The Fox News host paid the price because he tried the impossible — straddling the divide between corporate media and critical journalism, writes Jonathan Cook.
Tucker Carlson addressing a gathering of young American conservatives in 2020. (Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
Many of the people who are now busy hating on Tucker Carlson, with reason, are missing the bigger picture. Carlson was a genuine aberration in U.S. corporate media. Which is why he is gone — sacked by media “titan” Rupert Murdoch.
Yes, over the years Carlson played on white fears, placing him firmly on the right. But he also gave over his massive corporate platform at Fox News to some of the most critical and thoughtful independent journalists and pundits around — from Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Matè to Jimmy Dore.
Carlson not only brought them into the living rooms of Main Street, he also undoubtedly helped them grow their audiences and influence.
In that way, he exposed ordinary Americans to critical perspectives, especially on U.S. foreign policy, that they had no hope of hearing anywhere else — and most certainly not from so-called “liberal” corporate media outlets like CNN and MSNBC.
And he did so while constantly ridiculing the media’s craven collusion with those in power.
But all that is being ignored. Media analysis of Carlson’s departure has focused so far almost exclusively on his clashes with Fox News management, and a series of disrespectful tweets, that have come to light as a result of the recent Dominion court case, in which Murdoch was forced to settle with a massive payout.
But those clashes cannot be understood outside a wider context in which Carlson was pushing against institutional media constraints at Fox designed to prevent the real work of journalism — holding the powerful to account.
Nord Stream Silence
Here is just a taste of some of the highlights of his time with Fox News:
- While the rest of the U.S. media ignored a major investigation by the legendary journalist Seymour Hersh, or deflected attention to a crazed, semi-official conspiracy theory involving a rogue crew on a yacht, Carlson dared present evidence that the U.S. blew up the Nord Stream pipelines — an act of unprecedented industrial and environmental terrorism directed against Europe:
- Uniquely among corporate journalists, Carlson gave airtime to the testimony of whistleblowers from the OPCW, the U.N. body monitoring chemical weapons. The testimony confirmed that, under U.S. pressure, the OPCW rigged an investigation into a gas attack in Douma, Syria, to blame Syrian President Bashar Assad and retrospectively provide the pretext for illegal U.S., U.K. and French air strikes:
- Carlson recently broke with the corporate media consensus by highlighting the substance of the Pentagon leaks, not least that U.S. soldiers are covertly fighting in Ukraine. He went further, berating fellow journalists for colluding with the White House in helping to track down the leaker and cover up the most significant revelations:
- And he gave an open mic to Jimmy Dore to explain that the U.S. is currently waging unprovoked wars against Russia and China: “Your enemy is not China. Your enemy is not Russia. Your enemy is the Military Industrial Complex. … The United States is the world’s terrorist.”
As Dore tweeted after Carlson’s sacking: “No one else in all of corporate news ever brings on anti-war voices, [and] the one that did just got axed. Doesn’t matter that he’s the most watched show in all of news – much like when MSNBC fired Phil Donohue for his anti-Iraq War coverage when he had #1 show on network.”
No one else in all of Corporate news ever brings on anti-war voices, the one that did just got axed. Doesn’t matter that he’s the most watched show in all of news – much like when MSNBC fired Phil Donohue for his anti-Iraq War coverage when he had #1 show on network. #WarMachine https://t.co/zpc7gOCZr6
— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) April 24, 2023
Loose Cannon
Rather than welcome this record, blinkered tribalists on the so-called left preferred instead to accuse Greenwald, Matè and others either of outing themselves as right-wingers by appearing on Carlson’s show, or of providing legitimacy to Fox’s white fearmongering.
It even reached the absurd depths that any retweet of a Carlson clip was denounced because, supposedly, the left was poisoning its own well. We would soon convert ourselves from socialism to national socialism.
But if Carlson’s firing by Murdoch suggests anything, it is that the corporate media had grown increasingly fearful of the extent to which Carlson was becoming a loose cannon and that the kind of independent journalism he hosted and amplified was gaining traction.
Through a rapid rise in his ratings, Carlson proved that there is an appetite, a big one, for stories that question the consensual narrative imposed by the rest of the corporate media, for stories that actually hold the powerful to account — rather simply claiming to — and for stories that refuse to assume Western meddling around the globe is necessarily a good thing.
If it was only white fearmongering that drew audiences and propelled network news hosts to the top slot, then Sean Hannity would surely be king of the ratings, not Carlson.
The reality, the one Carlson confirms, is that there is an audience ready to listen to critical, independent journalism — when it can be found. The job of the corporate media is precisely to stop viewers hearing dissident views, a rule that Carlson played fast and loose with for too long. Now, it seems, he has paid the price.
Fate Sealed
It is interesting to consider too, if we are debating the effect of exposing Fox News audiences to leftwing and dissident perspectives, what impact Greenwald, Maté and others had on Carlson himself.
Those who know him well, such as Greenwald, have argued that he is on a political path away from the views he once held. There is certainly evidence for this. And it may be that it was just such evidence that sealed his fate.
Sounding more like Noam Chomsky, Carlson refers in the clip below to the media as a “control apparatus” and admits “I spent most of my life being part of the problem,” including by promoting the 2003 Iraq war.
Carlson:
“The media are not here to inform you. Really! Even on the big things that really matter like the economy, wars, Covid… Their job is not to inform you. They are working for the small group of people who actually run the world. They are their servants… and we should treat them with maximum contempt because they have earned it.”
Presumably Murdoch understood that he was very much included in “the small group of people who actually run the world,” a group that should “earn our contempt.”
But beyond speculating about Carlson’s motives, the more significant point — the one we should celebrate and highlight — is that media “consumers” are slowly becoming less passive and more critical of traditional sources of information.
Carlson understood that trend and tried to straddle the divide. He had a foot in both the corporate media camp and the independent camp. Through his sacking, he has proved just how untenable that position is.
One — the corporate media — is there to entertain and distract us, and keep us locked into tribal identities, banging heads against each other in utter futility. The other — independent media – is there to help us think more critically about power and about our responsibilities as citizens.
You can’t serve those two masters — as Tucker Carlson just found out the hard way.
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist. He was based in Nazareth, Israel, for 20 years. He returned to the U.K. in 2021.He is the author of three books on the Israel-Palestine conflict: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish State (2006), Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (2008) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (2008). If you appreciate his articles, please consider offering your financial support.
This article is from the author’s blog Jonathan Cook.net
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
“Sounding more like Noam Chomsky, Carlson refers in the clip below to the media as a “control apparatus” and admits “I spent most of my life being part of the problem,” including by promoting the 2003 Iraq war.”
Well if he goes the way of Chomsky, he still remains a parasite on humanity. Chomsky is very good at correctly providing dissent speak, but always reflecting back to a side that also serves the ruling class like the democratic party can be our saviors. He was right there with the hoard of anything but Trump while he avidly supported Biden knowing all of Biden’s history as a main player of all our problems (hegemony especially) during his entire political career. While all the crimes of the Ukraine issue were under him within the Obama administration. Where is Chomsky today after Biden has exacerbated that war now as president along with the vast dis/misinformation campaign from the news media? There’s nothing I hate more in the political arena than those who speak dissent but provide no direction out of it. Chomsky serves both masters also.
Hear! Hear! Put me in that free thinking space, defending Tucker Carlson, for doing the right thing, i.e., Sharing his “platform,” educating America, introducing the America’s best people via the most watched MSMedia TV News program, everywhere, every evening! FOX banks! They can afford to $ettle outta Court. It’s a very common business practice.
Absophknlutely, we’re gonna tune in to Tucker Carlson’s “alternative,” NEWS. Where else are “we” gonna get the wholly TRUTH! Who’d a thunk?!? @ FOX…It’s the right thing to do. Brian Kilmeade featured/interviewed Seymour Hersh!!!
Now, Everybody, knows, who, what, when, where, and HOW the Nord Stream pipeline was blown the flock-up!!!
No doubt, TruthTellers, Investigative Journalists, Whistleblowers need a MSMedia, TV “platform.” For the health & welfare of the Nation!
“Some things are too hot to touch. The human mind can only stand so much. You can’t win with a losing hand.” Consequently, Tucker Carlson was f/schooled by his “BOSS.” Carlson was not the “independent, free thinking,” TV Anchor NewsMan, he thought he was. He was tight w/the Muckity-Mucks; but, NOT “$elf-Employed.” there’s NO piss’n on the megalomaniac Corporation. Ya got get its approval. Everybody, knows, “democracy” is the last f/thing anyone will find in a corporation; and, when you’re NOT the Boss, and you stray from the way things are done around here, it’s the old, “f-*k around, f-*k around, soon you won’t be around.” Buh-bye, Carlson. Fingers crossed, Tucker Carlson’s devotion for the truth, “lives.” Regardless, of how many f/times we hear, “No One IS Safe!”
Remember, FIRST, “they” came for Julian Assange; and, then “they” came for ___, ___, ___, ___, me.
“The best favour is to rescue the one in most need, JULIAN ASSANGE!!! End the persecution. Stop the Extradition. Free, Julian Assange.
TY, Jonathan Cook. You’re spot f/on! Keep it Lit!
“Yes, over the years Carlson played on white fears”. How by showing democrats saying “Demographics is destiny and we will turn Texas blue by bringing in new people”? Yet in the 2022 midterm election Texas gained red counties. What happened? Maybe the new comers don’t want to be called latinx.
Just as we were all cheering the end of Carlson on Fox, along comes this astonishing article which shows how wrong we were. I have never watched Carlson and now I’m sad that he is gone, because now I would like to watch his show. I watched the samples provided by Cook’s article and found that Tucker is articulate and knowlegable. I was impressed by his allowing the guest to state his opinion without Tucker attempting to destroy the information or the speaker. I’m now hoping that some intelligent network will hire him to continue this format. If they do I will tune in. However , I can’t think of an intelligent network so maybe he’s doomed to go to Substack, the place where intelligent reporters go, so their thoughts at least have an outlet.
Thank you CN and Cook for providing this much needed correction of our understanding!
Tucker Carlson was the only one I watched via YouTube, not the whole show, just his Monologue and if he was having on a guest like Glen Greenwald or Matt Tahibi . . . Ever since the Ukraine war, I wondered if Tucker would be yanked from his job, since he was the only MSM voice raising questions about the U.S. once again gung ho for war! The silence of the Left and Progressives is shocking, but not surprising…..I won’t bother with why, since several comments above already say so.
But I will, again, as months ago, quote Freud in his Civilization and Its Discontents (required reading at my Alma Maters, Brooklyn College-CUNY and San Jose State University)
“….. . . an enormous inflation of (the command to) love can only lower its value…Civilization pays no attention to all this; it merely admonishes us that the harder it is to obey the precept the more meritorious it is to do so.
…What a potent obstacle to civilization aggressiveness must be, if the defense against it can cause as much unhappiness as aggressiveness itself! “Natural” ethics, as it is called, has nothing to offer here except the narcissistic satisfaction of being able to think oneself better than others.” (pp 108. 109)
Since civilization obeys an internal erotic impulsion which causes human beings to unite in a closely-knit group, it can only achieve this aim through an ever-increasing reinforcement of the sense of guilt . . . which will perhaps reach heights that the individual finds hard to tolerate. (96)
…the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt. (97)”
Free Julian Assange
To reach the glib, flat, fixed writing-off of Carlson in many of the comments below, we would need to disavow not only Jonathan Cook’s presentation of the complexity, but also the dynamic, changing nature of the time we’re living in and what’s happening.
Were guests of Carlson such as Greenwald, Mate, Dore, RF Kennedy jr all dupes of the man, not cognizant he was using them for an agenda of hatred and deviousness? Shouldn’t Murdoch have recognized he was doing a role of entrapment of these suckers and thus kept him on as a useful sneaky voice? This seems to be the view of the voices of hatred and simplification we’re now hearing from trolls gathered here in the comments on this topic.
Answers are not yet clear and we need to put a check on our fixed opinions for once while waiting on developments.
Jonathan Cook:
“Sounding more like Noam Chomsky, Carlson refers in the clip below to the media as a “control apparatus” and admits “I spent most of my life being part of the problem,” including by promoting the 2003 Iraq war.”
Why bother following the TV celebrity drama? There is no democracy, the rule of law is a cruel joke, and all we can do is worship celebrities? There’s a new book by Micheal Hudson: The Collapse of Antiquity which is fascinating. All this has happened before, history rhymes and all that.
Please don’t call commenters here “trolls” it’s an overused and empty term. I don’t watch TV and I could care less what a TV celebrity (or internet celebrities) has to say. I don’t look to celebrities to save us from the long-term historical trend.
I don’t think commenters here at CN over the years are likely to “look to celebrities to save us from the long-term historical trend” etc. which has been under investigation here. It wouldn’t be me. Carlson may be another opportunistic charlatan. Or maybe not. I think the point of the article was let’s see what happens instead of hysterically villifying the man.
Thanks for this informative piece – spun my head around in unexpected ways.
Who is Tucker Carlson? I must have missed something. OMGodzilla.
Carlson is an anomaly, to be sure. It was contemptible how he’d play on his audiences’ fears and biases to the nth degree, in a very blatant yet shrewd way. And at the same time he’s having genuinely leftist voices like Mate and Dore on his show. I’d assumed this was merely because they would light into Democrats, not because he sympathizes with the left in any way. But Carlson himself is hardly genuine; after all, he worked at FOX.
You may we’ll be on to something. Time may tell.
Well stated. Tucker Carlson occasionally said something useful, he occasionally had anti-U.S. aggression guests such as Jill Stein. Can we say that about any other host on either FOX or CNN?
Seems as if several commenters here may qualify as “blinkered tribalists on the so-called left”, similar to those who couldn’t stand the idea of joining with Libertarians at the first major ‘rally against the war machine’. People like that are ripe sheep for the calculated division encouraged by the establishment to maintain its control by distracting the populace from the things that should unite it – substantiating the assertion that “the corporate media — is there to entertain and distract us, and keep us locked into tribal identities, banging heads against each other in utter futility.”
They might want to read the article again with more care: it really does consider their points and present reasons why they may be insular and/or in some cases somewhat out-of-date.
Left libertarians or right-wing libertarians? Left? Right? People throw around political terms without defining them.
I will ally with right-wing libertarians on their anti-authoritarian stance, but not on other issues. You might want to look at my comment, as I quoted the same as you, but have a different take.
Perhaps it is ignorance regarding the business world but these ‘outlets’ or cable platforms have to take out insurance. Like them or not they are on the drip line of the insurance industry.
Tucker is not insurable.
This is one reason he was sacked.
It is true, however, that he embraced some of the same critiques many so-called leftists hold.
But then what is a ‘leftist’ and why is it never defined?
Tucker was a liability both to Empire and to any network’s business model.
What is a leftist? What is right-wing? Other than taking a Comparative Politics course at your local college, you can find a quick run-down of the two-dimensional political spectrum: go to politicalcompass.org
They have a clear definition of left vs. right as well as authoritarian vs. anarchist (libertarian) These are commonly accepted definitions used in academia and elsewhere; they are based on a whole array of policy preferences and a are the most consistent definitions – I find it very helpful. You can also take the test for yourself and it will plot you on the spectrum.
People throw around political terms and don’t really understand the definition nor the history.
Thanks Jonny. I took that test. It was interesting.
Cheers Valerie!
Pathetic.
No. The Tucker Carlson phenomenon is about one thing — war with China. Any truths he speaks are part of the calculus to win the people’s trust, which he needs to justify the west’s next project — China. I fully expect that he will further his hatred in politics, very possibly the presidency.
We have seen this movie many times before, an endless feed of slick images, smooth talkers, charismatic men of the people, promises of civility, common sense, and the ‘real’ America. All a charade. The only real thing about the last 40 years has been endless war of empire.
I’m disappointed that many of the alt media such as Jimmy Dore, Russell Brand, etc. are not more critical about Tucker’s history as a member of the elite and his hatred of China.
Absolutely, he’s an anti-China propagandist. I’m extremely disappointed with those alt media pundits and their followers as well. Everybody is singing the praises of Tucker Carlson, over on Substack it’s one giant love fest. I’m with Caitlin Johnstone who, astute as always, said: “Every time I criticize Tucker Carlson, I get all these wounded and upset responses from people reacting like I just punched their best friend. Don’t cultivate parasocial relationships with rich TV pundits, it’s gross.”
Well put Lisa, thank you. So many are emotionally invested with TV personalities, oligarchs and celebrities.
Wonder what he would say to this: I miss Occupy Wall Street. It fizzled before anything important was implemented. But fizzled doesn’t mean it is dead — just dormant. When the expected pending Recession hits, will it reemerge but this time will huge public support? It is possible. We must wait and see.
You can’t fight the oligarch and expect to win, short of revolution. Let the revolution advance, not only in America and Europe, but in south and east Asia as well. Viva revolution.
Wow! I thought I knew that Tucker Carlson was a propagandist for the MAGA crowd – and of course I never have watched him – not one time! Then here comes Jonathan Cook to tell me that Carlson was a truth-teller, at least on some important issues. Of course it’s much more important for American voters to hear what’s wrong with American policy and politicians than to hear that Putin is a madman and China is an aggressor for arming themselves against an enemy island three miles off their coast. Carlson’s fall is starting to look less like a triumph for sanity, and more like another muzzling of independent journalism.
Independent journalism died a long time ago.TIME TO WAKE UP AMERICA.
I have watched Tucker Carlson on my computer a few times and unsubscribed from Glenn Greenwald’s Substack when I learned of his frequent friendly appearances on Carlson’s program and then watched a few of them on line. But Cook makes an important point that I hadn’t considered, nor, apparently, have the commenters here that I have so far read, been willing to consider. That he has been the only national voice speaking against Joe Biden’s enormous outlays of billions of US tax dollars to maintains Ukraine’s ability to fight the Russians, to challenge the liberal media’s avoidance of US responsibility for blowing up Nordstream 2, while Biden’s party has become The War Party with no dissenters any more allowed in its foruma than anti-war voices are allowed to be heard on mainstream media and in particular, the one that should best be called, National Propaganda Radio. Kudos to Cook for raising this discussion.
Doesn’t matter if he raised questions re Nordstream or Ukraine war, those topics have already been eaten and digested and nothng will be done about them anyway. His job is to prepare the public for a war with China and he will continue to do so on a new platform. All part of the game.
“…the corporate media — is there to entertain and distract us, and keep us locked into tribal identities, banging heads against each other in utter futility…” That sums it up and Carlson has been a hypocrite up to now, at least.
The Carlson drama is on every major Mass Media Cartel website. The dude made 12 million a year (or more) working for the BigMoney Mass Media Cartel. What did he expect? What do we expect? I am biased because I don’t watch TV. To me Carlson was a bait-and-switch artist who tapped in on obvious BS pushed by the “media”, and then told everyone to vote for the R faction of the Duopoly Oligarchy.
This is very sad: Journalism has declined so far, that someone like Carlson is considered as having integrity and a beacon of journalism etc. While folks like John Pilger, the late Robert Parry, Joe Lauria, Chris Hedges, and so many others are censored, blacklisted or even persecuted. Of course Julian Assange is being tortured in prison.
To me this is all part of the infotainment celebrity worship and distraction as usua
You are probably 100 per cent on the money.
You have to be anti American and love to watch the world destroy itself, murder people you don t like, including children and defend murderers who divorced the same., plus believe in total control of speech in order to hate Tucker Carlson. With any luck someone or some organzized group will take these assholes off the planet
All this shows is that Carlson is a shameless opportunist equally as comfortable with the most egregious and dangerous lies as with truthful challenges to media pushed stories when either served his purposes. There is nothing in his presentation (use) of honest journalism and journalists to suggest any devotion to journalistic integrity.
When Carlson started to have Greenwald, Dore and Gabbard on relatively consistently, I was impressed.
Spreading the word is a good thing.
A very fair article. I wondered how long Carlson was going to be allowed to get away with criticizing the Pentagon and the CIA and the heads of the Republican Party on Fox and we found out not that long :) …
But it was interesting while it lasted. I wonder how many Deep State apparats had aneurisms during the CIA/JFK episodes or the Russia/Ukraine episodes …
I also wonder how many people will follow Carlson from Fox to whatever outfit he latches onto next. Is there a place for him out there?
Shucks – maybe like so many others, go to Substack or its equivalents …
Tucker Carlson, serious journalism? Surely you can’t be serious. The man promoted hate, racism and misogynism and you thought that was good? He was an all out supporter of Donald Trump, the man who tried to overthrow the government.
You took a wrong turn somewhere Bill.
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
— Voltaire
Carlson on Weds after being fired Monday:
“Our current orthodoxies won’t last. They’re brain-dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone’s life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue, and so it won’t. The people in charge know this, that’s why they’re hysterical and aggressive. They’re afraid. They’ve given up persuasion – they’re resorting to force. But it won’t work. When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who’ve been trying to silence them shrink – and they become weaker. That’s the iron-law of the universe; true things prevail.”
Jonathan Cook and CN:
“But beyond speculating about Carlson’s motives, the more significant point — the one we should celebrate and highlight — is that media “consumers” are slowly becoming less passive and more critical of traditional sources of information.”
This comment and further remarks from Carlson on Weds Apr 26 can be found here:
xttps://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/26/our-current-orthodoxies-wont-last-read-tucker-carlsons-new-message/
Excellent analysis. Thank you!
I eagerly await Carlson’s next move.
If it is just about independent Journalism, I prefer to get mine without the insults and debasement of thousands of people that Tucker feels so much better than. I’ve never heard hateful words coming out of Democracy Now journalists.
No, just smug controlled opposition.
You summed it up! And since DN does little besides promote the dominant narrative, I stopped seeing it as opposition.
I have heard plenty of hateful words coming out of Democracy Not Now. Sympathizing with the Syrian “rebels”? Erasure of women? It’s just another Democratic Party organ, and as crappy as the rest of them.
Sympathizing with someone is hateful?? What was that about women? Citations please.
Agreed. But then Democracynow, since it took on its NGO model of funding, is no longer even as far left as PBS used to be.
They cater to the liberal intelligentsia which is really part of the problem.
Thus, they do not represent the needs, aspirations or desires of working people.
Nor do they reflect their lives.
We need a new economic-political organization of society called ‘socialism’ and for this we need socialist press — not identity politics press or bourgeois liberal analysis.
As to Tucker:
“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
– The Holy Bible (Luke 16:13)
I’ve read, and honestly I can’t remember where, that Carlson is worth around 400 million dollars. If this is true, and I know that he was born into the lucrative world of frozen pot-pies and fish sticks, through the Swanson family, then who has he served? For all the talk of an american society based on honest effort and hard work, americans seem to really like being led around by their noses by a wealthy and arrogant class of elites. Or maybe, it’s the system?
One of the most important things we can do right now is grow independent media. Knowledge is power.
Don’t forget that he exposed the false narrative of the January 6th “insurrection.” That nonsense is a perfect illustration of the Theater of the Absurd we are now immersed in.
This article is an excellent description of why Tucker Carlson was sacked by one of the people are noted for being in charge of controlling how the world is run. Thank you for this excellent information, which, should wake up a few more reasonable and trusted people.
Isn’t the truth of Carlson’s departure that Murdoch had to use him as a scapegoat for the sins of the court settlement?
Nazareth is Palestine, not Israel.
For most people who are not hypocrites, hard times have come.
But, no matter how hard, there are persons who will never sell themselves neither cheaply nor expensively. The hypocrites can only be detested.
I once worked in corporate America. The billion dollar corporation had a standard policy not to put more into writing than necessary. The corp was not doing anything illegal that I knew of. It was just that corporate lawyers and experience with lawsuits led to a general policy to avoid paper trails. We were all told that it was better to go by and talk to someone in person in their office as opposed to writing an email that might later become a part of discovery in a future lawsuit.
I know that if the corp had to pay a huge settlement of nearly $1 billion, and if my writing in emails turned out to be key evidence in this case against the corp, the CEO would not have been amused. I strongly suspect that the CEO would order the termination of ‘whoever wrote these damn emails’ when the corp had to agree to the settlement. Remember that CEO’s tend to often act emotionally, and I suspect my termination would have been accompanied by a string of four-letter words.
Carlson’s internal emails were a part of what cost the Fox corp close to $1 billion. And yet, in America, it is assumed that costing the corp close to $1 billion had nothing to do with his termination.
If only Carlson took up the plea for journalism’s truth in
freeing Julian Assange on his show: “. . . and you
will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”
(John.8.32).
Carlson interviewed Stella Assange on his show.
He interviewed Julian’s father and brother at least twice, did segments with guests on Julian’s status, pleaded Julian’s (& Snowden’s) case for pardon, not that he was guilty, but last minute was better than not, to Trump (and millions, on air) at Trump’s leaving. I suspect Trump would have, I don’t know what scared him enough not to. I find the comments here odd. I can tell who has clearly never watched his show. I have for years. There was no one else on tv news who EVER sounded more like CN than CNN.
Excellent perspectives. Thank you for looking deeper, under the surface froth that is now the mainstay of mainstream media both “liberal” and “conservative.” Sadly, at this particular moment in history it is the “liberal” media that is cheering us on to a fascist, neo-feudal future.
It is both so-called conservatives as well as liberals advocating for their own particular kinds of fascistic policies. I don’t see that this can be denied any longer.
Nice job, thanks. My local paper’s also in the hear no evil, see no evil camp of total unquestioning support for the Biden administration’s assault on Russia, China and anyone else who doesn’t bow to our capitalist imperium. No dissent permitted because, apparently, they equate disagreement with treason.
No need to overthink this. Carlson didn’t toe the line on Murdoch’s constant lies that ‘Ukraine is winning.’ The oligarchs are all losing face over Ukraine’s insane suicide pact with NATO. They can’t bear the humiliation.
sounds, like Carlson failed.
I doubt that, he was sucessful to do this job so long a time and there will be more.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, Carlson parroted the administration’s political line which meant embracing outright neo-Nazi talking points and a constant railing against immigrants, primarily through the promotion of the “Great Replacement” theory, which the New York Times found he promoted on his show over 400 times.”
“Night after night, millions tuned in to watch Carlson rant and paint a dystopian picture of a US where conservatives are under attack from the encroaching ‘woke’ left. Over the years his eponymous show aired, he raged against the LGBTQ+ community, embraced racist conspiracy theories and pushed an increasingly far-right agenda on his viewers.
Among Carlson’s most vehemently pursued talking points was the idea that white, cisgender, heterosexual people are under attack in the US. It’s a common bigoted topic pushed by the right-wing to abuse anyone who deviates from their perceived norm.
In 2017, Carlson spent several minutes on his show attempting to minimise the impact of slavery in the US by saying he wouldn’t “judge the past by the standards of the present”. Fast forward to 2020, he took to the air to call the Black Lives Matter protests an “insidious” attempt to “challenge Western civilisation itself”. He also called workplace anti-bias training “poison” and reverse racism.
Tucker Carlson has also been at the forefront of the modern attack on gender-affirming healthcare by the right-wing. Over the years he appeared on Fox News, Carlson hosted a lengthy list of anti-trans guests, who espoused hateful talking points. He’s also devoted hearty chunks of his on-air career to personally attacking the lives of trans people. In 2021, he hosted a guest who falsely suggested gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth allows people to “basically molest and abuse children”. Carlson agreed before falsely characterising such medical treatment as “genital mutilation”. ”
(Tucker Carlson: Fox News’ loudest anti-trans voice falls silent – but ‘dangerous’ legacy lives on, Pink News)
“Gender-affirming health care” is a phrase that needs to put into concrete terms. People who spout what Rebecca spouts never seem to want to get into the messy details.
Children as young as 8 or 9 years old are being given drugs called puberty blockers which have horrific effects on bodies. I have read of women who were given one dose of Lupron (for endometriosis) and years later still have debilitating side effects. These drugs stop maturation so the children end up with osteoporosis and other physical disabilities, and no one is quite sure about the effect on the brain because brain maturation is dependent upon sex hormones.
This is followed up by wrong-sex hormones which cause especially bad outcomes for young women. Their internal reproductive organs become septic and have to be removed, and this goes along with so-called top surgery, the removal of healthy breast tissue. Please look online at photographs of these procedures; I am no fan of Florida’s governor but applaud his posting photographs of these ghastly surgeries.
The surgeries are horrifying, and often involve numerous “reparative” surgeries. They strip flesh from young women’s arms or legs to make fake penises. When a child is transed as young as Jazz Jennings, he did not make enough penile flesh to have it cut off and inverted into a fake vagina. So they often use intestinal tissue and males find themselves with “vaginas” with hair growing out of them as well as E.coli and other intestinal bacteria. Many of them seem not to realize that they are left with a surgical wound which their bodies want to heal, so they have to dilate the wounds constantly in order to keep them from closing.
And Carlson was right, this is genital mutilation and is undoubtedly intended to essentially castrate / sterilize gender-nonconforming children who usually grow up to be gay or lesbian. Not only can these people not have children, they often cannot have even a minimally satisfying sex life. And what does our 1984 world call this lifelong medicalization? “Gender-affirming health care,” a phrase which even a half-decent human being should have trouble uttering.
Your horrifyingly untruthful and misleading comment lacks any evidence. I can only suggest you get to know transgender people and you might begin to understand we are real people, not the objects of hatred that you think.
Rebecca you are showing that you are the one with comments that lack any evidence. Echo chamber much?
Ms. Turner, Regarding your future prospects, meet Yuri Bezmenov, former KGB agent who defected to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1970 after being disgusted with the Soviet system. “The objective was to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their community and their country.” Demoralization is the first stage in the slow process and it takes 15-20 years to complete, with the help of our educational system. Likewise, it takes 15-20 years to reverse the process. Bezmenov said the process of demoralization is complete in America. So powerful is demoralization, it is almost impossible to change the minds of those brainwashed in such a manner. Even if solid evidence is presented, they are unable to assess true information. Bezmenov said demoralization is so effective that even if he took the affected person to the Soviet Union and showed him a concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it. He continues, “Not until a military boot crashes his fat bottom, then he will understand and that’s the tragedy.” He explains this is the reason why Marxist-Leninist reserve half-baked liberals and leftist intellectuals for the firing squad, because when they are offended by the brutal reality of equality and justice under true socialism, they become the most bitter enemies of the system. After the “destabilization stage,” these dreamers, who have served their purpose, are no longer needed.
Does anyone really believe that the delusions America suffers under today were the result of a 50-year old KGB program, even if this former KGB officer is telling the truth, when CIA director William Casey said the CIA’s work is complete when everything Americans believe is a lie? The CIA still exists while the KGB does not.
Dear CN, No, the point is that the KGB process Besmenov described is the same but now in use by the CIA. The Universities and CIA have taken over those methods developed by the KGB. The methods used for their Psychological Operations are still roughly the same. Thus permanent gender mutilation performed on children without parental consent is benignly referred to as ‘gender-affirming healthcare.’ William Casey’s work may not yet be complete, but it is well underway. If the CIA can brainwash half of the voters, they have already won.
Thank you. The drumbeat of fascism that no liberal thinking is in any way right is followed by them closing their minds to opposing thought and punctuating it with vilification. Charming