Tucker Carlson is a great replacement
Fox News: Dismissing Carlson for promoting sexism, harassment and misogyny in the post-election campaign
“This is a step towards accountability for the lies and baseless conspiracy theories that were spread by Fox News,” said Grossberg in the statement. This is some justice for the American people, and for Fox News viewers who’ve been manipulated and lied to, in an attempt to boost the channel’s ratings and revenue.
Carlson signed off of Friday’s show and told viewers that he’d be back on Monday. He did not respond to a request for comment from NPR.
And while the exact circumstances of his departure remained hazy on Monday evening, the dismissal comes amid a series of high-stakes — and already high-priced — legal battles emanating from Fox’s postelection campaign to placate Mr. Trump’s base and win back viewers who believed that his defeat was a sham.
Carlson featured in Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit. His former senior booking producer filed two separate suits, and he is also the focus of one.
Grossberg accused Carlson and Fox of sexism and harassment because his show’s workplace was filled with examples of misogynistic behavior. Her lawsuit claims, among other things, that mocked-up photographic images depicted then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “in a bathing suit revealing her cleavage” and that staffers were polled — on two separate occasions — on which of two female candidates for Michigan governor they would rather have sex with.
Carlson was the network’s most well-known personality and took over for O’Reilly after many accusations of sexual harassment were leveled against him. O’Reilly denied those accusations.
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. The Daily Dot found out last month that one of Carlson’s staffers liked posts on the VDare site.
His work on his show and specials for the streaming service caused a backlash after he sought to exonerate people who participated in the U.S. Capitol siege.
The Rise and Fall of Chris Carlson: From the Fox News Network to the Republican Party in Donald Trump’s Presidency, and in his Admissibility to Fox News
That contributed to the decision by several prominent Fox figures to depart — including Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace and conservative commentators Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg.
The audience stuck around and Carlson was able to keep his standing within the network, even though his advertisers were forced to stop showing on his show. Disdainful of the cable network’s top executives, Mr. Carlson cultivated the impression that he was close to the Murdoch family and, perhaps, untouchable.
Mr. Carlson’s rise as a populist pundit and media figure prefigured Mr. Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party: His own conversion from bow-tied libertarian to vengeful populist traced the nativist insurgency that fractured and remade the party during the Obama years. But he prospered in tandem with Mr. Trump’s presidency, as the New York real estate tycoon made frank nativism and seething cultural resentment the primary touchstones of conservative politics.
