Fox News’ Bud Light Moment

Posted on by

Fox News fired Tucker Carlson without any explanation or obvious malfeasance on the part of Tucker.  If Fox wanted to cut ties with those many viewers who have looked at Fox as the lone champion of fair reporting and center / center-right opinion, they could not have chosen a more effective way to do it than this.

History is replete with examples of people who freely made decisions that soon proved to be epic disasters.  Some of the more notorious examples include Troy accepting a gift horse from some shifty Greeks; Napoleon invading Russia; the Donner Party opting to take a ‘shortcut’ over the mountains; Hitler declaring war on the United States; Decca Records rejecting the Beetles; and most recently, Bud Light’s choice to partner with the fantasy-gendered Dylan Mulvaney.  Or at least Bud Light was the most recent until Fox News decided it would be a good idea to fire its most popular show host, Tucker Carlson.  This will not turn out well for Fox.

Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan, now at the helm of Fox News, supposedly made a decision over the weekend to fire Tucker Carlson.  Carlson’s show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, averaged 3.2 million viewers per night, making it the top primetime show on cable news.  To put that number in perspective, it meant Tucker was pulling in twice the audience of the next closest show at MSNBC and five times the audience of the next closest show at CNN.  The Fox News announcement of the Tucker firing was notable for its lack of any justification for the action.

According to the Daily Mail:

. . . [Tucker Carlson] was negotiating the renewal of his Fox News contract through 2029, earning upwards of $20million a year and expected it to be renewed, Vanity Fair reported.

Carlson, who joined Fox in 2009 after stints at CNN, PBS and MSNBC, was not told why he was being ousted 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, according to multiple reports.

A Fox News source told DailyMail.com: ‘Tucker still hasn’t been given any indication of why he was taken off the air. His producer Justin Wells was ousted too. . . .

Carlson hasn’t spoken out yet, either to announce his plans for the future or to explain his side of events.  As to speculation as to why Fox fired Carlson, the thoughts range from plausible to ludicrous.

As to the ludicrous, the Daily Mail reports ‘We believe Rupert wants to sell the company and it’s harder to find an institutional buyer with Tucker as the main star. Tucker gone makes it more of an appealing media company to buy.’   Yes, someone actually wrote that.

In the same article, Daily Mail suggested that the decision to fire Carlson may have been because they were upset that Carlson had privately criticized them.  Sorry, short of airing dirty laundry in public, this does not sound plausible.

Lastly, the Daily Mail notes that a former producer has filed a sexual harassment complaint against Fox.  Nothing in her complaint implicates Carlson in any wrong doing.  It really is a nothing-burger, and I say that as an attorney who has tried such cases, both on the plaintiff side and the defense.

Others raise some interesting truly interesting facts, chief among them being that  major hard-left titans hold a major share of Fox News stock and sit on the Board of Directors.  Could this be an effort by Blackrock, Vanguard and others of the same ilk to silence Tucker as we go into the next election cycle?  It certainly sounds plausible.

On a related note, it appears that the shares owned by Blackrock are a recent purchase.

And here is yet another hot-take, suggesting Tucker quit after his Executive Producer refused to allow Tucker to air a segment on the 60 Minutes puff-piece on Ray Epps

We will, I believe, soon know much more about the parting of Fox News and Tucker Carlson.   In any event, I do not see this as anything other than the beginning of the end for Fox News.  Fox News easily survived the last time they fired their most popular host, Bill O’Reilly, but that was justified on the basis of repeated bimbo eruptions.  This firing of Carlson is different.  It goes to the heart of whether conservatives are to have a platform and a voice.  And Fox has just taken a stand on that issue against conservatives.

I for one will be cancelling my Fox Nation subscription and turning to Epoch New and NY Post for all of my news.  I would imagine that I will have lots of company.

Image: Tucker Carlson screen grab.

facebookFacebook
TwitterTweet