Taryn Asher is free to go shopping for another newsroom. The 51-year-old anchor, taken off the air at Fox 2 Detroit in 2025, won release from the non-compete clause in her contract under a stipulated order filed in federal court on Monday, September 14, 2026, even as her discrimination suit against her former employer moves ahead.
Attorneys for Asher and the station agreed to drop the fight over the clause, telling the court their filing came “based upon the parties’ resolution of this issue.” No judge ruled in her favor — the two sides settled, and a judge has still to sign off on it. The broader case continues.
Asher arrived at WJBK in 2007 and collected 10 local Emmy Awards there. She moved to the evening news in 2022, when she and Roop Raj became Fox 2 Detroit’s lead anchors. Management pulled her off the air on November 21, 2025; she never went back, though she was paid for a stretch afterward, and her contract ran to June 6, 2026. The complaint she filed in June 2026 alleges gender discrimination and retaliation, and accuses executives of removing her because they favored her male co-anchor.
Two Versions of the Anchor’s Exit
Fox 2 executives tell a different story. Their own filing called the firing justified by “unprofessional behavior,” conduct they said included shouting at newsroom colleagues. On the non-compete, the station argued the clock should have started in June, when her contract expired, rather than seven months earlier when she left the air. Because the clause kept her out of media work for six months, Fox 2’s reading would have sidelined her until early December 2026.
A complaint lodged with executives over a 2023 confrontation, the one later captured in a leaked video, triggered an internal investigation. That inquiry led to Asher’s suspension in December 2023, but not her termination. She was removed from air in November 2025, placed on paid leave and officially fired in June 2026.
In its August response, the station pointed to what it described as Asher’s frequent “outbursts” and “unprofessional workplace behavior,” citing a guest interview mix-up incident with co-anchor Roop Raj, her use of profanity and confrontations with other employees, and said multiple employees had complained about her. Her suit states: “If Asher had not been female, she would not have been treated in the same discriminatory manner.”
That gap was the whole of the dispute now settled. With the station’s payments continuing after November while she sat out, the later the clause was deemed to start, the longer she would stay off a competitor’s air. Her lawyers took the argument to federal court, and the stipulated order ends it without a judge deciding who was right.
Her agent, Mort Meisner, told Deadline Detroit: “We’re pleased that this matter is now off the table.” He added: “Taryn has nearly 30 years of tremendous journalistic success and ratings success, and specifically at WJBK Fox 2. So we really see this as a victory because she has a family to support and this allows her the opportunity to get paid.” He also said, “Taryn does not want to leave Detroit.”
Meisner also told Deadline Detroit: “We’ve had some discussions in both in mainstream media and non-mainstream media and we really have had to say, ‘we gotta wait’ because there was a contract in place and this matter was part of it. Now this matter is no longer part of it.”
The video that leaked about a month before the resolution dates to 2023, recorded while Asher was filming a newscast promo. The superior she called a vulgar name was Fox 2 Executive Producer for News Traci Kryscynski, also known as Traci Ditchie, who had been locked out of her scripts. Asher was recorded saying, “‘Can I please finish what I’m going to say?’ Grow up.”
For now the agreement hands her the one thing an out-of-work anchor needs most: the freedom to audition elsewhere while the litigation plays out.
A Rough Patch for Fox Talent
Another Fox departure has curdled into a public dispute, this one at a different arm of the company. Fox News Media announced on Thursday, September 3, that it had parted ways with host Maria Bartiromo after 12 and a half years, thanking her and offering no explanation.
Within hours the schedule no longer carried her name. “Mornings with Maria” aired the next day as “Mornings with Fox Business,” and “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” became “FBN’s Wall Street,” with rotating anchors. Jason Chaffetz picked up “Sunday Morning Futures” that weekend; the network has named no permanent host.
Her attorney disputes the premise. Bryan Freedman said on September 4 that reports she had been fired or was no longer a Fox employee were “absolutely and unequivocally false.” He added: “We have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise.” He has produced no proof and filed nothing; no suit has been docketed.
Neither side has said why the relationship ended, though one account has been partly corroborated. Bartiromo passed Fox’s internal guidance to the Trump White House, a person with knowledge of events told NPR — a text from Fox Business programming chief Ralph Giordano instructing producers not to give oxygen to President Donald Trump’s July 16 primetime address, which made unproven claims that China interfered in the 2020 election. Giordano sent it the day before the speech. On Newsmax, Peter Navarro said she had sent him the screenshot and that the White House called Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott about it. Sources said the leak was “not the only reason.”
The Lawsuits Hanging Over the Network
Her programs are stitched into Fox’s costliest courtroom saga. Dominion Voting Systems sued in 2021 over on-air claims that it had rigged the 2020 election, and Fox settled for $787.5 million in 2023 as the trial was to begin. Smartmatic sued the same year, is seeking $2.7 billion and names her as a defendant. Both sides have moved for summary judgment, the judge has not ruled and no trial date is set. Trump appointed her to the Kennedy Center board and called her “a total professional, and a true warrior.”
Several Fox figures tied to that coverage left before she did. Lou Dobbs, who has since died, lost his job a day after Smartmatic sued in early 2021. Fox pushed out Tucker Carlson in April 2023, six days after the Dominion settlement. Jeanine Pirro — a defendant in both of the voting-machine cases — was named U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., in 2025.
Asher’s next move is still taking shape. Meisner told the Detroit News that she is considering work in podcasting. Her attorney, Tad Roumayah, told the Detroit Free Press she is “actively pursuing opportunities in the industry, and she hopes to stay in Detroit, a community she has cherished and where she has developed meaningful connections with viewers and fans over the years.” Roumayah added: “She is deeply grateful for the support she has received from viewers throughout Metro Detroit.”
Her own stakes are smaller and more immediate. Lifting the contractual barrier that kept her from signing with a competitor is a practical win for a broadcaster who spent 19 years at one Detroit station. Her discrimination and retaliation claims remain unresolved, as does the station’s insistence that it had cause.