Responsibility for all this,logically,would fall on Fox News chief executive Lachlan Murdoch,and his dad/boss Rupert Murdoch. But the Murdochs arealways willing to part with a little money (and the people who helped them make that money) when they have a scrape they need to get out of. Most significantly,Carlson’s firing shows that the Murdochs are moving to do something they should have done a long time ago – take back control of the network from a slate of show hosts who had clearly taken it off the rails.
The trouble goes back to the era of the architect of the network,Roger Ailes,who was feared by all who worked there. But it turned out hesexually harassed his female underlings in his spare time,and was fired – with an eight-figure payout.
The Murdochs put a functionary named Suzanne Scott into the chief executive position. Scott didn’t have Ailes’ flair for control,and soon a trio of star hosts – Carlson,Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham – began to run amok,as did lesser lights. Fast-forward and Fox ended up losing more than three-quarters of a billion dollars in a defamation settlement.
Carlson began as a not-untalented reporter from the right – fairly unusual in American journalism – and eventually graduated to something like the big time,with features inThe New York TimesMagazine. He ended up as a co-host of a latter-day version of CNN’s right-left talk showCrossfire. Under Carlson and co-host Bill Press,the program degraded – untilJon Stewart appeared on the show and gave them a now-legendary dressing-down.
Carlson drifted,started a right-wing news site and then finally found a home on Fox. He became a phenomenon during the Trump era and after.
Carlson was an unmistakable figure,with something of a schoolboy mien even into his 50s,sporting his trademark bow tie and curdled expression of disgust – the latter always directed at the array of outrageous doings he saw coming from the left in America.