If we thought last week’s 11th-hour settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems was surprising, that was nothing compared to Monday’s shocking announcement that Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News.
Fox’s statement said the conservative media outlet and its primetime host “agreed to part ways” — but it seems the network neglected to tell Carlson. He ended his final broadcast with a plug for a Fox Nation streaming special about eating bugs and the send-off “we’ll be back on Monday.”
Tucker’s abrupt exit comes in the wake of the Dominion Voting defamation lawsuit, which Fox ultimately settled for a reported $787.5 million (though the Associated Press reports it’s likely to only cost the company $590 million). During the litigation’s discovery phase, hundreds of written statements — in the form of emails, texts and other messages — revealed virtually no one at Fox actually believed the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, nor that there was any widespread election fraud at all.
The cache of statements included many from Carlson himself. In several, he disparaged Fox’s top executives and insisted that telling the truth about the election was alienating their viewers. Referring to the Fox election desk’s decision to — accurately — call Arizona for Biden, Carlson texted fellow employees, “Do the executives understand how much trust and credibility we’ve lost with our audience?”
It’s easy to speculate the settlement and Carlson’s ousting are related, but it’s impossible to say for sure, especially since both Carlson and Fox are declining comment. (It may be worth noting Carlson was also the impetus for a discrimination lawsuit brought by one of Carlson’s former producers.)
Could this be a sign that Fox News is pulling back on its slide toward far-right extremism and the realm of “alternative facts” and conspiracies?
Possibly. We hope it is, but we won’t hold our breath.
As a news organization, there is nothing more disheartening to us than seeing the most popular cable news/entertainment channel market fiction as fact, opinion as news and conspiracies as “free thinking” — and watching the denigration of real journalism become a multi-billion-dollar business.
There is perhaps nothing more disgusting than learning the people peddling falsehoods — so-called “journalists” — knew they were lying all along.
And there is perhaps nothing more terrifying than realizing Fox created a viewership so desperate for its beliefs — no matter how unfounded or absurd — to be confirmed that it revolted when reality dared intrude.
As a newspaper, we work hard to make sure our information is verified and accurate, and if we do mess up, we have a dedicated space for corrections and clarifications. (And readers are not shy about letting us know when we’ve made a mistake.) Even in our opinion section, we do our best to represent opposing political views and to choose commentaries that are based on facts rather than conspiracies — which is sometimes easier said than done.
Perhaps the most disappointing part of Fox’s settlement with Dominion is that Fox News doesn’t have to apologize; it doesn’t have to air any corrections — it essentially escapes culpability. The most Fox has said is “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” but that’s it. Maybe that’s why Carlson’s firing is satisfying to so many people — it’s the closest we’ll get to seeing someone at Fox be held responsible for years of falsehoods. But it will be a while yet before we see if, for Fox at least, lies continue to pay.
