The End of an Era?

On April 24th FOX News announced that it had parted ways with Tucker Carlson, the host who had the highest rated show on the network. This happened on the heels of the network’s having to pay $786.5 million to settle the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.

Carlson was among the main conspiracy theorists who pushed the view that Dominion had collaborated in rigging results of the 2020 presidential election to defeat Donald Trump. As well, he faces another major defamation lawsuit from Amy Grossberg, a former producer for Carlson who claims that she was instructed to throw caution to the winds and not engage in fact checking for some of FOX’s major hosts.

While Carlson repeatedly pursued his conspiracy theories on air, his private communications proved that he didn’t actually believe them! This is also true of his two former colleagues, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, whose heads may be next on the chopping block.

Carlson joined FOX in 2009 as a commentator before being slotted the prime time 8pm time slot on the network in 2017. He quickly became the main purveyor of fake news, shilling for Trump throughout his presidency.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, he became Russian President Putin’s main shill in U.S. media, defending Russia at every turn, promoting its lies, and decrying Western assistance to President Zelensky.

As the cable television host with the highest number of viewers in the 25-to-54 age demographic in prime time, Carlson commanded his viewers’ hearts and minds.

According to National Public Radio (NPR, despite his shocking departure, Carlson had endured more controversies than most cable news stars could hope to survive professionally. In July 2020, his top writer was forced out after it was discovered he had posted racist, sexist and homophobic commentaries.

His show has been condemned by civil rights leaders for broadcasting racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant ideology.

His work on his show – accentuated by specials on the FOX streaming service – also sparked a firestorm by seeking to exonerate those who participated in the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol as civic minded people who were being politically persecuted.

The same day that Carlson was fired by FOX News, CNN announced that it had terminated its relationship with 17-year veteran Don Lemon. Lemon had made several misogynistic and ageist comments on-air several months ago related to former U.N. Ambassador and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Hayley. While there was no lawsuit involved, the network felt that such comments fell short of its standards.

The difference between FOX and CNN is that FOX played the conspiracy theories to the hilt knowing that they were lies and only acted, perhaps too late, when the avid promotion of these theories affected its bottom line. While CNN is known to support more liberal causes, it would appear that its decision was taken on the grounds of principle rather than pragmatism.

So, what next?

I believe that FOX will have to fire both Hannity and Ingraham in view of another looming lawsuit – one for US$ 2.7 billion by Smartmatic, a company also in the election monitoring business. This lawsuit promises to reveal more of FOX News’s hosts’ support of conspiracy theories and will implicate other FOX stars, including former New York Mayor and Trump advisor and attorney Rudy Giuliani.

How many heads will roll remains to be seen.

How long FOX will continue to support extreme right-wing conspiracy buffs also remains unknown.

One would hope that FOX has learned a lesson. There are reports of internal resistance to its normal message lines and the liars who usually go on air.  

Will FOX’s owner Rupert Murdoch reset the news organization’s editorial stance in view of the enormous costs that he had to pay and the risks involved going forward?

Will he replace the fired hosts with other liars, or will he try to reposition FOX News as a more mainstream right-wing network supporting more traditional journalistic values?

Will facts win over fiction and conspiracy theories?

Stay tuned!

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Edición Astrid Sánchez