POLITICS
Why is Tucker Carlson leaving Fox News? The right-wing personality is out after Dominion lawsuit
The sudden departure of the network’s leading man has rumours swirling of a link with the fallout after Fox’s large settlement with voting company Dominion.
Murdoch-media-owned Fox News has let go of its golden boy Tucker Carlson. The right-wing ‘news’ anchor headed ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’, his personal show, and brought in millions in viewers and revenue for the corporation.
“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,” it said in a short statment, rare for someone of Carlson’s stature and expericence.
No reason was given for the break up between the two.
Fox’s share price fell by 3 percent in reaction to the news of Carlson’s departure, around $600 million in value. That is more than it fell in the fallout of the Dominion lawsuit settlement last week, a settlement which has been supposed is the real reason Carlson lost his job.
Tucker Carlson and the Dominion lawsuit
Voting system company Dominion brought a lawsuit against Fox alleging that the media company knowingly spread false stories about the veracity of the 2020 election. Dominion sought $1.6 billion in damages though Fox settled at the last moment for $787.5 million just last week.
“We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false... We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute... allows the country to move forward from these issues.”
In a statement, Fox News accepted that some of its reporting was inaccurate. Though the settlement saved Fox from potentially embarrassing revelations about the right wing news outlet, a number of details about Tucker Carlson and his beliefs were released.
Texts from Carlson’s phone were revealed in court. They showed that his personal beliefs are not the same as those he espouses on his show. In one instance he described Donald Trump as, “good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that”.
Carlson added, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for [the Trump project], because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”
With Trump back in the running to be president, it pays for Fox to ally alongside him if his popularity is high enough.
In terms of election fraud, a centrepiece of his shows, Carlson did not believe it was real. “I don’t think there is evidence of voter fraud that swung the election,” producer Alex Pfeiffer texted to Carlson, per the lawsuit. “The software s**t is absurd,” Carlson allegedly replied.
The real reason has not yet been revealed, but the heavy price paid by Fox for events that took place on Tucker Carlson’s show may have played a big part.