Fox News said that is overstating the size of the cut to the unit. The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Fox recently slashed its research team, cutting it by about one-fourth during modest networkwide layoffs. Executive Chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch. This year, his audiences have made his show the top-rated program in the history of cable news. Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 on behalf of Trump, who denies that either affair occurred.Ĭarlson has been accused of hyperbolic, vicious and unfounded claims about women, people of color and immigrants in the past.
Pictures of former adult film star Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, and McDougal flashed on screen.
Now that sounds like a classic case of extortion." He then proceeded to say, "Two women approach Donald Trump and threaten to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money. These are undisputed."īut they aren't undisputed. Seeking to discredit former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's tale of hush payments - and alleged campaign finance law violations - Carlson first told viewers, "Remember the facts of the story. More than two years later, in December 2018, Carlson began presenting Trump as the victim of extortion. The National Enquirer tabloid bought McDougal's story for $150,000 during the 2016 campaign and then buried it to protect Trump from any fallout. In the Fox case, Carlson was presenting his own narrative, not even one extrapolating from known facts.ĭuring the 2016 presidential campaign, McDougal, a former Playboy model, had sought to tell her account of an earlier affair with Trump. A $10 million libel lawsuit filed by the owners of One America News Network against MSNBC's top star, Rachel Maddow, was dismissed in May when the judge ruled she had stretched the established facts allowably: "The context of Maddow's statement shows reasonable viewers would consider the contested statement to be opinion." Media lawyers note this is not the first time this sort of defense has been offered. As a legal matter, the judge ruled that Karen McDougal, the woman suing Carlson, failed to surmount the challenge.īut in the process of saving the Fox star, the network's attorneys raised the journalistic question: Just what level of fact-checking does Fox News expect, or subject its opinion shows to? Vyskocil's ruling last week, dismissing a slander lawsuit filed against Carlson, was a win for Fox, First Amendment principles and the media more generally, as Fox News itself maintains. Carlson's statements as 'exaggeration,' 'non-literal commentary,' or simply bloviating for his audience, the conclusion remains the same - the statements are not actionable." Vyskocil, an appointee of President Trump's, added, "Whether the Court frames Mr.
Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes." She wrote: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil's opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Fox's lawyers: The "'general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.' " It's being made by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York and by Fox News's own lawyers in defending Carlson against accusations of slander. And that assertion is not coming from Carlson's critics. Now comes the claim that you can't expect to literally believe the words that come out of Carlson's mouth. That anchor, Shepard Smith, quit mid-contract shortly after Carlson went after him. Yet Carlson endures in his prime-time slot.Ĭarlson even attacked his own network's chief news anchor on the air, with no real consequences. Fox News' top-rated host has been repeatedly accused of anti-immigrant and racist comments, which have cost his political opinion show many of its major advertisers. Tucker Carlson appears to be made of Teflon. Fox News host Tucker Carlson "is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary,' " U.S.
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