An Emmy award-winning former New York City local news anchor claims in court that the New York Post’s famous Page Six gossip column “wrecked his brilliant reputation” with “defamatory articles”—and wants the publication to cough up at least $1 million in damages.
At the core of ex-broadcaster Ken Rosato’s suit is the allegation that the paper and its reporters knowingly and maliciously published a “false and baseless” article last May claiming that Rosato lost his job at ABC7 over a comment caught on a hot mic, which the paper quoted a source speculating may have been a “racial slur.” The suit, filed Friday in a Manhattan court, particularly quotes a photo caption stating “Ken Rosato was fired immediately after allegedly making a racial slur.”
Rosato’s suit acknowledges that the network “dismissed” the veteran TV journalist last May, but noted the reason was undisclosed.
The anchor maintains that the New York Post piece has cost him job opportunities since.
“In addition to seriously damaging Plaintiff’s personal reputation, and causing severe emotional distress, the use of inflammatory and defamatory language by the New York Post has resulted in detrimental consequences to Plaintiff’s professional reputation and career as a broadcast journalist,” the suit, filed in a Manhattan court, reads. “Despite his stellar reputation, forged over two decades, as one of the most trusted news anchors in the United States, the defamatory statements published by the New York Post have hindered his ability to secure employment in broadcast media, as explicitly confirmed by those in the industry.”
The Sun, which like the Post belongs to Lachlan Murdoch’s News Corp, reported in June that in fact it was “the C word that got him fired”—referring apparently to a sexist epithet Rosato allegedly leveled at a female co-host.
Neither News Corp, the Post, nor the editor and reporter named in the suit immediately responded to a request for comment. Among Rosato’s complaints is that the publication “failed to adequately and diligently seek comment.”
The suit also objects to a later Post piece that referred to him as a “disgraced journalist,” and cites another article that outed him as gay as further evidence of the publication’s malice.
For his pains, Rosato wants a minimum of seven figures.
“Plaintiff has been brought into public scandal and disrepute, and has suffered hatred, contempt, ridicule, aversion, shame, and disgrace among other in his profession—including peers and potential employers—and among citizens of the State of New York, the nation, and the world,” the legal brief reads. “As such, Plaintiff has suffered significant damages, and is entitled to recover an amount not less than $1,000,000.”
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