Former WJBK-TV Fox 2 Detroit anchor Taryn Asher, who is suing the station for sex discrimination, was captured on video calling a colleague a "b****" during a heated newsroom exchange, footage Fox now cites as evidence of the conduct that led to her removal.
The video, first flagged by FTVLive, shows Asher in an escalating dispute with an off-camera colleague over scripts and PSA recording duties. The exchange starts with a disagreement over workflow timing, then turns personal. Asher tells the colleague, "I don't think you are. You're walking out really angry." When the colleague apparently leaves, Asher says the word plainly: "B****." Seconds later, she adds: "What the f, k. Grow up."
The clip ends with Asher venting to the room: "I'm so done with her antics, telling on me every five seconds. I'm done." The date of the video is not publicly established, though Asher's attorney says the incident "occurred years ago" and "was addressed at the time."
The video surfaced in the middle of a legal fight between Asher and her former employer. Asher filed a lawsuit against Fox Television Stations and New World Communications of Detroit, the station's owner, alleging sex discrimination and retaliation under federal and Michigan civil-rights laws. Fox responded with an August 14 legal filing that paints a different picture: a veteran anchor whose workplace conduct had become untenable.
Fox's filing details a string of incidents in late October and early November. On October 30, the station says, Asher mistakenly believed her male co-anchor Roop Raj had been assigned a guest interview she had booked. The interview had actually been assigned to Asher all along. Fox alleges she spoke in a raised voice and shouted at two colleagues over the mix-up.
Days later, on November 4, election night, producers initially gave Raj both guest interviews during the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts. Producers made those decisions independently and had not coordinated the assignments beforehand. One interview was later reassigned to Asher. But Fox says Asher confronted Raj anyway and accused him of receiving preferential treatment, telling him words to the effect of, "You don't own politics."
Raj then went to human resources. He told HR he believed Asher was "jealous" of him and appeared to have an issue with "men versus women," according to Fox's filing.
Fox placed Asher on paid leave on November 5, citing multiple employee complaints about her behavior in the preceding week. On November 21, management told her she would not return, citing "repeated outbursts in the newsroom and multiple instances of unprofessional conduct with her colleagues." It is not the first time a public figure has faced career-ending consequences for inappropriate conduct caught on the record.
Asher, who joined Fox 2 Detroit in 2007, flatly denies engaging in outbursts or unprofessional conduct that warranted discipline or termination. Her attorney, whose name has not been made public, pushed back hard in a statement to the New York Post.
"We strongly disagree with Fox's characterization of Ms. Asher's workplace behavior. Ms. Asher is an award-winning journalist who served Fox 2 Detroit since 2007. Fox's own filing admits that shortly prior to her firing she repeatedly raised internal concerns that she believed Fox treated male employees, including her male co-anchor, more favorably, including with respect to schedule flexibility and guest-interview opportunities."
The attorney also took aim at Fox's decision to surface the video now, calling it a tactical move rather than a legitimate justification for her firing.
"The video you referenced does not tell the full story, involved an issue that occurred years ago, was addressed at the time, and did not result in Ms. Asher's termination. It is only being raised now after Ms. Asher made complaints of gender discrimination and retaliation."
That last point carries weight in any discrimination case. If the video incident happened years before Asher was removed and the station dealt with it at the time, Fox will need to explain why it resurfaced the footage only after Asher sued. Courts tend to look skeptically at employers who reach into old files for justification after a discrimination complaint lands.
Asher's attorney also pointed to an admission buried in Fox's own August 14 filing: multiple male employees accused of serious misconduct were not terminated and, in some instances, were later promoted. The details of that misconduct, who was involved, what they did, and what happened afterward, are not spelled out in the public record so far. But the allegation strikes at the core of Asher's discrimination claim. If men at the same station engaged in comparable or worse behavior and kept their jobs, the question of why Asher lost hers becomes harder for Fox to answer.
Fox, for its part, disputes Asher's version of the interview-assignment fight. The station says she frequently failed to attend editorial meetings where guest assignments were discussed, despite being encouraged, and sometimes asked, to attend. The implication is clear: Asher missed the meetings where decisions were made, then complained about the results. Instances of professionals facing consequences for workplace misconduct have drawn increasing public attention in recent years.
Fox 2 Detroit did not respond to the New York Post's request for comment beyond the legal filing.
The timeline is striking. Asher spent roughly seventeen years at Fox 2 Detroit. The station moved from complaints to paid leave in a single day, November 5, and from paid leave to permanent removal in sixteen days. Whether that speed reflects a workplace that had reached a genuine breaking point or a management team that seized on complaints to push out an anchor who had become inconvenient is the central question the lawsuit will have to resolve.
The video itself is damaging, and Asher's attorney does not deny what it shows. Calling a colleague a profanity on camera is not the mark of a composed professional. But the attorney's argument, that the incident was old, was handled at the time, and only reappeared after Asher raised discrimination concerns, shifts the focus from the footage to the timing. Viral moments of on-air or behind-the-scenes conduct have a way of defining careers, fairly or not.
The case also raises a familiar pattern in institutional accountability. When organizations face discrimination complaints, old incidents have a way of surfacing in legal filings. The question is whether those incidents are genuine reasons for the action taken, or after-the-fact justification for a decision that was really about something else. Other recent cases involving public figures and workplace conduct have raised similar questions about whether discipline is applied evenly or selectively.
Fox says Asher's behavior made her unfit for the newsroom. Asher says the men who did worse kept their jobs. A court will sort out which version holds up. But the standard should be simple enough: apply the same rules to everyone, or don't pretend the rules are the reason.
