Fox News (Thankfully) Fires Tucker Carlson

There are numeous toxic personalities on the political right, many of who care nothing for the harm they cause and the hate and divisions they fuel among the citizenry.   Most are like Donald Trump and care nothing for anyone but themselves and their egos.  Certainly among the worse is Tucker Carlson who Fox Newws fired yesterday morning.  Not surprisingly, some personalities at Russian state TV have purportedly reached out to Carlson with teases of possible employment.  Carlson has routinely stoked misogyny, racial hatreds and mouthed Russian propaganda be it against Ukraine or topics Vladimir Putin believes will divide America and weaken it, even as he feigned being patriotic to the rubes and intellectually lazy who watched his nightly propaganda pieces.   Much speculation is swirling as to what pushed Rupert Murdoch to finally jettison Carlson, but obviously the recent near $800 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems and the revelations that case turned up may have been a factor.  Then too there is ex-Fox producer Abby Grossberg’s lawsuit against Fox which allegesd rampant sexism and anti-Semitic behavior behind the scenes at Carlson’s show.   Finally, there was the growing hesitance of some advertisers to be tied to Carlson's show.  Indeed, Murdoch may have simply decided the risks Carlson repersented outweighed the benefits from his loyal - and in my view, twisted - viewers.  Whatever the cause or causes, Carlson's firing is most welcome. A column in the Washington Post looks at the nasty piece of work Carlson embodies.  Here are excerpts:

Fox News’s decision to “part ways” with prime-time host Tucker Carlson is practically a choose-your-own-ending sort of story: Compelling reasons to oust Carlson have been piling up for years. It’s about time Fox News finally deployed one, or 50.

The immediate context for Carlson’s departure, announced on Monday, appears to be the cable network’s $787.5 million settlement last week with Dominion Voting Systems over allegations that Fox News coverage of the 2020 presidential election defamed the company. But even if Carlson’s surprise departure followed the high-profile payment, the connection isn’t open-and-shut. Far from a focus of the Dominion case, Carlson was responsible for just one of the 20 broadcasts at issue; most were the work of other network stars. . .

The fact that Carlson’s last show aired without a sign-off to viewers suggests that Fox News didn’t trust Carlson with its airwaves under changed circumstances.  Yet the network trusted him for 14 years, a span in which Carlson, a veteran of CNN and MSNBC, littered the airwaves with conspiracy theories and racist rhetoric.

Carlson’s hammering wasn’t limited to external critics. Court filings in the Dominion litigation exposed many of Carlson’s candid thoughts about others at Fox News, including executives. . . . Such comments about management “played a role” in Carlson’s ouster, according to reporting by Post colleagues Jeremy Barr and Sarah Ellison.

Who at Fox News ever — ever — would have supposed that the guy willing to smear others willy-nilly would similarly bash his colleagues?

There is other ugliness. A lower-profile lawsuit, filed in March by Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News employee who worked on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” alleged violations of pay-equity laws, gender discrimination and retaliation, among other issues. Her complaint paints a dire picture of the work environment under Carlson.

And as a Fox News host, Carlson’s on-air pronouncements were replete with racism, sexism and an undisguised hatred for people with whom he disagrees. In his quest for ratings and fame, Carlson proved willing to run over otherwise powerless people, such as the Maine-based freelance journalists assigned to produce a story about him, or the pro-Trump man whom Carlson wrapped in his conspiracy theory about the FBI and the Jan. 6, 2021, protests. Carlson also menaced colleagues at the network, as New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore documented in a year-long investigation.

It seems that Fox News was fine with Carlson’s vicious, often baseless, attacks, as long as they were directed elsewhere. Once they started landing closer to home, network leaders took another look at the terrible individual on their payroll.

A piece at CNN looks at the risk calculation that may have motivated Murdoch and other top Fox brass:

One veteran television news executive told me that they believed the decision came down to a straightforward calculation by the Murdochs: Risk versus reward. “There’s a lot of drama and intrigue, but this is always about managing risk vs reward,” the person said.

“I know that’s not very exciting, but it’s how these decisions get made at the highest level,” the executive added. “A weighing of the negatives - and risks to the business - versus the positives or benefits.”

And if you’re the Murdochs, it is easy to say how holding on to Carlson comes with more much more risk than reward. Carlson is not a team player, and in fact is uncontrollable. He carries legal baggage, and the Murdochs are trying to put an end to the legal disputes they find themselves in. He regularly births negative news cycles about the network that tarnish the brand, and Fox News is desperate to emerge from the cloud of negative press it has been the subject of. Meanwhile, mainstream advertisers have stayed far away from Carlson’s show, which is far too toxic to associate with.

The Murdochs also have plenty of evidence to support the bet that Fox News is bigger than any single person. Just look at Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, and others who have exited the network. None of them have bigger platforms today than they did when they were on Fox News. They all have a less powerful megaphone than the one they carried when employed by the Murdochs.  . . . . If he were to turn up on another channel, it’s certainly possible that a not-so-insignificant chunk of his audience would follow him over — especially with former President Donald Trump eager to rip the Murdochs and fan chaos in right-wing media.

Which is all to say that, while the Murdochs may have made a calculated bet that the odds will remain in their favor, it is still a bet. And it’s not clear exactly how things will shake out when the dice land.