Sometimes, people think the life of a broadcast journalist looks pretty easy. Like, who wouldn’t want to get paid to go in front of millions of people and talk? However, it’s easy to forget that a journalist could always slip up and say the wrong thing. And all it takes is one careless moment to create a mistake that haunts them forever!
This is the lesson that Fox News host Dana Perino learned the hard way. She’s made plenty of mistakes before, as many journalists have. But on one occasion, she screwed up so badly that it could have cost her career.
What mistake did Perino make, exactly? How did she try to salvage the moment, and what happened to her career? Keep reading to find out!
It all started with a murder
The thing about broadcast blunders is that they can happen at any time, regardless of what someone is talking about. For example, Dana Perino could have had a slip of the tongue while discussing something as innocent as the weather. In this case, though, her big blunder started with one of the most grisly news events she could possibly cover: a gruesome murder!
In August 2025, a homeless man named Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly killed a 23-year-old woman named Iryna Zarutska. She was a Ukrainian refugee, and both of them were traveling via train in North Carolina. Without any real warning or provocation, the homeless man allegedly killed this refugee, and he was subsequently charged with first-degree murder.
It was a brutal bit of news to break, but Perino was a pro…right? Unfortunately, she managed to stick her foot in her mouth and make the whole thing so much worse!
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Repping the wrong GoFundMe
With this murder case, there was nothing to do for Iryna Zarutska herself. The Ukrainian refugee had been stabbed to death, and her alleged attacker had already been charged for murder. Still, her family was left reeling from this sudden attack, so supporters had set up a GoFundMe for people to donate money. And Dana Perino wanted to help the family out by mentioning the GoFundMe to her legion of followers while reporting on this story.
There was just one problem: she ended up discussing the wrong GoFundMe account during her broadcast. As reported by the Daily Express U.S., she began by saying “I just want to show everybody here, there is a GoFundMe, um, and this is for Iryna.” Soon, though, she realized that the page she had shown her followers was set up to fund the alleged killer rather than the victim!
She quickly found the right page and shared it during her broadcast. No harm, no foul, right? Unfortunately, this incident has haunted Perino’s career because she accidentally tried to get her followers to support an alleged murderer rather than the person who was killed. Talk about messed up!
A slight silver lining
After making this on-air blunder, you might think there was no walking it back for Dana Perino. And you’d be right: people still gossip about her mistake to this day. But Perino is a veteran reporter, and she knows how to find the silver lining in any story. And yes, that includes accidentally suggesting that her viewers donate money to an alleged murderer!
Almost right after she corrected herself and showed the correct GoFundMe, Perino pointed out that the fundraising site would be yanking the page set up to support the alleged killer. In a way, this helped her save face by pointing out that nobody (whether they went there thanks to her suggestion or not) would be able to donate any money to that particular page. But as reported by the Daily Express U.S., Perino ended the segment with a bit of self-deprecating humor: “so, uh, we live and learn!”
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A history of on-air blunders
To Dana Perino’s credit, she seemingly did live and learn, and she never had an on-air blunder of this magnitude ever again. But she has had some other major screw-ups before, including in 2021 when she mentioned to her onscreen co-host Jessica Tarlov that, “You’ve got something new coming.” This prompted Tarlov to reluctantly say, “Yeah … and now the audience knows. So, I’m pregnant.” This mortified Perino, but it arguably pales in comparison to her other major blunder!
Recently, Perino had a more amusing on-screen blunder, accidentally referring to President Trump as “President Truth.” She dutifully corrected herself, but she then showed just how well she knows how to pivot. After just a moment, she speculated that Trump “might like that nickname,” which is likely true for a man who created Truth Social, his own social media platform.
So far, so good, Perino. As long as you don’t accidentally promote a man named President Truth’s GoFundMe campaign, you’re coming out ahead!