This reporting is featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
Tucker Carlson and his loyalists have begun an intense pressure campaign against Fox News in the hopes of getting him released from a noncompete clause—and people familiar with the situation tell Confider the squabble may only get worse as the fired primetime star may know where some proverbial bodies are buried.
A steady stream of leaks about Fox News over the past week, designed to embarrass the network or further undermine its standing with conservative viewers, have come after negotiations between Carlson’s lawyers and Fox have stalled out.
The talks were initially productive, Confider has learned, but have since turned into “meaningless conversations,” as one person with knowledge of the matter described it.
Fox had been willing to let Carlson appear on a digital platform so long as he stayed off traditional TV—something which they have since backtracked on as the former on-air host announced he’s taking his show to Twitter. That stalemate has pushed Carlson and his team to ratchet up the pressure with newly planted stories about his ex-employer.
According to people familiar with the situation, Carlson and his team’s deep industrial knowledge of the network means they are sitting on a treasure trove of potentially damaging Fox secrets, including revelations about extramarital affairs and workplace misconduct.
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“The hope is that Fox comes to their senses and realizes they can’t stop Tucker from speaking and doing his thing and if not that’s unfortunate and there would be some pain inflicted,” said one person briefed on the matter.
But despite the very unsubtle warfare, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott has remarked that “despite what you are reading, it’s going to end amicably,” according to an associate who recently spoke with her.
Meanwhile, on Monday, conservative writer Chadwick Moore announced a biography of the ex-Fox host, titled Tucker, hitting shelves July 18, with Tucker’s supportive tweet almost surely sending it to No. 1 on Amazon sales. Moore claims that Carlson’s firing was a condition of the network’s $787.5-million settlement with Dominion—a claim both Fox and Dominion have denied.
Elsewhere, the fate of Fox’s chief legal officer Viet Dinh remains a constant source of speculation inside the network, with execs and board members blaming him for Fox’s hamfisted handling of the entire debacle.
A rep for Fox Corp and Fox News declined to comment, while a lawyer for Carlson did not respond to Confider.
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