Carlson and Lemon Fired the Same Day – What Happened?
If you woke up on April 24 taken completely by surprise that Fox News had fired its 8 p.m. cash cow host Tucker Carlson, you had plenty of company. The termination seemed to come out of nowhere, and the network offered no explanation beyond a—bland? terse?—statement that it and Carlson had decided to “part ways.” In a notable indication of contempt, Fox never even gave Carlson a chance to say goodbye to his audience on air. He was there Friday night, gone Monday morning.
The move was so shocking because Carlson was a fixture at Fox, routinely drawing an audience of 3.5 million. This often placed his show at the top of the ratings heap for its time slot, beating rivals MSNBC and CNN. Carlson’s toxic brew of unsupported conspiracy theories and over-the-top dog whistles to racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, sexism, and transphobia resonated with viewers in multiple demographics, including the 25-to-54-year-old age bracket coveted by advertisers.
Dominion Voting Systems Settlement
It was immediately apparent that Carlson’s exit had to be connected to the defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network, settled April 18, right before trial was set to commence. Dominion, one of the nation’s leading voting machine manufacturers, sued the network for the numerous conspiracies advanced by its popular hosts, including Carlson. The hosts kept insisting on air that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election due to Dominion’s involvement in non-existent election fraud.
Fox opted to fork over $787.5 million, half of Dominion’s original demand. Had the case gone to trial, the network’s executives would have had to answer questions under oath about alleged unsavory operations. As it is, we’re now privy to damning revelations about Fox contained in the evidence amassed before trial. Among the most disturbing is the fact that Carlson and other hosts promoted election conspiracy lies on air while privately saying they didn’t believe them.
“Not How White Men Fight”
Certainly, before the termination, Fox seemed content to allow its favored host to fill his audience’s minds with falsehoods and inflationary rhetoric. The backstory on Carlson’s firing emerged slowly as reporters dug into the situation. Multiple offensive texts and emails from Carlson and others were found because of Dominion’s subpoena of Fox records.
These messages put Carlson’s racism and vitriol on full display: “It’s not how white men fight,” he said of Trump supporters engaging in street rioting during the January 6, 2021, insurrection, implying that physical altercation in the form of brawling was beneath them. He then remarked, however, that he’d been hoping for a while that the insurrectionists would actually kill someone.
Quite a few media experts believe that Carlson finally went too far—even for Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, who may have made a simple business calculation that the host had become more trouble than he was worth. The number of viewers in the timeslot becomes less relevant if advertisers refuse to work with you, and his views have caused advertisers to boycott the network on numerous occasions. The trove of Carlson messages also includes comments extremely critical of Murdoch himself, as well as vulgar remarks about other network executives.
Hostile Work Environment
Another likely reason for the firing is Abby Grossberg, a former senior producer on Carlson’s team. Grossberg is suing Carlson and his executive producer individually in federal court, citing ongoing religious and gender discrimination against her. Additionally, her claims include unequal compensation and lack of accommodation for disabilities. Grossberg has cited numerous instances of what she terms Carlson’s “abuse” and his antisemitic and misogynistic comments.
Some sources have said Carlson himself believes Rupert Murdoch’s children wanted to clean house to make the network more marketable after the nonagenarian’s death. And in mid-May, Variety reported multiple unnamed sources said a Fox board member told the host that Dominion had stipulated he be fired as an unwritten condition of the settlement.
CNN Shows Lemon the Door
So you thought that April 24 couldn’t get any stranger on the use media scene? Later the same day, CNN decided to part ways with Don Lemon. The proudly out Black host was a network stalwart for 17 years. He had recently transitioned from hosting Don Lemon Tonight in prime time to sitting on a morning show couch. The personnel move came after new CNN CEO Chris Licht came on board.
Lemon didn’t take to the new CNN This Morning format well. He was criticized for what he later called “inartful” and “irrelevant” comments about women’s ages. In describing Republican former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, he opined that women in their 50s were past their “prime.”
He also made other sexist comments, like the one about male soccer teams deserving more pay than female ones because they were more “skilled” and “more interesting to watch.” Remarks like these sealed Lemon’s fate. They certainly drew the ire of his female co-hosts and a sizable portion of the audience.
The Golden Rule That Rules
It would be hard to imagine two men more completely opposite in background, political leanings, personal style, and temperament than Lemon and Carlson. But there they were, both becoming news stories themselves on the same day. And regardless of the details of their respective firings, the most likely explanation for both is that perennial goal of American big business: money. In today’s “woke” world, networks literally cannot afford to have their hosts speak out of turn. In the end, talent in front of a camera, popularity with the public, and longevity at a network couldn’t save either Lemon or Carlson.