In recent years, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has promoted the racist “Great Replacement” theory, asserted that immigrants make the United States “dirtier” and “poor,” fearmongered over Black Lives Matter protests and spread conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol.
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“I say what I want,” Carlson told Semafor co-founder Ben Smith. “I’m blessed, unlike a lot of journalists, who are leading miserable lives.”
Contrast Carlson’s own comments on his long leash at Fox News with those of senior executive producer Justin Wells, who was quoted in a recent New York Times investigative series as saying that stories on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” “undergo a rigorous editorial process.” That Times series reported that the top-rated host “boasts of rarely speaking with Fox’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, but talking or texting regularly with [Fox Corp. Chairman Lachlan] Murdoch.”
So much for a rigorous editorial process.
Carlson’s latitude to articulate racist viewpoints with no interference from higher-ups is among the more enduring stories in modern media. In Thursday’s interview, Smith pointed to Carlson’s promotion of the “Great Replacement” theory — a notion that elites are promoting immigration, and “replacing” White Americans, to reshape American politics — and asked about his history of working with people who hold racist views — all of which Carlson deflected, insisting, as he has before, that he is antiracist.
“I believe that people aren’t the sum total of their genetics,” Carlson told Smith.
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FollowPromoting himself before the Washington conference crowd as a truth-teller and free-speech warrior, Carlson invoked the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which protected inflammatory speech and curtailed instances in which the state could bring cases of incitement.
“I noticed your news organizations don’t take advantage of it, but mine does. We actually have free speech at Fox. And it’s really clear,” Carlson said, referring to Brandenburg. “If you’re urging someone to imminent violence, that is not protected. Anything else is. And so the idea that hate speech is a real category or speech that offends me should be banned or should become criminally prosecutable is insane.”
The idea that Fox News is the only news organization that takes advantage of the First Amendment is risible. Mainstream outlets nationwide consistantly publish criticism of public officials, be they Democratic, Republican or other. That very culture of wide-open debate is rooted in First Amendment protections, particularly the 1964 Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan. Under that landmark precedent and its progeny, public figures face steep hurdles in suing media outlets that report unfavorable things about them. Those protections safeguard all journalists.
It’s an odd time for Carlson to be crowing about his employer and the ethic of free speech. As he makes this absurd case — after all, lawsuits are proceeding against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., stemming from the network’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election. The suits were brought by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, voting-tech companies whose work was repeatedly trashed by Fox News hosts who promoted the “big lie” that the election was stolen from President Donald Trump — with, the theory holds, the illegal help of these companies.
Such false and irresponsible claims on Fox News were numerous, as the companies’ lawsuits make clear. Dominion’s complaint, for instance, cites Carlson’s January 2021 interview with My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, a leading proponent of the stolen-election conspiracies. With no pushback from Carlson — who had previously challenged the evidence-free claims of Sidney Powell, an advocate of the “big lie” who advised Trump — Lindell was allowed to riff about “machine election fraud” and bemoaned alleged efforts by Dominion to “cancel” him — efforts that Dominion argues are false.
“Carlson gave his biggest sponsor an unchallenged platform to spout his lies, did not demand any evidence, and did not point out to viewers that Lindell had not produced the ‘evidence’ he claimed to have,” reads the Dominion suit.
Lawyers for Fox News have their work cut out for them with all the Dominion-Smartmatic litigation. Judges in both cases have rejected the network’s motions for dismissal, and Fox has supplemented its legal team in the Dominion case. Maybe that’s how Carlson’s employer “takes advantage” of the First Amendment.
Source: WP
