Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, the top-ranked commentator on cable TV, in April 2023, a week after the network settled a $787 million defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems.
Dominion Voting sued Fox for $1.6 billion arguing that the news network had peddled “phony conspiracy theories that claimed its equipment switched votes from former President Donald Trump to Democrat Joe Biden.”
The baseless claims damaged the company’s reputation.
Dominion Voting presented a trove of internal communications, emails, and text messages that documented that Fox News’ executives and commentators knew their claims were false but their on-air staff went ahead and aired them anyway.
This is the definition of libel.
Fox’s claims of election fraud on the part of Dominion Voting were false and without merit.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/media/fox-dominion-settlement/index.html
https://www.axios.com/2023/05/01/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-history
Documents from the lawsuit revealed that Carlson made his comments about election fraud public while privately he revealed serious doubts about the accusations of election fraud from the Trump White House. He did not share those doubts with his audience.
In one instance, Carlson had one of the program’s advertisers, My Pillow founder Mike Lindell, on the air and let him repeat his baseless claims that were merely the nonsensical ravings of someone with little or no connection to reality.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/media/dominion-fox-news-allegations/index.html
Carlson said his firing was part of the settlement – something Fox News and Dominion Voting both denied.
There were so many reasons to fire Carlson from a news network it is difficult to identify a single cause.
Such as he’s a racist.
In fact, it’s quite possible Carlson was the most-watched racist in the history of television.
Carlson lists that on his resume.
Fortune magazine, for instance, published a story that said Carlson was fired for, among other things, describing a video where a number of Trump supporters were beating up someone that Carlson called “an Antifa kid.”
Carlson expressed his conflicting emotions watching several whites ganging up a Black.
“Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously,” Carlson tweeted, according to the New York Times. “It’s not how white men fight.”
https://fortune.com/2023/05/03/tucker-carlson-ousted-fox-after-text-message-revealed-report/
Carlson’s comment was offensive to white supremacists and non-white supremacists.
The New Republic referred to him as a “fascist.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/172149/10-fascist-things-tucker-carlson-said-air
In addition, Carlson could have been fired for being a misogynistic pig whose behavior was so loathsome the network had to pay millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit with a booking producer.
NPR reported that Carlson’s former booking producer Abby Grossberg sued Carlson and Fox News for a pattern “of sexism and harassment, alleging that his show’s workplace was replete with examples of misogyny.”
NPR said that Grossberg’s lawsuit claims that the studio had “mocked-up photographic images” of Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House of Representative, “in a bathing suit revealing her cleavage” and, in addition, staffers were asked on two different occasions which “of two female candidates for Michigan governor they would rather have sex with.”
Grossberg called the firing of Carlson a “step towards accountability” for the network.
“This is a step towards accountability for the election lies and baseless conspiracy theories spread by Fox News, something I witnessed firsthand,” Grossberg said. “This is some justice for the American people and for Fox News viewers who’ve been manipulated and lied to for years, all in an attempt to boost the channel’s ratings and revenue.”
Fox News settled the lawsuit with Grossberg in June 2023, agreeing to pay the former producer $12 million.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/30/fox-news-settles-lawsuit-tucker-carlson-producer-00104471
Carlson, of course, was not the first high-profile Fox News employer or employee to lose their job because of sexual misconduct:
SEE ROGER AILES
SEE BILL O’REILLY
SEE KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE
Carlson could have been fired for being a pathological liar, a racist, a creep, and an awful journalist.
Or for being such an unrepentant phony.
What is that thing on top of his head?
A toupee or does he dye his hair?
Who cares?
It’s the mess that’s inside his head that is of far more concern.
Psychoanalyzing Tucker Carlson, too, is beyond the scope of this website.
Carlson distinguished himself from other prime-time commentators on Fox News because he had a background in . . . . news.
He was once been a respected journalist who wrote for such publications at The Weekly Standard, Esquire, the New York Times magazine, Daily Beast, and Wall Street Journal.
He was a very good journalist. His editors praised his work.
https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/tucker-carlson.php
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tucker-Carlson
How Carlson ended up as the unhinged racist slinging feces at viewers on prime-time television also is beyond the scope of this website.
https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/tucker-carlson.php
Late-night comedians made jokes about Carlson’s firing in part because Carlson had become such a . . . joke.
Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live, said that he read that Carlson had ordered a sausage and pineapple pizza during his last episode on the network.
“He should have been fired on the spot for that alone,” Kimmel said.
Carlson’s “probably not done poisoning old people’s brains,” Kimmel said. “The question now is where will he do it next?”
Kimmel suggested that Carlson might go to even more right-wing, even more conspiratorial network such as OAN — One America News – or Newsmax?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/25/tucker-carlson-don-lemon-late-night-reactions/
Or perhaps Carlson can work in hell – but I repeat myself.
Kimmel then showed a reel of the worst of Tucker Carlson, providing, according to Kimmel, “one last dance with one of the most despicable mother Tuckers ever to appear on American television.”
The Daily Show guest host Desi Lydic said that it was ironic that Carlson, who “spent so many years saying that Mexican people were coming to take our jobs away” was fired by the Australian head of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch.
Lydic added that Carlson’s firing would “leave a huge white-power vacuum at Fox.”
James Corden, host of The Late Late Show, said that Carlson, who had previously worked for MSNBC, CNN and Fox News, was running out of options. “Soon he’s just going to be on the Weather Channel, saying that hurricanes are caused by drag queens.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/25/tucker-carlson-don-lemon-late-night-reactions/
The British daily, The Independent, said that Carlson’s firing from Fox News gave him the dubious distinction of being fired by all three cable news networks.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tucker-carlson-fox-news-fired-b2326048.html
Carlson co-hosted Crossfire with Paul Begala, a political liberal, on CNN for several years until he was spectacularly embarrassed by one of the program’s guests, Jon Stewart, who had regularly ridiculed Crossfire on his own program The Daily Show for “hurting America” by encouraging political divisiveness.
Stewart argued that unlike Carlson and Begala he was a comedian, not a journalist, and therefore it was not his role to conduct interviews to discuss political issues.
Begala responded that his program was meant to be a forum for debate.
Stewart replied calling Crossfire a debate show was “like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.”
During the exchange, Carlson told Stewart, “I do think you’re more fun on your show. Just my opinion.”
Stewart then responded, “You know what’s interesting, though? You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.”
https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cf/date/2004-10-15/segment/01
Stewart’s appearance was shared hundreds of thousands of times on the internet.
https://www.cnet.com/culture/jon-stewart-crossfire-feud-ignites-net-frenzy/
Jonathan Klein, the president and CEO of CNN, canceled the program a few months after Stewart’s appearance and said CNN would not be renewing Carlson’s contract.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tucker-carlson-fox-news-fired-b2326048.html
Say what you will about Donald Trump, he is not a phony.
Carlson sucked up to Trump on the air, again and again and again.
The Dominion Voting lawsuit revealed Carlson’s hatred of the former president.
Carlson wrote in a text message on January 4, 2021, two days before the insurrection, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.”
“I hate him passionately. … I can’t handle much more of this,” he added.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tucker-carlson-endorses-donald-trump-2024/
