There are 18 comments on Tucker Carlson Leaves Fox News: Two COM Media Experts React

1. Seriously? Tucker Carlson’s legacy is going to be “a cautionary tale”– a man who fell from the high graces of [checks notes] CNN? The authors’ perspectives on his politics is obvious, but scholars of journalism should at least make an attempt to understand why he had such an impact on people (or as you call them, “MAGA voters”, forgetting that huge numbers of Dems watch Carlson/Fox too) rather than put out this haughty statement.

   The fact is that a massive chunk of this country (you might even say that “some, I assume, are good people”) watch and enjoy Tucker Carlson (far more than those who enjoy the sorts of news programming I’d imagine the interviewees might prefer, I might add!) To know this, and to still think that Tucker Carlson’s legacy will be nothing more than “a cautionary tale”, is to be incredibly out of touch at best, and actively ignorant at worst. A more insightful response would address critiques of Carlson while also speaking to possible reasons why hundreds of thousands of people find him incredibly compelling, persuasive, and likable.

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   1. Another cutting edge analysis from the experts at BU .. yeesh, you folks just simply DON’T get it, and really NEED to leave the echo chamber from time to time .. while I’d never want to say that you’ve hit the bottom with this assessment, cause there always seems to be a new/next expert (or propagandist) that will come forward in a ‘hold my beer’ fashion, this really missed the target!

      Perhaps your next topic might be the genius of the Bud Light marketing team .. just a thought.

      Try to do better going forward.

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   2. Agree with you Lizzy

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   3. Hi Lizzy. I guess I should start off by pointing out that Tucker Carlson’s show was not “news programming”. He’s not a journalist reporting the news (like, things that actually happened). In fact, he doesn’t even have the courage of his own convictions, as highlighted by his emails. He doesn’t believe the things he said. He said them to create drama and rile people up, which sells advertising and made him rich and powerful. Turns out people are easily manipulated. The people that “love” Tucker Carlson are the same people that made the National Inquirer the biggest selling “paper” on the grocery store news stand through the 70s, 80s and 90s. Reading about Princess Diana’s love child with the ghost of JFK is way more interesting than reading about the details of US foreign policy (the real facts, not the cable news “drama” version).

      Find Tucker Carlson “persuasive and likable” (?) if you want, but just know it’s not news and you’re being manipulated by a creator of drama. He’s laughing (at you) all the way to the bank. The fact that any of us give him even a second of our thoughts is proof that AI is going to kill us all. ;)

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      1. You misunderstand me! :) I’m 20, I don’t know a single person my age who watches any cable whatsoever– I’m hardly a Tucker consumer/fan. My larger point was that the perspectives in this article appear to look down on the average person. Do you really think that Tucker watchers (or Maddow watchers, or whatever) aren’t aware that commentators have biases and choose to highlight certain stories over others for views? I’ve read plenty of articles from “respectable” news outlets covering issues that I happened to know a significant amount about beforehand– all I’ll say is that the NYT/CNN/etc are not above manipulation/spin/whatever you want to call it.

         So that being said– I get why you think people are dumb for watching Tucker, but this article completely avoids why people watch him, what they get out of it, how much of what he says they unquestioningly believe (vs acknowledge as commentary/opinion/biased), and so on. Like I said, a huge number of Dems watch him! I think that speaks to his appeal being something worth investigating instead of completely dismissing. Again, I get it– I hate a lot of things with mass appeal too. I would never personally spend a dime on, say, EDM concerts/albums. Does that mean that scholars of popular music shouldn’t acknowledge the genre, or try at all to understand why millions of people enjoy it?

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         1. Lizzy, I see what you’re saying. I’m not in my 20s. I’m in my 50s. And I recently had a conversation with my dad, who enjoys Tucker Carlson and thinks he’s funny. My dad is a highly educated man in his 80s. He has a few degrees, and when he was young, he worked for one of the government agencies that required its employees not to tell their families what they did for a living. He’s conservative but worldly, is my point. Anyway, I dug into the idea that he finds Carlson “funny.” Here is what I learned. He thinks Carlson is winking at him. He thinks he’s in on the joke. Carlson says egregious things that a man of my dad’s generation used to hear all the time and think that he was above those base emotional reactions, but he accepted them as “the way things are.” Now he’s finding things “funny” because he is experiencing cognitive dissonance. He finds Carlson “funny” because he realizes he agrees with him, but doesn’t believe he’s the kind of person who would. So he’s decided he’s “in on the joke” and not the target audience. I don’t antagonize my dad when I talk to him about these things. I ask questions and listen. And what I’ve realized is that people like my dad know that the positions and attitudes that someone like Carlson puts out there are really wrong, ugly, and harmful. They aren’t justifiable. And, because they believe themselves to be good people and not people who feel comforted by othering people, or believing they are not as smart, or are perhaps more dangerous, and generally beneath them, they need to find a way to accept that conflict. So, it becomes a “joke.” And they laugh. And they say “You don’t understand us and are condescending to us.” Scratch the surface, and it’s just racism and white people thinking they aren’t racist when they are.

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   4. He’s been lying to you for years in the interest of boosting his ratings (and pocketbook). How is that compelling and likable? People like Trump and Tucker get a pass on behavior we’d never tolerate were it actually happening to us or our families in-person.

      Setting aside the adultery and philandering, Trump promotes himself as a protector of workers and jobs despite stiffing carpenters, dishwashers, painters, and contractors throughout his career. These guys will do or say whatever it takes to stay rich and powerful. Don’t fall for it…

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      1. His policies were good for everyone including you .His policies have been erased and we are now losing our country is the result of the election and all of Trump’s policies are dead in the told tiwater. Our enemies are watching and I am worried about America without borders and the war on our energy independence and the inflation and rejection of poorer countries to wait for solar,wind while they die from dirty water, lack if nutrition, The natural gas and oil ti energy their lives right now;just as America thrives from the abundant energy in our past. The war by climate activists is causing us and our allies to suffer as saudia Arabia cuts production and gets cozy with CHINA and Iran the new axis of evil because Trump’s policies have been destroyed

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2. I would have liked to see more in this piece on CNN’s firing of Don Lemon for the absurd comments he has made through the years, including most recently about when a woman reaches her prime. He was “shocked” that the station let him go, but really shouldn’t have been if he was truly accountable for the inappropriate comments he made.

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3. i agree, imho settling the lawsuit was a mistake, not only money wise, because they could’ve haggle much more, but for the whole trove of precious info to be potencially disclosed, seems like they got tired of the dark cloud it casted upon them from the political opposition and dilect advertisers, reminds me of the hunter biden vs poor blind tech repair guy, silencing and discrediting via the judicial system is nothing new, especially when you tell too much of the truth, the lawsuit was just an excuse to get rid of him, every so called ‘conspiracy theory’ of recent times that has been proclaimed to be dismissed by the main stream media has turned out to be accurate and truthful, i wonder if the covington kid vs cnn case gets any class time or got any coverage as well, precedence withstanding, i’ll take all this with a rock of salt, because it’s rather simple, in order to normalize all media output, you have to get rid of the extremes that you cannot control, hence the dumping of the golden goose, because if he was so misinformational, then why he was so highly rated, why does faux news always rank first as most trusted, and why it is only cherry-picking when it goes against your narrative… i mean if jan six was an insurrection and ray epps is not a fed then i’m the illegitimate child of mother theresa and gandhi! i mean when you call non-bias and respectable cnn, xnbc, tnyt, etc, you know you’re not only a delusional partisan operative, but that you also jumped the shark, that may have been twenty years ago, maybe, i dunno, so i may consider to start trusting them again once they change their wicked ways, apologize and retract of all their evil propaganda, but until then, i don’t think so, in the meantime, how about starting with your profs and commentators…

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   1. You only think that because Fox News hasn’t shared all the evidence against them and you probably refuse to watch anything else. The evidence was overwhelming and Fox would have ended up paying the entire amount if they had gone to trial. Not only that, but Dominion was holding back some evidence from the media that was thought to be extremely damning to Fox (most likely something Tucker did or said) that they were planning on only releasing in the trial. It is likely that Fox didn’t want that information getting out, so that is why they settled for so much money.

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4. I’d initially assumed that Carlson was fired for lying and inciting Sedition, His on-air statements were the total opposite of what he expressed in private. He aired support of trump while he actually held him in extreme contempt. He SHOULD have been fired, along with other Fox hosts.

   However I’ve heard suggestions that he was not fired for those good reasons. Something about personal conflicts with Fox executives and staffers, maybe a pending lawsuit. So I’d say we don’t know. Regardless, there will be less hate polluting USA.

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   1. I wish you were right about less hate circulating… but Carlson will be hired somewhere and his following will listen. and whoever replaces his Fox slot will maintain the hate.

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5. It is so disappointing to see BU publish politically-biased propaganda. I expect to read academic content that is objective and impartial.

   To claim at the end of this article that CNN and MSNBC are “respectable outlets” is incredulous. Like Fox News targets a right-leaning audience, both of these outlets are heavily biased towards the left. In all three examples, they employ pundits who conflate their political activism as journalism.

   If you were to refer to actual examples of journalistic integrity, studies have shown that Reuters and the AP have the least bias in their coverage.

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   1. Fox News is classified as an entertainment channel not a news channel to add

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6. Lesson: You can make millions from promoting conspiracy theories you don’t personally believe, facilitate an attempt to overthrow the US government, and then continue to make millions for years later…
   until your boss sees your embarrassing text messages bad-mouthing him (and proving you never believed a word you said on air). Only then, you’re tuckered out.

   It’s not like Carlson will suffer much. He a multi millionaire and still has the Caller to go back to…
   and I’m sure OAN and “News”max will be bid fighting over him (because viewers of those outlets prioritize their feelings over facts–even more than Fox viewers do).

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7. No reaction or apologies for CNN and others lying to you about Russian collusion by Trump for 3 years.. Actually TC improved his relationship with Trump and recently interviewed him. I learned a lot from TC especially when the January 6th tapes were released with the approval of Capital police. Did you the tapes? Did you see what not revealed (hidden). by the biased committee. The election is over. I assume everyone is much better off now and looking forward to 4 more years to “finish the job”.

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8. My first job out of college was with a newspaper. My editor required me to only report the facts. If he could tell which way I was leaning on my story – he would not print it. Now – – –
   a news reporter can actually share their opinion & ‘slant’ the story to justify it! CNN & MSN – are both pros at this propaganda.

   If 50% of the news media is from the liberal left and allowed to report their agenda – – – then there should be an equal amount for the conservative news media to present their opinion!

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