Times report that he paid $13 million to five different women who accused him of sexual harassment. 

“While it was time for me to move on, and I have, I do now hate reading the articles about Fox,” Van Susteren, who was with Fox from 2002 to 2016 before briefly working for MSNBC, wrote on her Facebook page. 

{mosads}”None of the articles matches my experience there. I worked in the D.C. Bureau of a very large corporation with offices around the world,” the 63-year-old former defense attorney continued. “I had 14 1/2 years at Fox News where I was given a platform to do my best work, given the resources to do my best work and no one ever told me what to say or do.”

Van Susteren, who came to prominence at CNN covering the O.J. Simpson trial in 1994 and 1995, said Fox needs to “get the chaos out of the environment” that could lead its journalists and hosts to be distracted. 

“Fox, like CNN in 2002 (but for different reasons – AOL takeover), needs to get the chaos out of the environment so that the many fine journalists can do their work minus the distraction of the problems (and it is a distraction.),” she advised. “I realize Fox is trying to do that and it takes time – but like with CNN, that time can be long and painful. 

“The bottom line? A network should never be defined by a handful with bad behavior (or even alleged bad behavior) who get lots of attention for their conduct (real or not) but by the thousands who every day work really hard to do a good job…maybe not a perfect job…but always trying to do a good job,” she concludes. 

Van Susteren was axed by MSNBC just six months after her 6 p.m. program launched. Poor ratings appeared to be culprit, as “For the Record” almost always finished last in its timeslot. 

The University of Wisconsin and Georgetown Law grad parted ways with Fox News in September of 2016 after a contract renegotiation quickly collapsed after the ouster of former Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, who died nine months later.