What’s Really Behind the Release of Tucker Carlson’s Texts
Since his ouster, embarrassing reports on Carlson pile up
The feeling is that Fox has leaked the court-redacted text message yesterday to the New York Times and Washington Post (How else would the Times and Post have gotten it?) and surrounded it with its own self-serving gloss: that Fox' belated discovery of the text shocked, SHOCKED the Murdochs into sacking Carlson...as opposed to the competing, compelling narrative that the firing was the act of an erratic, 92-year old man, a narrative that Murdoch is quick to stanch.
This is AP:
…
… the Times suggested the timing was crucial, as members of Fox’s board found out about the message as part of documents uncovered in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, shortly before a trial was to begin last month.
The newspaper said the discovery “contributed to a chain of events” that led to Carlson being fired April 24, less than a week after Fox agreed to pay Dominion nearly $800 million to settle the case.
Three times in the past week, the anti-Fox watchdog Media Matters for America has released “hot mic” moments of Carlson speaking while on Fox sets, material that was never included on broadcasts.
…
Angelo Carusone, Media Matters chairman and president, would not comment Wednesday on how Media Matters acquired the material.
“Part of me can’t escape the idea that this is to demonstrate that Tucker was a liability,” he said.
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Politico:
How is it that the biggest media story of the decade — the settlement of
Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against Fox News for what
appears to be an unprecedented sum of $787.5 million — has been
displaced by reporting on the wicked things Tucker Carlson expressed
off-camera?
The April 24 firing of Carlson...almost immediately crowded the April 18 settlement out of the news as
reporters competed to determine why he’d gotten the ax. The stories,
which consumed a weeklong media flurry, picked up again on Tuesday
evening as the New York Times published its story about a text
message by Carlson, harvested in the lawsuit’s discovery process but
redacted, that allegedly unnerved the Fox board of directors and
“contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr. Carlson’s
firing.”
It could be the case that Carlson’s comments, which included the
observation that a 3-on-1 beatdown is “not how white men fight,” was
instrumental in the host’s sacking. But on inspection, the Times piece and a similar Washington Post
story that followed suggest that the Carlson pile-on (which he
deserves) is less about breaking news and more about crisis management
by Fox.
...
The point of this inquiry isn’t to provide Carlson any relief — he
deserves all the scrutiny his firing has brought him — but to examine
the motives of the unnamed sources who have risen against him in recent
days. Why have so many powerful actors chosen this moment to slag
Carlson, when none of the behaviors described clash with the way he’s
carried on for years? One possibility is that people who are working for
Fox have assembled a PR campaign to discredit the network’s former star
that will throw the press pack off doing additional coverage on the
Dominion case. It’s like a fighter jet releasing a flare to fool an
enemy’s heat-seeking missile. Why theorize in this direction? Because
the story that’s currently being put out there just doesn’t add up.
It is reasonable that the "white men don't fight like that" explanation doesn't add up. However, I find Politico's competing motive, that a) Fox leaked the text and b) did so to keep the press hounds off the Dominion story, unreasonable, preposterous actually. a) The Dominion case settled, it's over. What are you going to report on? b) How much more could reasonably be written about the Dominion case than what was reported on for months before it settled? c) So you’re saying you have fallen for the Fox smokescreen also and are not reporting on the “untold story” of Dominion, correct Politico?
According to the Times and the Post, the Fox board got
spooked when it saw the unredacted message (Exhibit 276 from the case)...Writes the Times, “The text alarmed the Fox
board, which saw the message a day before Fox was set to defend itself
against Dominion Voting Systems before a jury. The board grew concerned
that the message could become public at trial when Mr. Carlson was on
the stand, creating a sensational and damaging moment that would raise
broader questions about the company.”
Why should this text message “alarm” the Fox board...when Carlson
routinely said much more inflammatory things on his program?
…
…the steady flow of leaked material — including the Times and Post stories as well as a series of embarrassing off-air recordings uncovered by the activist site Media Matters for America — point to the possibility of an after-the-firing campaign to make Carlson the personification of the network’s rot when the infection goes much deeper.See what Politico did there? They switched the motive from “ the settlement of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against Fox” (first paragraph) to scapegoat Carlson “when the infection goes much deeper.” Oh, and we didn’t know that, right. We thought Fox was NPR except for Carlson. One bad apple not the whole basket. Right.
