The firing of Tucker Carlson by Fox News remains the biggest story in media circles, and podcaster Keith Olbermann wonders just how much legs the story will continue to have.
During his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast, the former cable news host believed that the recent Twitter video from Carlson was a sly ploy from the ex-communicated Fox News host, aimed directly at the company’s founder, Rupert Murdoch.
“That Twitter video was something of a shot across Murdoch’s bow, and I suspect Murdoch shot back. I think some legal type at Fox had already been in touch with Carlson’s representatives, and mentioned those three magic words ‘Forty’ and ‘Million’ and ‘Don’t’,” Olbermann said.
Fox News is expected to pay Carlson the entirety of his contract, which is a reported $20 million per year. However, Olbermann noted, the terms of Carlson’s contract would forbid him from doing “any form of political commentary from which he derives income”, and depending on the wording in his contract could be forbidden from “making any appearances in any medium that could be considered competition to Fox News” without the network’s consent.
Olbermann added that we could have already seen the last of Carlson’s Twitter videos.
“It will be interesting to see if there are any more Twitter vids filled only with buzzwords. Carlson had long since moved on from MAGA to QAnon, and the great thing about servicing the Q’s is you don’t have to say anything. They’ll find something like which direction the grain in the wood paneling behind his head was going in was his secret message to them. Like life is a decoder ring.”
Olbermann continued the discussion by questioning just how long Carlson’s termination will dominate the news cycle, noting that the way cable news operates doesn’t lend itself to the topic continuing much longer.
“What kind of shelf life does the firing of Tucker Carlson actually have? Politics and culture wars and the rest of that has always brought with them an incredible turnover in American media and American society,” Olbermann concluded.
