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The real reason for Fox News’ abrupt firing of its most popular star remains a mystery that the media industry will surely be chewing on for months.
But if history is any guide, there’s one thing we can count on: Cutting Tucker Carlson loose is not a sign that Fox is ready to change its ways.
Carlson may have been its loudest and most extreme vanguard of far-right pandering and misinformation, but he was hardly the first. He will not be last.
“The O’Reilly Factor” was a tentpole in Fox’s programming, occupying the 8 pm slot for nearly two decades. Its host, Bill O’Reilly, a self-styled populist patriot who railed against politically correct liberals, was shown the door in 2017 after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct sent advertisers fleeing.
When O’Reilly left, speculation swirled about whether it would mark a turning point for Fox. Commentators wondered aloud then, as they are doing now, about how O’Reilly’s messy and expensive exit would surely be a wake-up call.
Instead, Carlson took over and managed to juice its already dominant ratings, averaging more than 3 million nightly viewers. He achieved that by, among other things, seizing on fears among older White conservatives over immigration, race and sexual politics in America. He regularly brought fringe, racist talking points such as the “great replacement” conspiracy theory into the mainstream.
The content on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” made “The O’Reilly Factor” look like “Leave It to Beaver.”
That strategy wasn’t a new one for Fox. Glenn Beck, whose show premiered at the start of President Barack Obama’s first term, was an early experiment in mixing right-wing talking points with fear, moral outrage and performative disbelief about an imagined liberal agenda to destroy the country.
“There will be a new Tucker Carlson, and it’s a good bet he or she will be even worse,” wrote David A. Graham in The Atlantic.
For now, the coveted 8 pm time slot will be filled by a rotation of hosts.
Carlson had become a thorn in Fox’s side for a few reasons. Not least: His behind-the-scenes trash-talking of President Trump and his own false narratives about the 2020 election were expected to be damning evidence in the defamation trial against the network, which paid $787 million to settle earlier this month. He’s also being sued by a former producer who alleges there was rampant sexism and misconduct on his show.
Fox hasn’t connected either of those legal headaches to Carlson’s ouster, but there’s almost certainly more to the story that isn’t being made public.
“This isn’t the kind of decision Fox would make in some kind of weighing the pros and cons performance review,” writes Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo. “There would need to be some big, fat near-existential reason behind it…We just haven’t heard it yet.
Whatever Fox’s reasoning, it’s safe to assume that whoever replaces Carlson will have to be cut from the same cloth. Because, as the Dominion documents made clear, Fox is, for the first time in its history, facing serious competition from the far right in the form of ultra-conservative cable outlets OAN and Newsmax.
In other words: Fox now needs its audience even more than its audience needs it, and the network can’t afford to let down its pro-Trump base.
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