Why Tucker Carlson Was A Problem For Fox News
The primetime host called one senior executive the c-word in a redacted missive; the network grew wary of further embarrassment from possible disclosure.
Though it still handily led the 8 p.m. hour, the cable outlet’s viewers fell off by a sizable amount Monday when Carlson replacement, Fox News Tonight, was hosted by Brian Kilmeade, the first in a series of rotating hosts.
No one is irreplaceable at the network. It was designed that way.
Exclusives
The two hosts took very different approaches, but the decisions by Fox News and CNN to shed the stars marks at least a temporary shift in the excesses of Trump-era coverage.
The $787.5 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems revealed plenty of what Fox personalities had been saying about the bogus election claims, including Tucker Carlson, the network’s top-rated host who was let go Monday. His unexplained departure on Monday has turned a spotlight on what he said in depositions, emails and text messages among the thousands of pages Dominion released in the leadup to jury selection in the case.
Now What For Tucker Carlson? Now What For Fox News?
The network said in a press release Monday that the last program of Tucker Carlson Tonight aired last Friday. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor,” the press release from the network said.
Fox News Media just released the following statement:
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor. Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 p.m. ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.
Dan Bongino, one of the most right-leaning hosts in the Fox News stable, is leaving the network after the Fox Corp.-backed outlet and he could not come to terms on a new contract.
Several similar lawsuits to the just-settled one by Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News Channel are teed up against those who have spread election lies, including another against Fox. The plaintiffs range from a different voting technology company to Georgia election workers who were falsely accused of tampering with the vote count in that state. The defendants include close advisers to former President Donald Trump and a conservative group that funded a film last year alleging widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Big questions loom in the $1.6 billion trial centered on false election fraud claims Fox aired about a voting technology company.
Judge Eric Davis of Delaware Superior Court has been evenhanded and reasonable, legal analysts say. The defamation suit is his highest-profile case.
With jury selection closed to the media and public, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis announced by Thursday afternoon that the interview process had produced a large enough pool from which to choose 12 jurors and 12 alternates for the defamation trial brought by Dominion Voting Systems. The seating of jurors will begin Monday morning, followed by opening statements from lawyers.
In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, the media companies demanded that the Justice Department’s Office for U.S. Attorneys and the FBI “promptly” provide copies of the footage from Jan. 6, which they characterized as “the most significant assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812.”
The former anchor of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” is gearing up for “Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy,” a look at the Fox Corp. cable outlet’s trajectory following the 2020 election and through the much-scrutinized defamation trial brought against it by Dominion Voting Systems. That court proceeding is slated to open Monday.
Judge Eric M. Davis has been ruling this week on pretrial motions in Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Already, the litigation has pushed internal workings at the network into the spotlight.
The judge presiding over a voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit against Fox denied the company’s request Wednesday to hold separate trials — one for Fox News and another for the network’s parent company.
Newly revealed recordings of Maria Bartiromo’s conversations with Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and others have left a Delaware judge again upset with Fox’s legal team. Judge Eric M. Davis indicated that he would appoint a special master to investigate Fox’s representations to the court, including declarations made in December over the extent of discovery materials that have been produced to Dominion Voting Systems in their $1.6 billion defamation case. Davis said that he was “very concerned” that Fox made it seem as if it had met its discovery obligations.
Attorneys defending Fox in the $1.6 billion defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems over alleged false claims about the 2020 election withheld critical information about the role company founder Rupert Murdoch played at Fox News, a revelation that angered the judge when it came up at a Tuesday hearing. It was not clear whether the development would affect a trial scheduled to begin Thursday with jury selection.
Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier is perhaps the best personification of Fox Corp chief Lachlan Murdoch’s description of Fox News as a network that targets the “center-right.” While his selection of stories and analysts often appeal to conservative sensibilities, Baier presents the news from a journalistic standpoint, covers major developments of the day, and corrects misstatements of facts.
A settlement has been reached in a Venezuelan businessman’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News and host Lou Dobbs over statements accusing him of helping tilt the 2020 presidential election. In a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Louis Lee Stanton filed in the Southern District of New York over the weekend, lawyers for the two parties wrote they had reached an agreement to resolve the matter. Financial terms of the agreement were not specified.
The voting machine company has filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox for its coverage of baseless election fraud charges in the 2020 election.
Rupert Murdoch built an empire by giving viewers exactly what they wanted. But what they wanted — election lies and insurrection — put that empire (and the country) in peril.
