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☆ Tucker Carlson's texts from the Dominion lawsuit reveal the real Fox News
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | Rebecca Zisser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Private texts reveal incredible detail about Fox News' inner workings. Among the messages is a thread where Tucker Carlson privately bashes Trump. Top Fox News hosts, including Tucker Carlson, privately insulted Chris Wallace and hatched a plot for a rebellion — November, 16, 2020. In a group chat between the three biggest hosts, Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham, few colleagues, including then-"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace, were spared. In a group chat between the three biggest hosts, Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham, few colleagues such as then-"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace were spared.

☆ Tucker Carlson leaves Fox News days after Dominion lawsuit settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Helen Coster | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

April 24 (Reuters) - Fox News Media and its top-rated host Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways, less than a week after parent company Fox Corp (FOXA.O) settled for $787.5 million a defamation lawsuit in which Carlson played a starring role. A third person said the senior executive producer of "Tucker Carlson Tonight", Justin Wells, was also let go from Fox News on Monday. After the announcement of Carlson's departure from Fox News, a spokesperson for former President Donald Trump tweeted: "Fox News is controlled opposition." "I stand with Tucker Carlson!" Carlson joined Fox News as a contributor in 2009 and became a co-host of "Fox & Friends Weekend" in 2012.

☆ How Tucker Carlson went from a CIA reject to the most-watched person on cable news — to now out of a job
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Sophia Ankel | Madeline Berg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Tucker Carlson and Fox News parted ways on Monday. Carlson was the network's most popular host, but his time there was marked with controversy. Most recently, the network paid a $787.5 million settlement in a suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. Tucker Carlson was the most-watched man on cable — and now he is no more. The suit claims Carlson presided over a culture of misogyny and antisemitism.

☆ Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Taylor Berman | Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Fox News' star host Tucker Carlson is gone, the media network announced Monday. Tucker Carlson and Fox News have "agreed to part ways," the cable news giant announced on Monday. Carlson's last episode of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" was Friday, Fox News said, though he didn't make any reference to his impending exit on the program. "We want to thank Tucker Carlson for his service to the network," Faulkner said. Carlson leaves Fox News less than a week after Fox settled a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over the cable company's promotion of lies about the 2020 election.

☆ It's judgment day: Shocking exits of Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, and Jeff Shell rock the TV industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Nathan Mcalone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

NBCU CEO Jeff Shell, Fox News' Tucker Carlson, and CNN's Don Lemon are all out. Shell's bombshell exit took many insiders by surprise, Insider's Claire Atkinson reported on Sunday. Fox News declined to comment beyond its press release saying it had agreed to "part ways" with Carlson. Media watchers had been primed for a Lemon exit for weeks. With all the news of the past 24 hours, media insiders have barely even gotten a chance to drill down into the second wave of layoffs at Disney, which will number in the thousands.

☆ Tucker Carlson leaves Fox News in wake of Dominion defamation settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Right-wing prime-time host Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News immediately, the cable network announced Monday. "FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways," the company said in a statement Monday. Carlson's program, "Tucker Carlson Tonight," has long been one of Fox's top rated programs. Carlson, 53, was among the Fox hosts and executives who were questioned as part of the Dominion lawsuit. While the Dominion lawsuit was unlikely to affect Fox's business, it was unclear the toll it would take on its programming and hosts.

☆ Tucker Carlson and the Tragedy of Fox News - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In the summer of 2011, Rupert Murdoch stopped by my small office at The Wall Street Journal, where I was a columnist and editor. The scandal ultimately resulted in the closure of News of the World, at one point one of the world’s biggest-selling English-language newspapers. It was to leave no trace that investigators might use for evidence against him, his family or his favorite lieutenants. “Sidney Powell is lying by the way,” Carlson told fellow host Laura Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020, referring to the infamous election conspiracy theorist. “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear,” Murdoch told the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott.

☆ Watch Fox News tell its viewers that the network has 'mutually agreed to part ways' with star Tucker Carlson
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Edith Honan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

"We have some news from within our Fox family," Fox host Harris Faulker told viewers. "Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have mutually agreed to part ways." "We want to thank Tucker Carlson for his service to the network, as a host and, prior to that, as a long-term contributor," Faulker said. "Tucker Carlson Tonight" debuted in 2016, and the show made Carlson one of Fox's top-rated hosts. In a statement, Fox said: "Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.

☆ Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Fox, Albemarle, First Republic and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Pia Singh | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

People walk by the News Corporation headquarters, home to Fox News, on April 18, 2023 in New York City. First Solar – Shares of the solar company lost 3.2% after a Citi downgrade to sell cited margin risks and concerns that Inflation Reduction Act benefits are already reflected in the share price. Medtronic — Shares added 4% during midday trading after being upgraded to overweight from equal weight by Wells Fargo on Sunday. Sunrun , Enphase Energy — Shares of Sunrun and Enphase Energy were higher Monday after Citi added positive catalyst watches on the solar companies, saying it sees further share gains. The Wall Street bank opened a 90-day positive catalyst watch on Enphase Energy, citing a strong backlog and expectations for record-high margins.

☆ Opinion | Tucker Carlson’s Great Replacement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Michelle Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Don’t Expect Fox News to Change After Massive Dominion Payout,” said a Vanity Fair headline. “Will Fox Settlement Alter Conservative Media? On Monday, news broke that Tucker Carlson, Fox News’s highest-rated and most demagogic prime time host, was out, and wouldn’t even get a final show to say goodbye. Grossberg describes an environment in which women of all political persuasions were constantly discussed in terms of sexual desirability. One of Carlson’s bookers, she alleges, was told that she should sleep with Elon Musk to secure an interview.

☆ Opinion: What happens when you knock on a door
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Richard Galant | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +18 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. In Kansas City, Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old White homeowner shot Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who rang his doorbell. And, “with Trump as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, Fox has resumed coverage of him which often veers into the free-advertisement category. Neither Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced his candidacy last week, nor Marianne Williamson represents a serious threat, Axelrod noted. “The calendar reads 2023,” wrote the Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan, “but it feels like 2016 all over again.

☆ The Week in Business: A Trial With a Twist
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Marie Solis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

In an unexpected twist in the courtroom on Tuesday — after jurors had been selected and opening statements delayed — Fox News agreed to a $787.5 million settlement. But even at less than half that amount, the settlement is still one of the largest ever in a defamation case. Caveats released in August said vehicles and plug-in hybrids assembled outside North America were not eligible for the $7,500 credit. The list of eligible vehicles is expected to grow as carmakers fine-tune their supply chains and catch up with demand. When the bank reports its quarterly earnings this week, analysts expect to see an enormous flight of deposits — that is, customers pulling their money from the bank — and losses.

☆ A Chastened, Humbled Fox News? Don’t Count on It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Jeremy W. Peters | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mr. Murdoch said then that he wanted to make Mr. Trump a “non person.” And as recently as January, when he was deposed as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox, his feelings hadn’t changed. “I’d still like to,” Mr. Murdoch said. But Fox’s audience — the engine of its profits and the largest in all of cable — may not let him. And there probably won’t be much of a shift in the way the network favorably covers Mr. Trump and the issues that resonate with his followers. “You can’t tell people, ‘Do anything to get a rating, but don’t cover the most popular figure in the Republican Party.’”

Community competes with a bevy of different types of services vying for space in your text inbox, from Attentive to Twilio to Zendesk. “With Community, once they text the number, we now have a way to stay in touch directly. Using text messages to connect with customers, for all its promise, poses unique challenges. And customers may want to hear from fewer brands in their text inbox than they do in their email inbox. “As opposed to email, when you have to scroll to the bottom of the thing and hit the link that says unsubscribe, if you don’t like the text messages you’re getting, you only have to write one word: Stop,” Mr. Kutcher said.

☆ Lachlan Murdoch Drops Defamation Lawsuit Against Australian Publisher
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( David Winning | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +2 min

Lachlan Murdoch in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2019. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator.”Private Media rejected the claim that the article had defamed Mr. Murdoch and the case was due to go to trial in federal court in Sydney in October. On Friday, Mr. Murdoch’s attorney, John Churchill, filed a notice with the federal court stating that the Fox chief executive was discontinuing the proceedings. In a statement, Mr. Churchill said Mr. Murdoch was confident that he would have won the case at trial. Crikey, in a statement on its website, called the decision a victory for public interest journalism and said it stood by the original article.

☆ How Dominion’s Owner Turned a $38 Million Investment Into a Windfall Settlement With Fox News
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Sarah Krouse | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Mark Makela/ReutersWhen Staple Street Capital invested in Dominion Voting Systems in 2018, the New York private-equity firm foresaw potential risks if the company’s voting machines malfunctioned. It didn’t imagine Dominion would be falsely accused of helping to rig a presidential election. Dominion this week reached a $787.5 million settlement in its defamation suit against Fox News parent Fox Corp. over the network’s 2020 broadcasts that amplified false election-fraud charges. The settlement is a windfall for Staple Street, which paid $38 million for a 76% stake in the business through two private-equity funds.

☆ Ted Cruz, one of Trump's staunchest MAGA allies, was begging Fox News behind the scenes to show 'demonstrable facts' and evidence before repeating Trump's 2020 election lies
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ted Cruz was recorded in 2020 urging Maria Bartiromo to make sure she had her facts straight. Cruz told Bartiromo to ensure she had evidence for any election fraud claims aired on Fox News. Cruz later joined several hardline MAGA senators in voting to not certify the 2020 election results. Despite his reservations, in January 2021, Cruz ended up voting not to certify the results of the 2020 election, joining several hardline GOP senators in repeating Trump's election fraud lies. Representatives for Cruz and Fox News did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.

☆ Lachlan Murdoch drops defamation lawsuit against Australian news website
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Byron Kaye | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SYDNEY, April 21 (Reuters) - Fox Corp (FOXA.O) CEO Lachlan Murdoch dropped a defamation lawsuit against an Australian news site over an opinion piece he said accused him of complicity in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying the defendant was trying to generate publicity. A lawyer for Private Media, Michael Bradley, said Murdoch had discontinued his Federal Court claim without warning and that Murdoch would pay Private Media's costs. "It's complete vindication of their stand on the principle of press freedom," Bradley said in an email, referring to Crikey and its employees. Fox and its top-rated cable channel Fox News on April 18 settled a defamation lawsuit by ballot machine operator Dominion Voting Systems, on what was to be the first day of a trial where Lachlan's father, Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, had been expected to testify. In the Australian lawsuit, which was scheduled to go to trial in October, Lachlan Murdoch had accused Private Media and four employees of damaging his reputation in a June 29, 2022, opinion piece that described the Murdochs as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the effort by Trump supporters to overturn his election loss.

☆ Trump operatives considered using breached voting data to decertify Georgia's Senate runoff in 2021, text messages show
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Zachary Cohen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

It’s unclear what if any evidence he has in his possession related to the Coffee County breach. Penrose and Logan were also named in a state-level criminal investigation in Michigan alleging they participated in a conspiracy to seize voting machines there. A local election official helped them gain access to sensitive voting data which they downloaded onto a portable hard drive. Bundren was part of the team enlisted by Trump’s lawyers to find evidence of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election. Bundren helped oversee the multi-state push to access voting machines on behalf of the Trump legal team, according to several documents obtained by CNN.

Private equity firm Staple Street Capital valued Dominion at $80 million when it purchased a controlling stake in it in 2018. The Fox settlement was nearly 10 times that amount and far outstripped the $226 million average of four pre-election valuations cited in Fox's court papers. Dominion's damages claim in the Fox case was based upon a report it commissioned from an accounting expert, half of which remains under seal. It is difficult to place a dollar value on the U.S. voting-machine industry because Dominion and its competitors all are privately held. While Dominion's report cites dozens of lost clients due to Fox's coverage, the company still has landed recent contract renewals including in California's Republican-majority Kern County.

☆ The Fox-Dominion Settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week's best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson and Dan Henninger. Images: Reuters/Shutterstock Composite: Mark KellyThe wailing you heard across the land Tuesday afternoon was the sound of thousands of journalists lamenting the settlement of the defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. An entire industry of reporters has been denied the schadenfreude of seeing their hated political and media competitor in the dock. An hilariously revealing courtroom account in Politico laments that “hopes were dashed—dreams torpedoed” by the settlement. The settlement is a victory for Dominion, which said Fox will pay $787.5 million.

☆ The Man Who Settled the Fox-Dominion Defamation Case From a Romanian Tour Bus
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Joe Flint | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Lawyers representing Dominion Voting Systems leave the Leonard Williams Justice Center following a settlement with Fox News. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesJerry Roscoe was enjoying a cruise with his wife on the Danube River in Romania last Sunday when the dispute mediator saw an email asking for his help on a sensitive matter: the high-stakes defamation suit against Fox News. Voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems had sued Fox, accusing the company of airing false claims that its technology helped rig the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden. Fox argued that it was covering newsworthy election-fraud claims. It was a bruising legal battle that, after two years of hostilities, would soon be aired in front of a Delaware jury.

☆ Lachlan Murdoch drops defamation suit against Australian outlet Crikey in wake of massive Dominion settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

We won.”The legal dispute centers on a 2022 Crikey story that carried the headline, “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator.”After the article was published, Murdoch demanded the story be removed and the outlet apologize. Murdoch followed through on the dare, filing a lawsuit against Crikey publisher Private Media. Crikey and Private Media said throughout the legal process that they would defend themselves and were confident in their case. Not only would he have been ensnared in another high-profile defamation case, his camp would have had to make effectively the opposite arguments it has made in the United States in regard to defamation law.

Fox can take a tax deduction from the settlement, Lever News reports. U.S. tax law allows companies to write off at least some portion of settlement fees as part of the cost of doing business. (There are some exceptions, including for cases involving accusations of sexual harassment or abuse with nondisclosure agreements; Fox News has paid out settlements involving those in the past.) It is unclear how much Fox will save, though a spokesman confirmed that tax deductibility is at play. Lever News estimated that the company could reap as much as $213 million in tax savings.

☆ The $787.5 million settlement Fox has to pay is a big nut. But Fox's net cost for that will be much less.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Here’s why:Settlement payments are tax deductible if the company pays out of pocket. The corporate income tax is also about dollars and cents, not about judging behavior that led to the business expense in the first place. “Our income tax measures income, not probity,” said business tax expert Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. In addition, “Fox also may deduct their settlement payments for state and local income tax purposes,” Rosenthal noted. If Fox pays for an insurance policy that it expects will reimburse it for its settlement costs, then it may not deduct the cost of the settlement payment.

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