Tucker Carlson May Become Alex Jones—but Worse | Opinion

When Tucker Carlson was abruptly fired from Fox News last week a collective burst of joy spread across the internet.

I was shocked. For over a year I've worked on a project focused on exposing misinformation, disinformation, and misleading stories on Fox News.

I didn't think Fox would get rid of one of their biggest moneymakers. I was excited at first but then filled with dread. My next thought was, "He'll just get worse."

For years it seemed Carlson was untouchable.

In December 2018 several companies pulled ads from his show after Carlson said that allowing certain immigrants into the United States, "makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided."

After the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, Carlson faced another exodus of advertisers after he made comments about the Black Lives Matter movement.

"This may be a lot of things, this moment we are living through. But it is definitely not about black lives and remember that when they come for you. And at this rate, they will," said Carlson.

Carlson went on to claim Floyd died from a drug overdose, and that his death was not caused from Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

In April 2022 The New York Times produced an exhaustive analysis of several years of "Tucker Carlson Tonight," exposing how the Fox News host centered much of his content in hatred on marginalized groups, women, immigrants, and people of color. The Times also pointed out how he promoted conspiracy theories, whipped up paranoia and fear and blatantly mislead his audience about any number of topics.

Carlson's public response to the piece was to post a photo of himself laughing while holding the newspaper. His ratings didn't budge.

The next month, the ADL called for the de-platforming his show for promoting the "Great Replacement," a xenophobic conspiracy theory mired in white supremacy.

Around the same time, after a racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asked Fox News, "immediately cease the reckless amplification of the so-called 'Great Replacement' theory on your network's broadcasts."

Despite all of the criticism and lost advertisers, Carlson still brought in $77.5 million in advertising revenue last year according to Vivvixx data.

Since Fox News replaced "Tucker Carlson Tonight," ratings for the time slot have plummeted.

Carlson was also a prolific producer for Fox Nation, Fox News' streaming network. He created 29 episodes of short documentaries under the label "Tucker Carlson Originals," along with 262 episodes of "Tucker Carlson Today," a series of long-form interviews.

Legal briefs released in the Dominion defamation lawsuit revealed text messages where Carlson declared his hatred for former President Donald J. Trump. There was also evidence that Carlson knew the lies about the 2020 election were false, but he promoted them anyway.

Carlson was only one of many Fox personalities mentioned in the Dominion lawsuit that ultimately cost the network $787.5 million.

He might have been terminated due to a lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, a low-level producer who is suing the network over charges of an abusive work environment that included misogyny and anti-Semitism. In her suit she described a workplace that, "subjugates women based on vile sexist stereotypes, typecasts religious minorities and belittles their traditions, and demonstrates little to no regard for those suffering from mental illness."

The network might have wanted to avoid a pile on of similar lawsuits just as multiple women filed sexual harassment suits in 2016 that ultimately cost the network around $200 million.

After all of this, Fox News finally pulled the plug on his primetime show.

I suspect he won't go quietly. A few years ago, Carlson constructed a television studio near his home in western Maine. It appeared he shot all the episodes of "Tucker Carlson Today," from Maine and it's rumored he often shot his primetime show from remote studios as well.

Carlson's senior executive producer, Justin Wells was also let go from the company. Wells is listed as the senior executive producer in every episode of Tucker Carlson Originals.

With his own studio and his right-hand man released from Fox, there is absolutely nothing stopping Carlson from producing his own content on his own platform, much like many hate-mongers on the far-right.

He could become the next incarnation of Alex Jones, spewing conspiracy theories while shilling snake oil to his devoted following. He could find investors, probably a few Russian oligarchs, to help launch his new media venture.

I'm haunted a bit by an old clip I captured when researching a show produced by Nick Fuentes, a virulent racist and anti-Semite.

Fuentes praised Tucker during a broadcast on June 6, 2021.

"You know, Tucker, I respect him because he talked about the ADL and population replacement, but even his show can never go all the way because it's on Fox News. I don't think a Fox News show is ever going to go all the way. Tucker got pretty close and lots of credit to him," said Fuentes.

Carlson is no longer tethered to sponsors or a billion-dollar corporation. He won't start out with his $25 million salary at Fox and all the perks that come with it. The former king of primetime cable news most likely won't automatically attract his entire Fox News audience, but he could become far more dangerous.

Juliet Jeske is a research associate at the Tow-Knight Center News Integrity Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. She tweets @DecodingFoxNews, and publishes a podcast and a newsletter at https://decodingfoxnews.substack.com/.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.