Why Tucker Carlson's Exit From Fox News Looks Like an Execution [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/tucker-carlson-fox-news-execution

The last time Tucker Carlson texted me, it was about a Twitter rumor that new management at CNN might toss me overboard. Carlson clearly wanted an excuse to turn a random tweet into national news for his millions of devotees. “Do you have comment?” he asked. “Thanks.” By that point, in April of 2022, I had sworn off any contact with Carlson. I’d had enough of the swearing and trolling. But Monday presented an astonishing reason to reach back out to Carlson. I texted: “Any comment on your departure from Fox?”

It’s been a few hours, and he has not replied yet. Carlson has chosen silence at one of the most consequential moments in his life: his firing from Fox News. Officially, Carlson and Fox “agreed to part ways.” That’s what the terse press release from Fox said. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.

The real “tell” about the terms of Carlson’s departure came in the second and last paragraph, where Fox revealed that “Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st.” Carlson is not signing off. To put it more bluntly: He’s not being given a chance to say goodbye. It is technically possible, I suppose, that Carlson turned down a chance to sign off on his own terms. But my 20 years of experience covering cable news suggests otherwise.

Four months after Carlson texted about the rumor of my departure, CNN CEO Chris Licht told me he was canceling Reliable Sources, the Sunday morning program I had led for nearly nine years. Notice that I didn’t call it “my show”—it’s a crucial distinction. News anchors don’t own their time slots, they rent. Anchors who let their egos delude them into thinking they own their time slots, well, they don’t last very long.

*snip*