Fox News host Sean Hannity threatened to sue the New York Times over a coronavirus story unless they retracted and apologized for including him.
In a letter from Hannity's lawyer to the New York Times, his lawyer demands the newspaper retract a story that connected Hannity's statements about the coronavirus to a man who later died from the disease.
The letter accused the Times of "blatant and outrageous disregard for the truth in mischaracterizing Mr. Hannity's coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and blaming him for the tragic death of Joe Joyce."
The Joyce story was published on April 18 and detailed how the family of Joyce said that he was a Fox News viewer and believed the virus was a hoax intended to damage President Donald Trump.
On March 1, Joe Joyce and his wife, Jane, set sail from Florida for Spain on a cruise, despite warnings from his ch… https://t.co/Yf2oXcUmNY— The New York Times (@The New York Times) 1587255006.0
The letter continues on to explain that although Joyce took off on his cruise on March 1, the comments that Hannity made and supposedly influenced Joyce were made more than a week later on March 9.
"Moreover, you were fully aware that this was the actual timeline, and in order to mislead your readers and support your false narrative, you withheld the date of Mr. Hannity's comments from your story," the latter claimed.
"We demand that you promptly remove the foregoing false and defamatory statements from the Stories and any subsequent republications in print or any other medium, and publish a full, fair and conspicuous retraction, correction and apology as to each of the false and defamatory statements identified above," the latter added.
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