Advertisement
Trending

Report: Fox News Forced to Lay Off Entire Unit of Journalists In Wake of Carlson Firing

Advertisement

OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Fox News is continuing to pay the price after its decision to ax popular host Tucker Carlson has taken a toll on its ratings.

On Friday the network laid off its entire investigative unit of journalists which is apparently linked to its record settlement with Dominion for $787.5 million, Rolling Stone reported.

“The rank and file journalists are getting let go. Meanwhile, upper management are sitting pretty while they are the execs responsible for the Dominion debacle. We are the sacrificial lambs,” the magazine quoted a Fox News source as saying.

A second source told Rolling Stone: “Yes, [layoffs] have happened and continue to happen.”

“I think producers, management, et cetera [are being laid-off],” a former Fox News staffer was also quoted as saying. “They are trying to get money off the books before June 30. They have to save money because of the [Dominion] lawsuit.”

Advertisement

But The New York Daily News reported that the journalists were not laid off, but reorganized.

“There were three employees in the seven-person unit impacted, while four employees were offered different positions within the company,” a Fox News source told the Daily News, which noted further: “Employees on the team had already been working in other areas of the company, and had not been on major investigative programming initiatives in a long time, they added.”

A new report appears to shed more light on why Fox News decided to take its biggest star off the air late last month.

According to a report by RadarOnline.com, Tucker Carlson was told by network brass he was being let go as part of Fox News’ massive $787.5 million defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

“In the latest development to come three weeks after Carlson was removed from his role at the network on April 24, it has been reported that one of Fox Corp.’s eight board members was the one to tell the fired host that his ‘recent benching’ was the result of the secret condition in the Dominion settlement,” the outlet reported.

The report continued: “According to Variety, the conversation between Carlson and the board member took place on April 26 – two days after the network announced Carlson’s involuntary departure from the company. The board member also reportedly told Carlson that the secret condition ensuring Carlson’s canning would not be found in any of the $787.5 million defamation settlement documents because it was a verbal agreement.”

If the network did not agree to those terms, then Dominion’s attorneys said the firm was prepared to call off the settlement and restart negotiations or take the case to trial, RadarOnline.com noted.

“That condition was intended to hurt Fox, and Tucker is just collateral damage,” a source familiar with the reported secret agreement told Variety. “Dominion wanted to punish Fox, and it’s working.”

But RadarOnline.com added that officials with the voting systems firm denied any secret arrangement had been made. “As the Fox principals who negotiated the settlement well know, Dominion made no demands about Tucker Carlson’s employment orally or in writing,” Dominion said in a statement to the outlet.

Advertisement

“Any claims otherwise are categorically false and a thinly veiled effort to further damage Dominion,” the firm noted further. “Fox should take every effort to stop these lies immediately.”

During an interview with Chris Cuomo of News Nation earlier this month, Bill O’Reilly — the former Fox News host who previously occupied the coveted primetime 8 PM time slot — argued that he believes Carlson was fired because the network is facing a slew of lawsuits related to the 2020 election.

The network also has an ongoing lawsuit filed by former Fox News booker Abby Grossberg.

“Because the pending litigation was harpooned this morning. Carlson didn’t know. It just happened. And that’s the nature of television news, the most wicked industry in the United States of America,” O’Reilly said.

“Tucker Carlson took over from me. For the first three years, his ratings were soft. He lost about a million, maybe a little bit more of my audience, and then in 2020, he took a hard right turn,” O’Reilly said. “Carlson basically programmed for a very hard right audience, and his numbers came up.”

Back to top button