Well, I’m surprised. As an aftershock of the Dominion lawsuit and the embarrassment of Fox News, Tucker Carlson is out on his ass.
In a shocking announcement, Fox News announced Monday that its controversial yet top-rated prime-time host Tucker Carlson is leaving the network.
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
The apparently hasty parting — Carlson gave no indication he was leaving in his last nightly appearance Friday, and the network was still running promos for his show Monday morning — came less than a week after Fox settled a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued the network for false claims about the 2020 election. Carlson was among several on-air personalities expected to testify.
You might be wondering…was it because of his racism? Because of his lies? Because of his lack of qualifications? No, of course not. Those things are prerequisites for working at Fox News.
It was because he told the truth and chewed out Fox management for promoting lies about the election.
But it was Carlson’s comments about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion case, that played a role in his departure from Fox, a person familiar with the company’s thinking told The Post.
“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” Carlson wrote to a colleague in a message a day after Fox, like other media outlets, called the election for Joe Biden. It was a sentiment echoed by others at Fox in the fall of 2020, as even network officials who disbelieved Trump’s election-fraud conspiracy theories fretted that countering them strongly would alienate their conservative viewers.
In another message, Carlson referred to management with an expletive: “Those f—–s are destroying our credibility.” He later wrote: “A combination of incompetent liberals and top leadership with too much pride to back down is what’s happening.”
This termination is sending a message to all the other “journalists” at Fox News: you can lie all you want, be as biased as you want, as long as you are supporting the particular lies and bigotry of Rupert Murdoch and other executives.
It must be scary being a highly paid apparatchik at a propaganda organ, but he’ll get no sympathy for me. Maybe he can land a new job with a North Korean news agency?
This frees him up to run for president next year.
His balls are tanned, he’s rested, and he’s ready.
Incompetent liberals?? What on earth could that possibly mean?
He’ll be back. His fans haven’t gone anywhere. He’s probably getting a nice fat golden parachute. He’ll build his own soapbox and start spewing his fascist, racist bullshit without worrying about FOX management.
Tucker Carlson is pro-Russian and pro-Russian genocide of Ukraine and the Ukrainians.
The Russian propaganda outlets such as Russia Today, Tass, or Russia TV (Rossiya) are more his style and he would fit right in.
Hopefully, he is following in the footsteps of another Fox NoNews personality, Glenn Beck. Remember him? Barely, since he is still around but went back to the swamp where he came from.
Tucker Carlson would also fit in at OAN or Newsmax or any of the other far right wingnut fake news channels.
“…as long as you are supporting the particular lies and bigotry of Rupert Murdoch and other executives…” I would think that’s a given at Fox News. However, it’s my understanding that Tucker was complaining about the news department…he was in the opinion arena…and it was the news department that called the election for Biden.
Also, as posted in another thread here, CNN has announced that they and Don Lemon are “parting company,” which is similar language to the Fox/Carlson announcement.
I think you’ve got that backwards. He was angry at management for supporting (or at least not disavowing) the number-crunchers and news-side personnel who acknowledged reality instead of telling their audience what they wanted to hear.
Now watch as Fox Nuisance quietly shifts ALL the blame for the settlement onto Carlson, while Murdoch denies any involvement.
[Tucker’s firing] was because he told the truth and chewed out Fox management for promoting lies about the election.
Um, no, as your subsequent quote clearly states, he had chewed out Fox management for telling the TRUTH — specifically, that Biden had won the 2020 election:
“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” Carlson wrote to a colleague in a message a day after Fox, like other media outlets, called the election for Joe Biden…
I’m pretty sure that’s not the reason for his firing either way (if it was, they’d have fired him back then); but he never chewed anyone out for NOT telling the truth.
Watch, the usual suspects–especially Tucker–will blame the firing on “wokeness.”
Clearly, I am incapable of untangling the truth from the lies at Fox News…which make it good policy on my part to ignore everything they say.
Right. Rupert Murdoch has succumbed to the “woke mind virus”!
Carlson is too big a name to end up at the likes of OAN or The Daily Wire. He’s going to start his own streaming network most likely. Plenty of right wing nationalist and fascist money out there for him to milk. Fox News could suffer if he succeeds.
Fox executives had TWO reasons to fire Tuck, the first being what PZ pointed out. But there was also a second reason: Firing him was absolutely necessary because of the legal liability he was creating. FNC’s business model – presenting TV talking heads who look and act like journalists while spreading absurd propaganda – is no longer legally tenable. It just cost the network $800M, and would surely cost more in the future. That reality has now dawned on the executives and shareholders. I’m pretty sure firing Tuck is just the start of the changes we’re going to see there.
He got canned because he was one of the key exhibits in the litigation and hence, cost the company money in said litigation. Likely, he’ll be far from alone, but some other leading headliner noise sources will also quickly and likely, more quietly get the axe.
And there’s a much more expensive litigation moving forward against Fox. There’s gonna be a lot more of that going around.
I’m sure it’s just business, considering the amount of money that was awarded to Dominion in their defamation suit.
The second suit by a similar corporation, the suit by a former employee, and the suit brought by a current stockholder are all likely to cost the liars who own a media empire very dearly.
Alex Jones has also lost his legal case for broadcasting fabricated narratives about Sandy Hook, and the parents awarded a huge sum in damages.
It’s ridiculous that either “news” outlet is allowed to broadcast lies and fabrications, and the only remedy is years long legal battles against corporations with in-house legal teams.
I’m sure firing their most expensive liability was recommended by various lawyers.
I imagine the Murdochs are very angry and needed someone to blame. Who better than the loud mouthed toad whose private communication publicly embarrassed them, AND cost them 778 million and counting.
I predict Tankie Tucks will just go straight to a new gig (same as the old gig) at Russia Today.
OT: Anheuser-Busch just placed the two executives and brand outreach manager in charge of the sponsorship of two instagram posts embracing trans people.
So, the company has effectively endorsed it’s a cis only, oppression supporting corporation. I hope they’re happy keeping their reprobate redneck following, although I’ll be damned if I can figure out how their primary demographic will enjoy their products, as most of that demographic are on probation or are still in prison…
Mmm, whatever happens next is going to be interesting. Not so much concerning the career trajectory of that Carlson slave, what matters is the behaviour of its lords and masters.
Will they clean up their act (unlikely), or at least whitewash it a bit? After all, there are rumours about the eroding of Shaitan-Murdoch’s faculties, and possibly internal strife in the family’s Administrative Pandaemonium.
It may be that this lawsuit, and the following ones, will bring radical changes to this particular lie-based power system, if not its end. Fiends like Rupertebos and his ilk tend to build on flimsy foundations and without their continuing presence the temples will come crashing down.
One can hope… we’ll see what there’s to see.
I half expect Carlson to try to buy OAN or Newsmax and transform them into the Tucker Carlson News Network.
Yep, I definitely called it:
https://www.rawstory.com/rt-suggests-it-could-be-a-landing-spot-for-tucker-carlson/
(via JoeMyGod)
I suspect Fox has a “non compete” agreement with him, so he may have to retire to obscurity and spend his days counting his money.
Ed: How would Fox enforce such an agreement? I don’t think they’d want to be heard in public saying “Hey, no fair, Tucker promised not to spout lies that compete with our lies!”
RT would love to land Carlson, but it’s not going to happen. They don’t even have a US-based operation anymore having been dropped by all the major cable and satellite companies.
Most likely he’s going to set up something like Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire streaming operation in partnership with someone from the far right investor class who will be more than happy to fund him well enough to woo other far right “talent” from other existing right-wing outlets. I can’t see him working for another news organization, at home or abroad.
I guess radio is an option — replacing Rush Limbaugh — but I suspect he wants to be seen as well as heard.
With this and Alex Jones’ lawsuit I think we’re going to see conservative media be a lot more cautious about what it says. I also can’t wait till a judge gets sick of Jones’s shenanigans and tosses his arse into jail. Do you think he’ll be able to make a camera and microphone out of a toothbrush so that he can keep broadcasting the ‘truth’ behind bars.
The only thing Alex Jones can make is shit. But, I doubt he’ll manage to get jailed. Jail is for peons, not people with hidden millions.
Imagine Tucker Carlson moving to Lies Unsocial™ to help his good buddy rebuild a following. His reward? Can you spell running mate…
FOX sacked him (1) to punish him for leaving a trail in private messages, but also (2) to make a public execution of a replaceable figure to ease the stock price shock of losing the Dominion case (yes I know they settled, but given the size of the damages and the context of several similar lawsuits pending, this counts as a loss, and yes I also know that Wall St should be smarter than this).
It’s no different to their use of Diamond and Silk, or Candace Owens…use them to spread a line of anti-woke bullshit, and when the credibility of the source is all chewed up by accumulated idiocies and slipups and the inevitable descent into madness, dump them and find someone new to spread a lightly modified line of anti-woke bullshit. The difference is that Tucker Carlson is white and one of their best performers ratings-wise, which is why it took a disaster the scale of the Dominion suit to get him fired.
I just read a meme that said Carlson is the first TV host in history to be fired by CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. I was dubious but it appears to check out. He was “fired” or as the networks like to put it they ended their relationship with Carlson: CNN in 2005 after 5 years, MSNBC in 2008 after 3 years, and Fox after 14 years.
Well.
and
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1423019244267130881?lang=en
“Trust fund heir Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson being feted by a foreign head of state, as a bunch of dudes in suit coats sit back, beckon for the waiter to refill their wine glasses, and wax on rapturously about “the people.””
Tucker Carlson doesn’t have to work. He’s a trust fund baby cosplaying as a journalist.
Now that he’s been sacked, maybe stepmommy Patricia Caroline Swanson, heiress to the Swanson Enterprises fortune, can make him some chicken soup. And go back to dressing him funny.
https://twitter.com/ajbauer/status/1650532021955969027
“Tucker Carlson ain’t shit without a trust fund, and he ain’t shit without a platform. And it’s hard to fathom him achieving a bigger platform than Fox.”
“Possible? Yes. Plausible? Not really. It’s a saturated market and we’ve seen similarly popular conservative commentators try to launch their own start ups before (Beck with The Blaze, Tucker himself with Daily Caller) and neither achieved nearly the scale of influence as Fox.”
@23 The only way Tucker Carlson will be able to get his own network and/or show is if his stepmom gives him some spending money. The guy literally makes no effort at ANYTHING–witness the infamous Jon Stewart interview. No preparation, no pivot, nothing. He’s a lazy brainless entitled whiner–who would dump more money into the money pit that is Tucker Carlson? As robro pointed out, he’s been sacked from pretty much every news organization that has employed him, however briefly. And he is not liked by any of his coworkers, so no one is going to go to bat for him or offer him a job.
The other good news of the day is that CNN has sacked that fatuous misogynist twit Don Lemon. Guess you’re past your prime too Don! Looking a little tired, Don… like week-old raw hamburger.
https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/cnn-don-lemon-misogyny-history-nikki-haley-1235574286/
“He [Don Lemon] was upset that O’Brien landed the gig of hosting CNN’s high-profile “Black in America” docuseries, which launched in 2008. During an editorial call attended by roughly 30 staffers, he suggested O’Brien isn’t Black, according to two witnesses, who found the characterization wildly offensive. “Don always wanted to be front and center on anything high profile, especially anything involving race,” says a colleague.
O’Brien, who wasn’t present, tells Variety, “Don has long had a habit of saying idiotic and inaccurate things, so it sounds pretty on brand for him.” “
Tucker is not going to run for president. He is too much of a coward to face Trump and if he does, Trump is going to murder him, politically.
I think he is toast. The Fox audience are the lazy-ass republican voters who just sit in front of the TV. Fox viewers only watch Fox and that’s it. He cannot go to any online station, he cannot go to those minor stations such as OAN. I agree with tacitus that his real option is probably radio but he also has a very whiney and unpleasant voice that is not going to sit well with the rightwingers. I honestly believe the reason Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh were popular with the rightwing idiots was partially because they had a rough and traditionally manly voice and the white republican men are suckers for that. Tucker can’t pull that off.
It would be fun If he went to one of those would-be rivals of Fox News and brought along enough viewers to make it economically viable.
Anything that starves Murdoch is good.
I might stop short of using bioweapons on Fox HQ but that is it.
Be careful what you wish for… Some of those would-be rivals are even worse.
Carlson referred to management with an expletive: “Those f—–s are destroying our credibility.”
I dont understand that comment.
Credibility with who ? … The general public ? The Fox viewers ?
What does ‘credibility’ mean in this context ?
TC has been following management orders (to lie) for years. Why complain now ?
A local website called Crikey was being sued by Lachlan Murdoch for calling him an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the Jan 6 insurrection. I was wondering what was happening with the case and it appears that it isn’t.
I guess the crown prince didn’t want his dirty laundry aired. ha ha ha ha.
Out? Tucker Carlson? Huh, I’m suprised by.. Oh, not that kinda out. Oh well.
Even better news actually!
graham2: Carlson was complaining that having the news arm tell the truth (Biden won) was undermining the credibility of his lies.
He was lying because his audience wanted to hear lies. He’s a white supremacist, but he’d call his grandmother black if it got him a bigger audience.
So… Short, short version – “We got sued, and are still getting sued, for massive amounts of money. Its time to double down on what got us sued, but who can we throw to the angry mob and blame, as a distraction….?”
Those who live by the Great Replacement, die by the Great Replacement?
Rachel Maddow explains how TC is the latest in a long line of regressive media profiles.
“(His) fall märks another step in declining power of right-wing figureheads ”
https://youtu.be/bKYwBYy-Cak
Apparently there is also a sex discrimination lawsuit against Carlson by a female producer.
I saw someone suggest Carlson could pull a Joe Rogan and pull big numbers as a podcaster. I doubt it. Rogan’s audience is younger and more tech savvy than the typical Fox News viewer. He also had a more mixed bag of potential viewers because of his long and continuing UFC work.
But… but how am I ever supposed to know which candies are sexually attractive now?
Kinda irresponsible of him, really, leaving everyone to think anthropomorphized M&Ms aren’t subverting the foundations of civilized society.
Aussie MediaWatch here :
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/fox/102261338
Plus Four Corbers on Foxes -Murdoch’s Big Lie here -46 minutes long.
Oh & PBS Newshour :
On this too.
Huh. Didn’t expect that to embed, sorry. Or be not ewhat Ithouht Iposting ehich was :
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-tucker-carlsons-departure-could-mean-for-the-future-of-fox-and-the-gop
Jus posted link here.
Oh & 4Corners with an ‘n’ natch. Topys.
Vanity Fair has a story out today that says Tucker Carlson Was Blindsided by Fox News Firing Don’t know if I believe that completely, but there are two key points from what I’ve read so far:
• Tucker was in the process of negotiating his contract renewal, and apparently said to someone that he thought they would renew it.
• Tucker thinks that the Murdoch kids will sell Fox “someday”…someday as when Papa is dead and gone.
I also learned yesterday that Tucker was born in San Francisco, and to my horror considers himself a Dead Head even to naming one of his books after a song of theirs. I’ll never listen to their “Ship of Fools” in the same way again.
Incidentally, when it comes to Tucker Carlson John Oliver’s classic
25 min long clip here on him is one I’d highly recommend.
On a side note… So many missed opportunities to, including in one of the papers we had in our store yesterday, to pick his classic, “Gosh! I totally don’t understand what is going on, but I am trying so hard I think I am about to have a dookie!”, images from his absurd TV segments, instead of the ones that make him look fairly normal. Sigh…
My guess would be that the lawyers and beancounters decided he just cost them more than he’s worth, so they axed him.
And this story is a perfect example of why I tend to support the creation of a new narrowly limited exception to the first amendment. Free speech was never about protecting the liar. We often protect the liar because it’s really really hard – impossible really – to use the law to distinguish between honest speakers and liars via the law and court. That’s a big reason why we have free speech. However, I think we can target a narrow class of liars – those that we can demonstrably provide beyond a reasonable doubt that they know that they are lying. I’ve always said that at a big “news” corporation such as Fox News, there must be a massive paper trail inside the organization that they everyone knows that they’re spreading lies. With that kind of overwhelming evidence of willful intent to deceive, I think we could safely make a criminal law to penalize that. Only for people who know that they have a “big” audience for their speech, and only for speakers where we have incontrovertible evidence that their speech is false and incontrovertible evidence that the speaker knew it was false, such as the paper trail at Fox News. In my ideal world, if that law existed, then a lot of people at Fox News would be going to jail for a few years.
@ ^ GerrardOfTitanServer : Agreed again. Moreover organising and running a specific campiagn of public disinformation when you know or should know the truth eg the tobacco industry on the dangers of smoking, fossil fuel Industry on Global Overheating and Faux “News” on, well so very much politics and culture~wise should be a crime. One with severe consequences including life in jail for perps.
@StevoR
I like where you’re going for whom this law could attack.
However, I think I disagree about lifetime in jail. I think jail sentences are often excessive for the necessary deterrence effect. I suspect Fox News could not function if every low-level person associated with the broadcast could be held criminally liable and face a few years in jail if you could find a single email or text written by the individual acknowledging that they’re spreading a particular lie that is sufficiently impactful on how people would vote.
Also, I must emphasize that the law must protect genuine cranks who believe batshit things without evidence and often in spite of overwhelming contrary evidence. This law I’m proposing must require basically testimony from the accused that they know that what they’re saying is false, whether that’s a text, a memo, an email, or recorded audio. I also think that a place like Fox News could not function with this kind of law in place. So many people must be involved in choosing the content to produce that it must be functionally impossible to run a show of lies without massive amounts of evidence that everyone involved knows it’s lies. Probably also make the law include people who act with an equivalent extreme reckless disregard for the truth while also protecting genuine crackpots.
I would actually be curious if this could be used against any major churches. Is there a paper trail in any major church among the leaders that they know that their religion is a lie? That would be interesting.