They deserve each other

Written by

Ophelia Benson

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Talk about a nest of vipers. Fox has a dossier on Carlson to threaten him away from retaliation. Fox made the US a much worse place while making itself a fortune, so I hope the pair of them devour each other leaving nothing behind but the claws.

When Fox announced Carlson’s departure on Monday, the network presented the separation as amicable. But according to one former on-air Fox personality, the anchor and some of the channel’s top executives are parting ways on “the worst” and “messiest possible terms.” Indeed, in private communications released last month as part of the Dominion-Fox lawsuit, the now-fired Fox host gossiped that one such exec “hates us,” claiming she was covertly working against him and other hosts.

But if Carlson attempts to torch the network he’s leaving, Fox is prepared, the sources say.

Eight people familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone that Fox News and its communications department — long led by the notoriously aggressive Irena Briganti — has assembled damaging information about Carlson. One source with knowledge calls it an “oppo file.” Two sources add that Fox is prepared to disclose some of its contents if execs suspect that Carlson is coming after the network. 

Make him an offa he can’t refuse.

The file includes internal complaints regarding workplace conduct, disparaging comments about management and colleagues, and allegations that the now-former prime-time host created a toxic work environment, three of the sources say. (Carlson is currently facing a lawsuit from a former senior booking producer, Abby Grossberg, alleging a toxic and misogynist workplace environment. The lawsuit details repeated instances of misogynist behavior at the network, including frequent lewd and sexual discussions of female guests and public figures.)

Gosh, really? I couldn’t be more surprised.

Over the years, Briganti and Fox PR’s tactics have been turned against its own most prominent talent. For instance, The Daily Beast reported in 2018 that “​​emails reviewed and verified” by the outlet “show that Fox’s communications brass have planted negative stories about some of their own top stars, including hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Stuart Varney — the latter of whom is still a Fox employee.”

Those methods for keeping personnel in line are an open secret among current and former Fox News staff. Four former Fox News personalities confirmed Briganti likes to keep “dirt files” on Fox News talent, including one on Carlson.

Comments

3 responses to “They deserve each other”

  1. iknklast Avatar
    iknklast

    Wonder what we have to do to get them into a circular firing squad? Maybe they are already?

  2. Screechy Monkey Avatar
    Screechy Monkey

    Fox News and its communications department — long led by the notoriously aggressive Irena Briganti — has assembled damaging information about Carlson.

    I suspect Grossberg’s attorneys are furiously taking notes for their next round of discovery requests…

  3. Mike Haubrich Avatar
    Mike Haubrich

    Bret Stephens laments the “reasonable conservative” opportunity that Fox kicked away with hiring the likes of Carlson:

    The Tragedy of Fox News

    (this is my first time taking advantage of the local rag’s free gift linking. I hope it works to share the link to a blog.)

    It isn’t out of the question that Fox could now meet the same fate as News of the World. The company faces a similar lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting-technology company, this time for $2.7 billion. Carlson will almost surely set up shop elsewhere, taking his vast audience with him. The same will go for some of the other legally problematic prime-time hosts if given the boot.

    All this makes Fox’s business challenge approximately the same as for the surfers at the Portuguese beach at Nazaré: Miss the wave, ride the wave or be crushed by the wave. For Fox, riding the wave will no longer come easy: Angry populism is a force that can only be stoked, never assuaged.

    So am I gleeful? Not at all.

    I wonder how much of the Murdoch empire relies on Fox News for it’s income, but I think that they would be seriously hurt if it’s paralyzed, or made defunct as the NotW was. What’s weird is that Stephens thinks that a news corporation with a specific slant is what we need. We don’t need the false promise of “fair and balance,” we actually need investigative journalists who will go with the facts and not an ideological slant. (When I was still on Facebook and dissed Fox News, I would be accused of being slanted by MSNBC or CNN. I can’t stand either one of those. I think that the whole idea of 24 hr news channels has been the downfall of intelligent discussion and debate since the mid-1990’s.)

    More Stephens:

    But there’s also the sense of what Fox might have become. Murdoch had an opportunity to build something the country genuinely needed in the mid-1990s, when the GOP was moving away from the optimistic and responsible party of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush toward the angry populism of Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay: an effective center-right counterbalance to the overwhelmingly liberal tilt (as conservatives usually see it) of most major news media.

    In other words, instead of trying to surf a killer wave, Murdoch could have purchased a ship and steered it. It might not have had the ratings that Fox would get — though Fox was always about influence, as much as money, for Murdoch. But, executed well, it could have elevated conservatism in the direction of Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln, rather than debase it in the direction of Andrew Jackson, Joe McCarthy and Pat Buchanan.

    Describing the Republican Party of Reagan as “responsible” is a bit much, don’t you think?

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