Teasing out Tucker's firing

A text message sent by Tucker Carlson that set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox on the eve of its billion-dollar defamation trial showed its most popular host sharing his private, inflammatory views about violence and race.

The discovery of the message contributed to a chain of events that ultimately led to Mr. Carlson’s firing.

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A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?

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The text alarmed the Fox board, which saw the message a day before Fox was set to defend itself against Dominion Voting Systems before a jury.

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The day after the discovery, the board told Fox executives it was bringing in an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into Mr. Carlson’s conduct.

  NYT

"How white men fight" - honorably, evidently, in Tucker's mind. 

Anyway, I don't buy that this particular message weighed more than others in his firing. After all, at least in this one, Tucker seems to be coming to a reasoned conclusion about his unbidden feelings of hatred.  And, it's not like they didn't know what he said openly on his show.

A recurring theme of his show during the six years that it ran in prime time on Fox News was the displacement of white Americans by people of color. Mr. Carlson often framed topics in the news as part of a larger struggle between “us” and “them,” with immigrants and other marginalized groups steadily and surely taking from whites what had long been theirs: political and cultural power in the United States.

He attacked Black social justice activists and portrayed immigrants from Central America as a blight on the nation. He said in 2018 that immigrants make the country “dirtier.”

In the aftermath of a mass shooting in El Paso at the hands of a gunman who cited white supremacist beliefs in his manifesto, Mr. Carlson declared on his show that white supremacy was “not a real problem,” likening it to a conspiracy theory.

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In other messages he had referred to women — including a senior Fox executive — in crude and misogynistic terms. The message about the fight also played a role in the company’s decision to settle with Dominion for $787.5 million, the highest known payout in a defamation case.

No doubt. It added to the pile of shit that was about to come out in trial. And Tucker would have had to go on the stand. And lie, I suspect.

The text message added to a growing number of internal issues involving Mr. Carlson that led the company’s leadership to conclude he was more of a problem than an asset and had to go, according to several people with knowledge of the decision.

I suspect they had been weighing the balance for a while.

The contents of the text were disclosed in interviews with several people close to the defamation lawsuit against Fox. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a message that is protected by a court order. In public filings, it remains hidden behind a block of black text.

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Many of the messages shared in the case, including those among Fox executives and hosts, were released publicly. But others, like the one between Mr. Carlson and one of his producers in the hours after Jan. 6, 2021, remain redacted.

The worst will eventually leak, I expect.

The text message came to the attention of Fox’s board of directors and even some senior executives only last month, on the Sunday before the trial was set to begin.

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The next day, the board told Fox’s leadership about its plan to have the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz investigate Mr. Carlson.

And I expect that is what caused Fox executives to settle the case abruptly.

Fox’s lawyers had produced the text as part of the discovery process and were involved in the redactions. Mr. Carlson had even been asked about it during a deposition, according to several people who have read the unredacted transcripts of his deposition.

It was not guaranteed that the text would have been revealed in open court. Dominion’s lawyers had still not decided whether they would introduce the text in front of the jury. [...] The two sides disagreed on whether the Dominion lawyers could have presented such a redacted message at trial if they had decided to do so, a decision that would have ultimately fallen to the judge.

As I was saying, it wasn't the straw the broke the camel's back. They knew about it for some time.

How Fox’s executives and board handled the case in the months before the trial was scheduled to begin is expected to be at issue in shareholder lawsuits filed against the company in Delaware.

I guess Fox will want to settle that one for sure. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.