Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways | Hacker News Reader

Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways

press.foxnews.com

37 pointsr72143 comments

I would love to see a show with him and Maddow. They sit right next to each other and tell the same exact news story. No arguing, just telling the same exact story from their angle. Like 2 ft apart from each other. If they have to make any retractions for lying the retractions must be repeated 10 times throughout the show. End of the week the retractions are tallied up and a winner is declared.

For those unaware: Rachel Maddow got her start in television as a regular panelist on the MSNBC show Tucker, hosted by Tucker Carlson.

Do "Point/Counterpoint"-style shows still exist? I haven't watched cable news for a long time, but my understanding is that all the debate-style shows are gone because people don't really want the opposing view, people just want the echo chamber.

After the famous Jon Stewart Crossfire takedown, CNN sprinkled paid analysts into all of their programming, where the qualification is generally that they are a partisan with some name recognition.

They still did last I watched any of their programming.

Yes the Stewart encounter marked the end of the left/right debate format on CNN. Crossfire soon ended and Tucker ventured out on his own.

>I would love to see a show with him and Maddow.

To the person who proposed a Maddow/Carlson "tell the same story from different perspectives" show -- that kind of thing doesn't work when both hosts lack a significant amount of intellectual honesty.

It works a little better with Sagar and Crystal on Breaking Points because they are at least trying to be honest with themselves and their viewers. (I am not saying I always agree with them or they are always right)

My biggest problem with Tucker and Maddow is that television shows criticizing the government make the 2nd most boring "entertainment" in existence.

[Television shows praising the government are the most boring.]

He talked about this style of discourse a couple of days ago and said he doesn't think it applies in today's world. He thinks its more similar to good vs evil and that both parties seem to not want a good outcome anymore. Without that underlying principle, debate can't really occur.

Maybe we'll see the end of the reverse-Flynn effect[1] in America.

[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...

Are we not men?

> A source familiar with the situation told Axios that the firing was not part of the settlement agreement.

https://www.axios.com/2023/04/24/tucker-carlson-fox-news-out

In spite of that scoop, they are speculating that Carlson is too much of a legal liability in other pending suits.

That makes a lot of sense. Tucker's liability risk is basically a know fact with all the public information out there. I think this is the Occam's Razor explanation.

No definitely wasn't. Tucker never gave much credence to the dominion angle on the election either. And Blackrock owns a decent portion of fox and dominion too so it's all pretty silly in the monetary angle. Dominion was just a fifty million company a while back when it was acquired, now they deserve 1.6 b or half that in damages??? How exactly...

I feel like this is going to have the effect of Obi-Wan's quote:

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

Some are saying, he'll go to OANN or NewsMax. I doubt that - he drew more viewers than any other host. He draws more views than arguably any other right-wing talk show host, or even almost any left-wing talk show host. (Unrelated, but Gutfeld! is more popular than Colbert, Kimmel, or Fallon.) He could set up his own media company with the money he's made and his popularity.

Could he be popular because he's on at a time that a lot of people want to watch, on a channel with a predictable audience? The viewers aren't going to vanish, and they're probably not going to change their habits.

I suspect that rather than his popularity following him to another channel, they'll find an equally good entertainer to take over the time slot. It may take some time to find just the combination of personality and tone to connect with the people who are already tuning in to that station at that time, but he's far from unique. Plenty of people can do his job.

Fox wants to tone down the liability risk, so I don't think they want a direct replacement. The balance will be tricky.

But maybe thats what they wanted anyway, as it seems like Carlson was drifting away from Murdoch's political zone.

Bill O’Reilly never recovered. The question is, is there some sex scandal or other dirty secret behind this?

Most likely, as CNBC insinuates, it's tied to the Dominion Voting Defamation Settlement. They settled out of court for a huge sum... but who knows if some other conditions were attached. It's hard for me to believe that it was voluntary considering his commercial success.

If that is the case, this is not a Bill O'Reilly situation. He'll bounce back like nothing happened.

Well... there is the gender discrimination case against him that's currently going through the courts.

But main-stream Republicans tend to like abusive men, so he's likely to only get more popular. At least with republicans.

Your ignorant and hateful speech has no place here. I get that its fun to make up strawmen, but it's counterproductive to discourse.

Tucker Carlson's private texts are public record now. They reveal he hates Trump and considers him quote: "a demonic force". Now that we know he really thinks of Trump, he's off Fox's brand. So of course he's out.

I don't think that would be the issue. One reason is that it can easily be explained away: That was a quote from Dominion's own legal motion and retelling of the evidence, and Fox's response to that motion (which supposedly contains context) was sealed. At least according to Fox, but there's no reason their viewers wouldn't buy that.

> One reason is that it can easily be explained away

Only to have that explanation (if it isn’t true and clearly verifiable from evidence) steamrollered as the SmartMatic case rolls on in the wake of Dominion?

The question was less about whether or not SmartMatic and Dominion's case was true, as whether it would damage Tucker Carlson's or other host's reputation and brand. I don't think that the legal case is going to damage their reputation with their fans one ounce.

And this isn't necessary some "right wing delusion" either, both sides protect their own. Blackface didn't end Trudeau's career. French Laundry hasn't ended Newsom.

SmartMatic is likely to have the same evidence (at issue here) that Dominion had and to use it similarly to how Dominion did (and would have at trial). So, explaining stuff away that might be easy to explain away in the wake of the Dominion settlement because the full context did not come out in that case may be more complicated because the same issues and much of the same evidence are being litigated in SmartMatic, and what did not get fully explored in Dominion may well do so in SmartMatic.

Fox was trying to pivote away from Trump, but that appears to have failed, so I think this is likely the reason.

Fox doesn't want any of their starts drifting close to sane, factual takes on anything, even in private text messages.

Yeah, but Carlson has a technical problem.

His cable audience is relatively unlikely to set up YouTube, Rumble or whatever on their TVs just to follow Carlson. They will probably get angry, and then just keep watching Fox.

His audience is already there. Anyone young and even slightly right-leaning knows he's hugely popular on social media. His clips also drove Fox News's whole YouTube channel, so whatever viewers he might lose by leaving cable, there will be many more to gain.

I dunno. This is not my universe, but I just don't see Tucker outshining younger conservative influencers without the backing of Fox.

I don't even know a liberal counterpart to him either... Rachel Maddow? Bill Maher? But I don't see anyone like that floating to the top of social media either.

Maybe I am just ignorant, as I do not follow partisan influencers at all.

So.. what.. like 40 College Republicans share his clips on 8chan?

You have the right to be as ignorant as you want.

I choose to be ignorant of RWNJs sharing Tucker Carlson clips on 8chan. I'm happy not to go there.

He already has a standing offer from RT.

Russian prime time had Tucker's clips as a fixture.

> He already has a standing offer from RT.

He's much more useful for the Russians pushing then talking points whilst not being on RT so I doubt he will end up there.

I hope that they keep going; Hannity, Ingraham, Bartiromo and Pirro should all be sweating right now.

Have agreed... Let's say that one side agreed more than the other to fire the former...

Why is this submission along with all the other submissions on this story flagged?

> Why is this submission along with all the other submissions on this story flagged?

It will predictably result in a partisan flamewar or one-sided partisan hate-fest, both with much heat but little light.

I would imagine political news, especially those with heavily charged content like these, aren't conducive to productive discussions. So some people decided to just flag it first before it spirals.

Flags are based on member actions, e.g., flagging a submission.

HN mods will occasionally override flags on request. They can be emailed at hn@ycombinator.com

Update: they've declined to do so in this case (email response).

For anyone uninformed, during discovery for the case, many messages were found belonging to Fox News people and Tucker Carlson.

Tucker conveyed his dislike of Trump and also knew he and Fox News were lying about Dominion.

He was fired because you cannot have a person on the payroll that dislikes Trump or disagrees with the Fox News narrative. He is now considered a traitor to the audience Fox News caters to.

He'll just turn up on one of the even more outlandishly right wing channels like OAN. That's what happened with all the proto-fascist presenters here in the UK, though thankfully over here those channels have about 9 viewers.

I dont think they could afford him. Most of them also have pending litigation from the voting machine companies as well.

Oh interesting, of course they do!

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