One of the hottest
stories in the global media has been on the story of the dismissal of Tucker Carlson
from Fox News (“Fox”). The dismissal of Mr. Carlson came shortly after his
employer had to settle a US$787.5 million law suite with the Dominion Voting
Systems Corporation (“Dominion”).
The facts of
the case were well known. The hosts on Fox News had supported the idea that
Dominion had aided the Biden team in stealing the 2020 US Presidential election
from the previous incumbent, Donald Trump. Dominion had argued that by promoting
this theme, Fox was effectively going out of its way to damage their business
and unfortunately for the network, the lawyers for Dominion did a very good job
in getting hold of the documents that would have made life very uncomfortable
for Fox.
What made Fox
particularly weary was the fact that the lawyers from Dominion managed to get
the documents that showed that the hosts on Fox promoting the idea that the
2020 election thought that what they were promoting was political snake oil. This
was particularly uncomfortable for Mr. Carlson in particular. The man who had achieved
superstar status by promoting Donald Trump had admitted to “hating him passionately.”
Still, it was a
surprise when Fox News fired Mr. Carlson after settling the law suit with Dominion.
Mr. Carlson was effectively the “rainmaker”
for Fox. His show had the highest ratings on the network, which in turn meant
that the advertising space around his show was particularly valuable (Fox’s
owner Rupert Murdoch is very clear that his main objective is to make money – “it’s
not red or blue but green.”). So, why would Fox fire the person generating
revenue? The answer turns out to be simple – there were things about Mr.
Carlson that would have made life particularly him more trouble than he was
worth for Fox News:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/03/tucker-carlson-text-message-fox-news
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/business/media/tucker-carlson-text-message-white-men.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGxxRRtmHc
His ability to
make “racism” comes across as reasonable resonated with a large segment of the population
and people who wanted to believe in conspiracy theories listened to him, thus
making him the “rainmaker” that he was for his employers.
However, it is
clear from the various documents that what Mr. Carlson said in public and what
he thought in private were quite different. He knew that the “Crazy” stuff was “crazy”
and I guess you could say that he paid a price for it. If you look at the text
that he sent, he realised that after years of promoting the ugly – he was
actually turning into an ugly person himself. The problem with promoting and
justifying the ugly in society is the fact that your internal ugliness will
shine through and you will have to face it. Knowing how ugly you’ve become is
probably one of the biggest horrors we can face.
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