In a move that has sparked widespread conversation, Fox News has reportedly terminated all remaining staff members associated with the “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show.
The action, which took place three months following the dismissal of the show’s namesake host, Tucker Carlson, was confirmed by former Fox News guest Chadwick Moore.
Moore shared that the nine remaining employees were asked to stay on the job until mid-July. Carlson’s own digital news platform, The Daily Caller, of which he is a co-founder, also corroborated the dismissals.
An anonymous former Fox News producer weighed in, calling the action “shockingly callous,” particularly given that several producers have been loyal to the network for over a decade.
This latest development follows a contentious incident wherein a producer was discharged after allegedly fabricating a chyron that referred to President Joe Biden as a “wannabe dictator.” Fox News, however, has not explicitly stated the reason for these new terminations.
The 27-second banner was taken down quickly, cost the producer his job, and has led to an outcry from liberal voices across social media channels.
Fox executives seem determined to clean the slate of Carlson loyalists and regroup after firing the top-rated host in late April. Amid plummeting ratings, Fox News declared a reshuffle of its prime-time slots. Jesse Watters will permanently take over Carlson’s previous slot, while Laura Ingraham’s show will transition to 7 p.m. Sean Hannity will remain in his 9 p.m. slot, and the Greg Gutfeld show will be rescheduled to 10 p.m.
This comes amid an ongoing dispute between Fox News and Carlson, who has taken to broadcasting on Twitter after he departed from Fox. According to a report in The Guardian, executives at Fox News Media maintain Tucker remains under contract and cannot post content on competing platforms.
Tucker maintains the network violated the terms of the contract and that Twitter is not a competing platform.
The Fox News vs. Tucker Carlson saga started when Carlson questioned the integrity of the 2020 election and the veracity of reports from the January 6 Select Congressional Committee.
The Guardian reported that “Carlson was fired on the personal order of Fox owner Rupert Murdoch for, among other things, using vulgar language to describe a female executive.”
Though the exact reason for Tucker’s departure remains unclear, it coincided with a Fox News settlement with Dominion in a defamation lawsuit and an internal lawsuit alleging sexism and a hostile work environment filed by Abby Grossberg, Carlson’s former senior booking producer.
Fox News has maintained that Carlson’s departure was mutually agreed upon.
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