Why Lachlan Murdoch had to fire Carlson Tucker FOX News host amid fallout from Dominion settlement and the renegade reporter’s editorial stance increasingly at odds with his employer.
What led to Carlson Tucker having one of the most watched cable shows paradoxically may have led to his own demise.
The Wall st Journal (owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of FOX News) has released a report outlining reasons as to what ultimately led to the FOX News star being fired, including higher up executives being upset with their star host’s ‘bitter criticism’ of them following the 2020 election. This along with Carlson’s penchant to go against his whip-master’s editorial grain and assert his own ‘independent’ questioning and curiosity of affairs – all things that made Tucker Carlson extremely popular – to the chagrin of his bosses- dollar bills flooding in aside.
Carlson’s ouster at the right wing cable media giant according to the talk show host himself was a jolt and surprise – just 5 days after FOX News agreed to a $787 million settlement payment with Dominion over accusations of fraudulent reporting that they had used faulty voting machines and rigged votes against presidential Republican incumbent, Donald Trump.
Carlson, who joined Fox in 2009 after stints at CNN, PBS and MSNBC, was not told why he was being dismissed when CEO Suzanne Scott called him on Monday morning.
Scott told him the decision was made ‘from above.’ The decision was made on Friday night by Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s heir apparent, according to the WSJ.
Loss of credibility and trust
The WSJ reported that executives were angry at the ‘disparaging and derogatory remarks’ the star host made about colleagues, including a plea to get White House reporter Jacqui Heinrich fired for fact-checking Donald Trump, and calling his bosses ‘incompetent liberals’ and ‘f******’.
The comments were made public as part of the defamation suit filed against Fox by Dominion voting systems, which was settled last week at a cost of $787.5 million.
Many of the messages were redacted at the request of Fox attorneys, but have been seen by top Fox executives.
Those made public include Carlson telling a colleague the day after the election was called for Joe Biden: ‘Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?’
In another, he said: ‘Those f****** 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.’
Carlson vented his fury to his producer Justin Wells – who was also fired on Monday.
‘The software s*** is absurd.’
‘We’re playing with fire, for real … an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us,’ he said.
On November 9, 2020, he told Scott, the CEO, he was alarmed by the fall in ratings after the network two days earlier called the election for Biden.
‘I’ve never seen a reaction like this, to any media company. Kills me to watch it,’ Carlson said.
Other incidents that didn’t go down well with FOX execs included the outspoken host’s text messages to his producer, where he stated he hated Donald Trump ‘passionately’, and describing him as ‘a demonic force, a destroyer’.
He singled out Trump’s attorney Sidney Powell for particular venom, referring to her on November 22, 2020 as a ‘c***’.
He confirmed her claims about Dominion’s vote-switching were nonsense, saying: ‘The software s*** is absurd.’
Speaking from both sides of his mouth
The same night, he said on his show: ‘We don’t know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don’t know. We ought to find out.’
Another factor was said to be the number of separate suits filed against him.
Abby Grossberg, a former top booker for his show, has sued Carlson and Fox for a hostile workplace, sexual harassment and other alleged wrongs.
She claimed she was ‘coerced, intimidated, and misinformed’ while preparing for her deposition in the $1.6 billion Dominion defamation case.
Grossberg added that she was discriminated against as a woman at Fox, ‘overworked, undervalued, denied opportunities for promotion’ and subjected to ‘vile sexist stereotypes.’
In a tweet, Grossberg alluded to Carlson’s firing as an ‘admission’ of guilt by the network.
‘This is a step towards accountability for the election lies and baseless conspiracy theories spread by Fox News, something I witnessed firsthand at the network, as well as for the abuse and harassment I endured while Head of Booking and Senior Producer for Tucker Carlson Tonight,’ she tweeted.
‘I think this is great for America! It’s a big win for viewers of cable news, not just those who watch Fox.’
Carlson who on any night eclipsed over 3m views, and was on a $10 million annual salary, since running his own own show the last six years, rose to become the most watched cable news program in the world, where he religiously popularized the Great Replacement conspiracy theory while attacking supposed domestic enemies, including ‘liberals,’ teachers, ‘wokes’ and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Incase you were wondering what really got Tucker Carlson fired according to RFK pic.twitter.com/tz8aDTgVWa
— 🇺🇸Travis🇺🇸 (@Travis_in_Flint) April 25, 2023
Renegade right wing media commentator at odds with his conservative employer
But along the way as his star power blossomed, the renegade media commentator increasingly courted controversy, where he seemingly championed the antivaxxers, gave credence to aliens, who really assassinated JFK, whether the 2020 election theft actually occurred along with the notion that maybe the January 6 coup was an inside job.
While liberals celebrated his departure, conservatives mourned his loss. Many of his die-hard viewers are now left wondering where to turn.
Shares in Fox Corp, the network’s parent company, fell by 5 percent after the announcement – wiping $500 million from its market value.
His departure also comes just four days after that of Dan Bongino, and several months after Fox ‘parted ways’ with former president Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara.
More recently, Carlson angered many Republicans by airing heavily-edited clips of the January 6 riot, describing those who stormed the Capitol as tourists.
Steve Bannon, on his podcast show, said: ‘Tucker was the mainstay of the populist voice over at Fox.
‘The reason to watch Fox, you’ve got Maria (Bartiromo) in the morning, Jesse (Watters), he is getting there, but Tucker’s really the reason.
‘With this, I don’t know any reason to watch the Murdoch empire.’
But perhaps, the real dilemma wasn’t why watch FOX News without Carlson in the roster, is what to do with a renegade media commentator who in many ways outlived his usefulness to his bosses and had consistently gone against the editorial grain and ethos of their often ultra right appeal- this in spite of the public’s desire to understand the facts and their own futures in the increased face of existentialist woe post COVID, without the barage of ongoing polemical barrage – whether from the liberal left or the hard conservative right.
