Just two weeks after his sudden departure from Fox News, Tucker Carlson has announced a new show that will be broadcast on Twitter. This, he said, will be a “new version” of the Fox programme, which pulled in millions of regular viewers, featuring “some other things, too,” and will be “starting soon.”
Twitter owner Elon Musk has already expressed his pleasure at the news, as well as his “hope that many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform.” Mr. Musk also highlighted that Mr. Carlson’s Twitter show does not come off the back of a deal with the social media platform, and that “Tucker is subject to the same rules and rewards of all content creators.” The host is likely to make his money off Twitter subscriptions and through advertising revenue, which Mr. Musk said is “coming soon.”
Others—particularly those working for mainstream media organisations—have taken the announcement far less well. NBC invited Brian Stelter, who was dropped by CNN late last year, onto its programme and asked him whether “anybody [will] be able to police what Carlson says, or is this the point? It’s just a free for all?” Mr. Stelter responded that “this move by Tucker may cement the idea of Twitter as a right-wing website.”
CNN itself opened coverage of the news by branding Mr. Carlson a “right-wing extremist.”
In a swipe at Fox, which last month thanked Mr. Carlson for his “service,” adding that they “have agreed to part ways,” the influential host revealed that after more than three decades “in the middle of” the media industry, he has learnt that “at the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie.” In a post on his newly-adopted platform, he said:
You often hear people say “the news is full of lies.” But most of the time that’s not exactly right. Much of what you see on television or read in The New York Times is, in fact, true in the literal sense … but that does not make it true … At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie; a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind. Facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated.
Mr. Carlson added that this is “what the news media are doing in every story that matters, every day of the week, every week of the year … there are always limits,” and those who overstep the mark are “guarantee[d]” to be fired.
In an encouraging sign for his new show, Mr. Carlson’s video announcement was viewed by over 70 million people in less than 12 hours.
