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☆ Tucker Carlson’s Private Messages Were a Major Factor in His Ouster
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Juul’s Fall From $38 Billion Startup to Near-Bankruptcy: What Went Wrong Juul sparked a vaping craze when it launched, making it one of the most valuable startups in 2018. Five years later, its value has gone up in smoke. WSJ explains Juul’s collapse and what’s next for the e-cigarette company. Illustration: Nayon Cho

☆ Newsmax Sees a Ratings Boost After Carlson’s Exit at Fox
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Michael M. Grynbaum | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Newsmax, the niche conservative news channel that has long played David to Fox News’s Goliath, has seized on Tucker Carlson’s shock dismissal from its rival network and declared itself the true TV home for right-wing Americans. Viewership of Newsmax remains far below that of Fox News. But its audience at certain hours has doubled, and in some time slots tripled, in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Carlson’s exit — an abrupt spike that has turned heads in conservative circles and the cable news industry. On Monday evening, Eric Bolling’s 8 p.m. Newsmax program drew 531,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. On Tuesday, Mr. Bolling’s audience grew to 562,000 viewers, equal to about 80 percent of Anderson Cooper’s CNN viewership that evening.

☆ Fact Check-Fabricated CNN headline on Tucker Carlson’s exit from Fox News shared online
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

(Advisory: Please note that this article contains sensitive content)An image purporting to show a headline published by CNN reporting that former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson committed suicide following his exit from the network is fabricated. CNN confirmed to Reuters that the article was fake. Carlson left Fox News on April 24, days after parent company Fox Corp settled a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million (here). In the fabricated posts, the CNN masthead can be viewed across the top of the screenshot, with a headline that reads: “Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson has died from suicide.” An example of the screenshot can be viewed (archive.is/wip/2cOrO). CNN did not publish this article about Tucker Carlson.

Several weeks ago, as Fox News lawyers prepared for a courtroom showdown with Dominion Voting Systems, they presented Tucker Carlson with what they thought was good news: They had persuaded the court to redact from a legal filing the time he called a senior Fox News executive the c-word, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Carlson, Fox News’s most-watched prime-time host, wasn’t impressed. He told his colleagues that he wanted the world to know what he had said about the executive in a private message, the people said. Mr. Carlson said comments he made about former President Donald Trump—“I hate him passionately”—that were in the court documents were said during a momentary spasm of anger, while his dislike of this executive was deep and enduring.

☆ Tucker Carlson breaks his silence but does not address his departure from Fox News
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Tucker Carlson broke his silence on Wednesday evening, posting a short video online after his abrupt firing from Fox News earlier in the week, but did not directly address his departure from the network nor his future. “Trust me as someone who has participated.”Carlson concluded the video with an opaque message, “Where can you still find Americans saying true things? Without Carlson, Fox News has seen its ratings dip during the hour. Fox News announced earlier in the week that the network and Carlson had severed ties. The decision to part ways with Carlson was made Friday evening by Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, a person familiar with the matter said.

☆ Opinion | Why Fox News and CNN Don’t Need Tucker Carlson or Don Lemon
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Brian Stelter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

That’s why I dismiss predictions — fashionable, even at some of these networks — that cable news is doomed to irrelevancy. Mr. Carlson’s reach made him an unelected leader of the Republican Party, someone the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, had to propitiate. An entire ecosystem of far-right sites and social networks eagerly waited to promote Mr. Carlson’s episodes each night. Bush, has called Mr. Murdoch’s machine the “Fox brainwashing operation” rather than Fox News. Lemon called it the “Fox propaganda network” because he didn’t think it was accurate to call it news anymore.

Photo: Richard Drew/Associated PressTucker Carlson still has plenty of opportunities in broadcasting despite his ouster from Fox News, media observers said, though history shows that departing star anchors have struggled to regain the influence and reach that they enjoyed at the conservative news network. “Tucker will have options, whether they’re entrepreneurial as he was before he came to Fox, or more traditional outlets,” Jonathan Klein , former president of CNN US, said in an interview. However, he “probably won’t reach the same size audience and he won’t have the same influence that he had.”

☆ Opinion | Tucker Carlson’s Firing by Fox News
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To the Editor:Re “Fox News Ousts Carlson, a Voice of the Far Right” (front page, April 25):Tucker Carlson’s firing by Fox News is being covered as big news (everywhere except, of course, at Fox News). The coverage includes speculation about whether the firing heralds a change of direction for Fox News away from peddling sensationalist conspiracy theories to its primary audience. Fox News’s business model involves presenting sensationalist, conspiracy-laden fodder to appeal to America’s angry, frightened right wing. This has been so whether the characters have been named Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly or Tucker Carlson. The actor Tucker Carlson has been fired by Fox News, but nobody should assume that Fox News has abandoned the character that he played on TV.

☆ Fox News’ sudden firing of Tucker Carlson may have come down to one simple calculation
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

In the hours following Carlson’s abrupt dismissal from the right-wing channel, a number of explanations have emerged — all with plausibility. One veteran television news executive told me that they believed the decision came down to a straightforward calculation by the Murdochs: Risk versus reward. It is pretty much enshrined as a law of physics in the universe of right-wing media that whoever the Murdochs put in prime time will rate. All that said, Carlson will test the hypothesis that Fox News as a brand trumps any single personality. Carlson is a force unlike any other in right-wing media and politics.

☆ Why Fox News brass might be unnerved after seeing the ratings in the aftermath of Tucker Carlson’s firing
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

When Carlson hosted on April 17, he averaged 3.2 million total viewers and 445,000 in the key demo. On April 10, Carlson averaged 3.1 million total viewers and 438,000 in the key demo. And on April 3, Carlson averaged 3.2 million total viewers and 435,000 in the key demo. Carlson’s ratings dominance was why he had that 8pm perch. The numbers suggest that some of Carlson’s audience migrated over to Newsmax to sample the competitor’s showing.

☆ Opinion | The Tucker Realignment
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The master key to understanding Tucker Carlson’s programming wasn’t ideology; it was suspicion. Then something changed — after the Iraq war, after Jon Stewart helped kill “Crossfire,” he gradually became disillusioned, radicalized. But Carlson wasn’t like the right-wing personalities — a Mark Levin, say — who surrendered to Trumpism reluctantly because that’s where their listeners wanted them to go. Which is why his show was the farthest right on cable news but also sometimes the farthest left. These forays were not in tension with his willingness to entertain the far right’s “Great Replacement” paranoia about immigration or fixate on a possible F.B.I.

☆ News anchor carnage is a post-Trump reality
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox (FOXA.O) announced the abrupt departure of star host Tucker Carlson, while Don Lemon, an anchor at rival CNN, said he had been fired. After the easy news cycle served up by former President Donald Trump’s administration, the networks are going through an identity crisis. Network chief Chris Licht is trying to reposition the organization toward straight-down-the-middle journalism, but is struggling to get the lineup to click. Even MSNBC is trying to recapture the magic after leading host Rachel Maddow left her five-day-a-week spot last year. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Tucker Carlson is gone but Fox News' politics remain the same
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Zachary B. Wolf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNN —Fox News had plenty of reasons to get rid of Tucker Carlson. CNN’s Allison Morrow notes that Fox will need a Carlson upgrade of some kind because upstart conservative networks want into the same space. ET hour on Fox, and if it is any indication, there won’t be much new in the politics that are pushed on Fox’s viewers. On-screen, the words were “Biden’s Legacy: Crime in the Cities.”Related: Here’s a CNN Fact Check on the crime in Manhattan, which far below record levels. Biden legacy 2After declaring crime to be Biden’s legacy, Kilmeade transitioned.

☆ Tucker Carlson’s departure won’t change Fox News
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

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. 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. “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. Tucker Carlson, left, and former President Donald Trump, talk while watching golf.

Photo: Richard Drew/Associated PressFox News parted ways with prime-time host Tucker Carlson , a surprising move that comes after he made disparaging remarks about colleagues at the network that were disclosed during a legal battle with a voting-machine company. Mr. Carlson’s departure puts an end to a decade-plus tenure at the conservative news network during which he rose to become the highest-rated host in prime-time cable news.

☆ What Tucker Carlson Leaves Behind as He Is Shown the Door
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Nicholas Confessore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Mr. Carlson’s departure upended Fox’s lucrative prime-time lineup and shocked a media world far more accustomed to his remarkable staying power. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Carlson’s show frequently promoted the Kremlin’s point of view, attacking U.S. sanctions and blaming the conflict on American designs for expanding NATO. The drought of premium advertisers on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” — driven away by boycotts targeting his more racist and inflammatory segments — did not seem to dent his standing within the network, so long as the audience stuck around. Disdainful of the cable network’s top executives, Mr. Carlson cultivated the impression that he was close to the Murdoch family and, perhaps, untouchable. 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.

Carlson, the highest-rated single host at Fox News, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The decision to part ways with Carlson was made Friday evening by Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, a person familiar with the matter said. During his time as a prime time host on Fox News, Carlson ascended to become one of the most influential figures inside the GOP. In a text on Nov. 5, 2020 — two days after the 2020 election — Carlson wrote his producer Alex Pfeiffer: “We worked really hard to build what we have. Last month, she sued Fox News, Carlson, his executive producer Justin Wells and other figures, as well as Fox’s parent corporation.

☆ 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.

☆ 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.

☆ A brief timeline of Tucker Carlson’s rise: From CNN and PBS to Fox.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Daniel Victor | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

After graduating from Trinity College in 1991, Tucker Carlson entered print journalism, writing for a variety of right-leaning and mainstream publications. His move into broadcast began his ascent into stardom. Here is a brief timeline of his career.

☆ Larry Elder, Republican Who Lost in California’s Recall Election, Runs for President
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( E. Justin Swanson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host who was a breakout star on the right after running unsuccessfully in California’s recall election in 2021, said on Thursday evening that he was running for president. He made the announcement on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, joining a growing Republican field that is led by former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. “My father was a World War II vet,” Mr. Elder told Mr. Carlson. He was a Marine.” He added: “My older brother, late older brother, Kirk, was in the Navy during the Vietnam era. Gavin Newsom in the attempted recall, and would have succeeded him had voters not overwhelmingly chosen to keep Mr. Newsom in office.

☆ Tucker Carlson raged against Trump in private. But in interview with the former president he took a very different tone
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Carlson made no effort to press the disgraced president on any of the issues that an actual news anchor would. Carlson’s refusal to disclose to his viewers his true opinions of Trump reflect the grip the former president still exerts over the Republican Party. Even Carlson, the most popular MAGA Media figure whom most of the GOP fears, thinks it is necessary to kiss the ring of Trump. Carlson, himself, confided in a producer after the 2020 election, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. On Tuesday night, as Carlson bowed before Trump at Mar-a-Lago, he demonstrated exactly that.

☆ Fact Check-‘QAnon Shaman’ was not freed early due to footage proving Jan. 6 riot was ‘hoax’
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Jacob Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli or the “QAnon Shaman”, is due to be released early from prison in the U.S. due to a combination of factors including good behavior, according to his attorney. Posts online, however, are saying he was released early due to footage of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol showing he was wrongly sentenced or that the event itself was a hoax. Chansley was not released as a result of the video footage released through Tucker Carlson.”In February 2023, TV host Tucker Carlson said he’d been given access to thousands of hours of video footage from the Capitol riot (here). Reuters has debunked multiple other claims alleging the Capitol storming was a hoax (here), (here) and (here). Jacob Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli or “QAnon Shaman”, was not released from prison early because of Jan 6.

☆ Fox News producer files explosive lawsuits against the network, alleging she was coerced into providing misleading Dominion testimony
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —A Fox News producer on Monday filed a pair of explosive lawsuits against the right-wing talk channel, alleging that the network’s lawyers coerced her into providing misleading testimony in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation case against the company. The lawsuits from Grossberg, who has since been placed on administrative leave by Fox, were filed in Delaware Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. “It’s another example of Fox News not only shying away from the truth, but attempting to bury the truth,” Filippatos told CNN. Grossberg named Carlson and members of his staff in the lawsuit filed in New York. “I’ve covered many stories while I have been there,” Grossberg told CNN.

☆ Fact Check-No evidence Anonymous hacked Tucker Carlson’s Twitter account
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

A screenshot of Carlson’s Twitter bio shared on social media says “Non-binary climate change activist of color. One March 15 tweet said: “Last night, Tucker Carlson's Twitter was hacked by Anonymous to show him as a ‘non-binary climate change activist of color’” (here). As of March 20, Carlson’s Twitter bio (@TuckerCarlson) reads: “Emmy-award-winning broadcast journalist, graduate of Harvard College & Yale Law School. A similar bio could be seen on May 12, 2022, according to archived versions of Carlson’s Twitter account (here), (here). There is no evidence that Anonymous hacked Tucker Carlson’s Twitter account or changed his bio, and a Fox News spokesperson denied the allegation.

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