Why Did Fox News Fire Tucker Carlson Before the Smartmatic Case Ended?
Fox News fired Tucker Carlson on April 24, causing many to question the timing of the dismissal. Carlson was a critical witness in the Dominion defamation case against Fox, and many believed that he would also play a crucial role in the ongoing Smartmatic case. So why did Fox fire him when it did?
Smart Corporations Retain Critical Witnesses
Smart corporations do not typically fire employees who will be critical witnesses in a trial. Instead, they retain them and let them play their role for the corporation at trial before letting them go. While this may not be nice, it is smart.
Fox News Settled the Dominion Case
Fox News fired Tucker Carlson after settling the Dominion defamation case. Carlson would have been a critical witness in that case, and Fox retained him until the case was settled. Once the case was over, Fox could fire him without any negative consequences.
Why Didn’t Fox Postpone Firing Carlson Until After the Smartmatic Case?
The Smartmatic case against Fox News is still pending, and Carlson is expected to play a critical role in that case as well. So why didn’t Fox wait to fire him until after the case was over? There are two possibilities.
First, Fox may view the Dominion case as more dangerous than the Smartmatic case. If Fox defamed Dominion more often, more violently, or to worse effect than Smartmatic, then it would make sense to postpone firing Carlson until after the Dominion case was settled, but not wait for the end of the Smartmatic case.
Second, there could be some other reason that necessitated the early firing of Carlson. Fox was recently sued by Abby Grossberg for Carlson having encouraged a discriminatory workplace environment. As Fox was looking into those allegations, it may have discovered something nasty about Carlson that it couldn’t ignore. In this scenario, Fox would have wanted to fire Carlson immediately, but it had to wait until the Dominion case was over, because it needed Carlson’s cooperation at the Dominion trial.
Reporters Should Investigate
While these are just two possibilities, reporters should investigate and do actual reporting to uncover the truth. Sometimes guesswork sheds light on reality, but it is up to journalists to uncover the facts.
Original Story at abovethelaw.com – 2023-05-01 07:00:00