This was published 1 year ago
‘We’re back’: Tucker Carlson to launch a new show on Elon Musk-owned Twitter
By Farrah Tomazin
New York: Fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson is back and he is bringing a new show to Twitter.
On Wednesday (AEST), Carlson posted a three-minute video on Elon Musk’s social media platform, lamenting the decline of free speech and saying he would bring a “new version” of his former prime-time show to Twitter “starting soon”.
Tucker Carlson on Twitter.Credit: Tucker Carlson/Twitter
The move comes just two weeks after Carlson was abruptly dismissed by Fox without signing off from his last show, amid revelations of vulgar text messages about a senior executive, claims of sexism from a former staffer who is now suing the network, and concerns about his inflammatory views on race.
One text, revealed by The New York Times, reportedly included fantasies of a white “mob” killing a left-wing “antifa kid”.
Carlson’s departure also took place days after the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable network settled a historic defamation lawsuit for spreading election lies, resulting in Fox paying a record $US787.5 million ($1.17 billion) to Dominion Voting Systems.
In his announcement, headed by the words “we’re back”, the 53-year-old told viewers they were “being manipulated” by the mainstream media.
“At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie; a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind,” he said.
“The best you could hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can. But there are always limits, and you know that if you bump up against those limits often enough you will be fired for it. That’s not a guess; it’s guaranteed.”
“The rule of what you can’t say defines everything. It’s filthy really, and it’s utterly corrupting.”
The comments were the first time Carlson addressed his firing publicly.
Until his departure, he was Fox’s highest rating prime-time host, drawing more than 3 million viewers each night to his 8pm show, and was an influencer of Republican Party politics.
Declaring that Twitter was the only platform that allowed free speech, he announced he would bring “a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last 6½ years to Twitter”.
He added he would be “bringing some other things too, which we will tell you about – but for now we’re just grateful to be here”.
Billionaire Musk bought Twitter in October for $US44 billion, pledging to restore free speech to the platform.
Since then, many far-right accounts have proliferated on the social media site, raising questions about the ease with which hate speech spreads on it.
Musk said Twitter had not signed a formal deal with Carlson and that he would be subject to “the same rules and rewards of all content creators”. But he said he hoped “that many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform”.
“On this platform, unlike the one-way street of broadcast, people are able to interact, critique and refute whatever is said,” Musk said.
In discussing the Fox-Dominion settlement on Wednesday, executive chairman and chief executive of Fox Corp Lachlan Murdoch said there had been no change in programming strategy at Fox News.
“It’s obviously a successful strategy. As always, we are adjusting our programming and our line-up and that’s what we continue to do.”
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