Wow, what a week it has been and it’s only Wednesday. We’re all still recovering from Monday’s seismic media news. First, Fox News bounced Tucker Carlson. An hour later, CNN dismissed Don Lemon.
Two major cable news personalities jettisoned in a flash, apparently to the shock of both of them.
We’re still trying to figure out the whys and hows and what’s next of it all. News, rumors and rumblings continue to flow like a river into the ocean. So let’s cast our net and pull in all the interesting ideas and analyses and scoops in this remarkable story.
The latest is … there is no latest. We don’t know a whole lot more now than we did in the immediate aftermath of the firings of both Lemon and Carlson.
Lemon’s firing seems pretty straightforward. As I wrote in Monday’s newsletter, he seemed to be on shaky ground for a while now. He had been bounced from prime time to mornings and his firing, while abrupt, didn’t come completely out of nowhere.
Carlson? That’s a different story. That was a stunner.
We’re still trying to put the puzzle together as to what happened. Plenty of reporting suggests that off-camera issues, including a toxic work environment as alleged in a lawsuit by a former Fox News producer, helped lead to his demise.
But there are other possibilities. There is Carlson’s role in Fox News being sued by Dominion Voting Systems and ultimately settling by writing a hefty check for $787.5 million. There are embarrassing revelations about Carlson, including things Carlson has said, discovered in the Dominion pretrial documents and depositions. And there’s always the chance that the Murdochs — Rupert and his son, Lachlan — thought it good for the overall business to cut ties with Carlson.
This is not the first time that Fox News has “parted ways” (don’t you just find that term silly?) with a big-time star.
The Associated Press’ David Bauder writes how Glenn Beck was dismissed in 2011 and Bill O’Reilly was fired in 2017.
SiriusXM and CNN personality Michael Smerconish told Bauder, “It seems like the parts are interchangeable. They’ve built a machine over there that seems to function even when the pistons are replaced.”
Here’s a good breakdown from CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf: “Fox News’ conservative politics are much larger than Tucker Carlson.” Wolf writes, “What happens now is arguably important not just for Fox, but for the country. The network holds great power in conservative power circles, and it either influences or amplifies the direction of the Republican Party, depending on your perspective.”
Rachel Maddow looked through the lens of Carlson’s firing and delivered a critique of conservative media on her MSNBC show Monday night.
“What’s actually important for the country, I think, here, is understanding what conservative media does,” Maddow said. “Not overstating dominant conservative media figures as somehow standing bestride American culture and making things happen. They all only exist in terms of their influence within conservative media.”
She continued about Carlson, “Even though there’s always one of them who is dominant, the magnitude of their dominance decreases over time. And you can see that when you look at who’s been the dominant figure decade after decade, generation after generation … almost always there’s someone dominating but the magnitude of their dominance, their overall importance to the media, the right-wing media ecosystem, shrinks as right-wing media over time diversifies and becomes a lot of different things and something that exists on a lot of different platforms. So they’ll never be somebody as big as the biggest guys of the past were.”
Maddow then added, “Here’s the question: The conservative media right now — today — is in one of its periodic crises, right? They just today have lopped off one of their episodically dominant figures who for whatever reason hasn’t worked out. But he really is one of a string of them. There will be someone after him. The important question aside from the gossip and the business news and all that stuff, the important question for our country is about the success of that business, the success of that industry. Whether that remarkably successful industry as a whole is today at any risk of losing its zhuzh, its power, its capacity, importantly, to drag the Republican Party around in its wake no matter how hapless that party is and remains? That’s the question.”
Longtime Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, who now writes columns for Guardian US, has her analysis in “Tucker Carlson was Fox News’s biggest star. Then he became its biggest liability.”
She writes, “One of the worst influences in American media and politics has been knocked off his extremely prominent perch. For now, his voice is — if not silenced — quieted. … Carlson won’t stop what he’s doing. And he won’t disappear. His outrages will probably get even worse, since they will be freed of even the weak constraints at Fox News. Whatever he does next, he will be no less toxic. But he may be less visible — less omnipresent in American day-to-day life. And that alone is something to be grateful for.”
In my column Monday for Poynter, I talked to both NPR TV critic and media analyst Eric Deggans and former CNN and New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter about what made Carlson so dangerous.
Stelter told me, “Tucker Carlson’s show existed in a different reality that was quite derelict and dangerous. He wanted his audience to tremble in fear, not think freely.”
While many media observers are trying to figure out where Carlson’s next media landing spot will be, there is an outside-the-box possibility that doesn’t include media. And it might not be that outside the box.
Could Carlson run for office? The highest office of all, in fact?
OK, to be clear, it almost certainly won’t happen. (But the previous sentence had to include the word “almost” just to cover ourselves.)
Politico’s Adam Wren, Natalie Allison and David Siders open their latest piece with this line: “Let’s be clear: Almost no one thinks Tucker Carlson is running for president. But imagine if he did.”
And then they do imagine, asking an impromptu panel of Republican strategists about what a Carlson campaign might look like. The answers are fascinating.
The Daily Beast’s Bonnie Kristian asks: “Is This How Tucker Carlson Runs for President?” Kristian writes Carlson has said repeatedly that he has no interest in running for president, but he always said that when he was hosting the highest-rating prime-time show on cable news. Kristian writes, “… what does he have to lose? Certainly not a job at Fox News.”
Assuming he doesn’t run for president, where might Carlson end up in the media world? The New York Times’ Stuart A. Thompson looks into it in “What’s Next for Tucker Carlson? Former Anchors Chart a Possible Course.”
Don Lemon, shown here in 2021. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Oh yeah, Don Lemon. While he has been a big deal in cable news, his firing definitely didn’t — and won’t — have the impact that Carlson’s firing did. Carlson hosted the most-watched cable news show in prime time. Lemon had recently been taken out of a prime-time slot to co-host a revamped morning show with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.
Credit to CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy for covering the news in his own shop, writing in his “Reliable Sources” newsletter about what lies ahead for CNN chief Chris Licht: “Lemon’s departure presents Licht another programming conundrum. Licht, whose primetime programming bloc still remains under construction, will now need to reconfigure ‘CNN This Morning,’ which just launched six months ago. Collins has been one of the anchors who has recently hosted CNN’s 9pm hour, raising speculation that she could be tapped for the prime time slot. If that were the case, it would leave Licht an opportunity to nearly entirely reset the morning show.”
The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg, who is especially insightful when he writes about anything, gave his analysis in “As Carlson and Lemon Exit, a Chapter Closes on Cable’s Trump War.”
Rutenberg makes it clear that Lemon and Carlson are not the same broadcasters. “But,” Rutenberg writes, “in their most recent incarnations, Mr. Carlson and Mr. Lemon were both products of the Trump years — set-top-box combatants who often made headlines themselves by giving their audiences generous helpings of indignation and outrage.”
He adds, “Now, in different ways, their ousters represent at least a temporary pulling back from the excesses of the media coverage that the Trump election, presidency and post-presidency spawned.”
“CNN This Morning” — the show Lemon co-hosted until being fired Monday — did acknowledge his firing to start Tuesday’s show. Remaining co-hosts Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins announced the news and gave quick personal thoughts about Lemon.
Harlow started by saying, “We begin with some news about this show. As you may have heard yesterday, CNN parted ways with Don Lemon.” She then read a statement from CNN chief Chris Licht.
Collins then said, “Don was a big part of this show for the past six months. He was one of the first anchors on CNN to ever have me on his show. That’s something I’ll obviously never forget. I agree with Chris, we wish him the best.”
Harlow said Lemon was “one of my first friends here at CNN. And I’m so thankful to have worked alongside him and for his support for nearly 15 years here, and I wish him all good things ahead.”
- The Los Angeles Times’ Jose Antonio Vargas with “Tucker Carlson joked about deporting me on air for ‘good TV.’ That’s the kind of host he was.”
- In his piece for Mother Jones — “Tucker Carlson’s Long Con” — David Corn wrote, “When I ask people who worked with and knew Carlson well what happened to him, mostly I get shrugs and puzzled looks. How did this fellow who professed to be an honest broker of truth become a racist demagogue and promoter of far-right disinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories? As evidence in the Dominion lawsuit revealed, there is no longer any question that Carlson sold his integrity. On air, he was a champion of Donald Trump and provided a platform for Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election. Off air, he told his colleagues that Trump was a liar and that he despised Trump. No media figure as prominent (and as well-paid) as Carlson has been shown to be such a cowardly hypocrite. From crusading journalist to con man — that’s quite the trip.”
- Ratings for Fox News’ Monday 8 p.m. show without Carlson didn’t dip that much. The 8 p.m. hour, hosted by Brian Kilmeade, averaged 2.6 million viewers. The previous Monday — April 17 when Carlson was hosting — drew 3.2 million viewers. Viewers might have tuned in to see if anything was going to be said about Carlson, so let’s review the numbers again in a few days. Media reporter Brian Stelter put it into perspective with this tweet: “About Monday’s Fox ratings: Folks who were watching Jesse Watters at 7 stayed put and watched Brian Kilmeade at 8. He held the audience. But many of the Tucker fans who usually flicked on Fox at 8 o’clock sharp did not bother to tune in, thus Fox’s 8pm #’s were softer than usual.”
- HOWEVER, it was a big night for Newsmax. The ultra-conservative network saw a big jump in their normal viewership at 8 p.m., spiking to more than 500,000 viewers — well up from the normal low 200,000s range.
- The Washington Post’s Herb Scribner and Avi Selk with “Tucker Carlson’s firing ripped a hole in the far-right media’s heart.”
- Reporting from Rupert Murdoch’s home country in Australia, The Washington Post’s Frances Vinall with “Tucker Carlson’s abrupt Fox News exit fits with Murdoch playbook.”
- One more from the Post. Paul Farhi with “Where can Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon go now?” Farhi smartly points out: “It’s the flip side of achieving your wildest career dreams in any industry: There simply aren’t a lot of other seats near the top of the pyramid if you happen to lose yours.”
- Who lands the first TV interview with Carlson?
What were the late-night talk show hosts saying about the cable news soap opera?
NBC’s Seth Meyers: “Fox really knows how to disappear someone. I’m shocked they didn’t just go with this as their statement: ‘Tucker Carlson has not now and has never been employed by this network. We don’t know who that is, and we’ve never even heard the name. Tune in tonight at 8 p.m. for our nightly newscast hosted, as always, by Fox News stalwart, white, blonde lady, blue dress.’’
Another from Meyers: “At least when he had a show, we knew where he was. It’s creepy trying to fall asleep with a ventriloquist’s dummy in your room, but it’s way creepier when you wake up and it’s not there anymore.”
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel: “Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson — for those of you who don’t follow cable news, this is like if Ronald McDonald and the Burger King got fired on the same day.”
NBC’s Jimmy Fallon: “Some people aren’t sure what led to his exit, but Fox says they can think of almost a billion reasons why.”
The New York Times’ Trish Bendix has more on the late-night comments.
Just about a year ago to the day, New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore wrote an in-depth profile about Carlson. It was the main story on the front page of the Times with the headline “American Nationalist” and a big photo of Carlson.
Media reporter Brian Stelter tweeted out a photo of Carlson holding up the Times with a rather self-satisfied smile on his face.
One year ago this week pic.twitter.com/GizeBmlhZ4
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 25, 2023
Remember that photo?
Now on to other media news …
A huge name in the media has been swept up in the massive cuts at Disney. Nate Silver, founder of the data-driven news site FiveThirtyEight, tweeted Tuesday, “Disney layoffs have substantially impacted FiveThirtyEight. I am sad and disappointed to a degree that’s kind of hard to express right now. We’ve been at Disney almost 10 years. My contract is up soon and I expect that I’ll be leaving at the end of it.”
He added, “I had been worried about an outcome like this and so have had some great initial conversations about opportunities elsewhere. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am so proud of the work of FiveThirtyEight staff. It has never been easy. I’m so sorry to the people impacted by this.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Weprin reported, “ABC News is expected to keep the FiveThirtyEight brand name, with plans to streamline the site and make it more efficient.”
Silver founded the site in 2008 and then partnered with The New York Times officially in 2010 before selling to Disney-owned ESPN in 2013. Eventually, the site came under the ABC News umbrella.
ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir, reporting from Sudan. (Courtesy: ABC News)
ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir has been reporting on climate and conflict in South Sudan. In part because of viewer response, the World Food Programme has raised more than $4.3 million. According to the WFP, that’s a record amount following a network report.
Muir’s work from Sudan, by the way, has been outstanding. Check out this story.
David Rohde, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is the executive editor of The New Yorker’s digital site, NewYorker.com, is joining NBC News as a senior executive editor for national security. He starts at NBC News next month.
Rohde won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 while at The Christian Science Monitor for his reporting that helped uncover the Srebrenica massacre during the war in Bosnia. In 2009, while with The New York Times, Rohde was part of a team that shared a Pulitzer for reporting on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This section today is dedicated to the great Harry Belafonte, who died Tuesday at the age of 96.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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