All Tuckered out
As I write this, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson is unemployed.
Don’t cry for Tucker. He’s well-off.
He’s made between (estimated) $15 million and $20 million per year as the highest-rated host on the highest-rated news network in the business.
Yet, Fox News abruptly fired him, leaving the rest of us to try to figure out why it happened.
Be mindful that I’m not going to waste too much energy or research coming to conclusions about why a guy who’s worn out his welcomes all over TV Land was handed a midday pink slip last Monday.
You don’t need to do any research if the evidence of his misdeeds has always been in full view.
He’d been on-air talent at CNN, MSNBC, and PBS before landing a job at Fox News in 2009.
In 2016, he took over his own show – Tucker Carlson Tonight – which eventually became the highest-rated show in all of cable news.
But along the way, he made enemies.
In 2020, he began attacking the Black Lives Matter movement on his show, and major advertisers like The Walt Disney Co., Papa John’s, and T-Mobile abruptly pulled their ads.
Baked into Carlson’s formula for success is the fact that nightly scowls, exuding disdain, and controversy attracted audiences and, in most cases, advertisers.
Carlson didn’t create that formula. Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly had gotten rich perfecting it.
The folks running Fox News benefit when their snarling stars help fill their coffers. Facts are optional.
In early March, Carlson was given exclusive access to 44,000 hours of surveillance video from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Carlson took the opportunity to proclaim the people inside the Capitol “… were peaceful. They were orderly and meek. These were not insurrectionists. They were sightseers,” he said, as if everybody, everywhere hadn’t already seen something completely different – and for months.
That is the kind of fiction Carlson wanted us to see on most nights.
In early April, he pronounced that, “The United States is a direct combatant in a war against Russia. As we speak, American soldiers are fighting Russian soldiers.”
No, they aren’t.
But Carlson’s words are now being parroted across America, and even, more dangerously, among the leaders of Russia.
Looking back a year ago, Carlson played the same racist “qualifications” card that “Birther” Donald Trump played against Barack Obama back in 2011.
After President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson (who is Black) for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Carlson decided to speculate. “Appointing her is one of his gravest constitutional duties,” said Carlson. “So, it might be time for Joe Biden to know what Ketanji Brown Jackson’s LSAT score was. Why wouldn’t you tell us that?” he added.
It’s worth noting that Carlson never questioned the LSAT scores for Amy Coney Barret, Neil Gorsuch, or Brett Kavanaugh when they were nominated for the court.
Consistency has never been Carlson’s strong suit.
It was revealed in some court documents dealing with the post-2020 presidential election that Carlson said of Trump, “I hate him passionately. We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights.”
Trump has since decided to run for the presidency again.
And because he made his move, so has Carlson. On April 11 at 8 p.m., Trump and Carlson sat down for an hourlong, blockbuster interview.
That pulled in 3.7 million viewers and was the No. 1 show on cable news that night.
Yet, winning the night in the TV ratings war didn’t smooth the bumpy road ahead for Fox News or for Tucker Carlson.
On April 18, Fox News was forced to settle that massive Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit for $787.5 million.
It’s unclear if Carlson’s firing was a result of anything he did or said on his show. But there’s even more litigation in the future for Fox News and Carlson.
One lawsuit has been filed by one of Carlson’s former show producers.
Abby Grossberg claims there was an “appalling work environment while working on Tucker Carlson’s show.”
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.