Fox News broadcaster Tucker Carlson’s sacking was an assertion of managerial prerogative by his chief executive, Lachlan Murdoch, over an employee who thought he had become more powerful than the organisation, according to Andrew Bolt, an Australian commentator with close ties to the Murdoch family.

“Journalists have to realise they are not bigger than the company they work for,” Bolt told AFR Weekend. “When they wreck things, the company then loses.”