Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson suggested Tucker Carlson’s sudden exit from the conservative network this week will be “meaningless” if there isn’t “enormous change” at the rest of the channel.
In an opinion piece for The Daily Beast published Tuesday, Gretchen Carlson said it was “hard to say” whether Tucker Carlson’s (no relation) departure was “the beginning of a new era for Fox, or just another grand gesture to protect the company’s culture while protecting it from liability.”
For “real changes to take hold, Fox needs a genuine recommitment to journalism,” she argued.
The exact reasons for Tucker Carlson’s agreement to “part ways” with Fox, as the network described it in a statement announcing the news, remain unclear. He has not commented on his exit and, on what became his final show on Friday, he appeared completely unaware he wouldn’t be returning to the air. Multiple sources have suggested he was fired, although it’s not known exactly why.
Gretchen Carlson, who received a reported $20 million settlement and an apology relating to sexual harassment allegations against then-CEO Roger Ailes after she left Fox News in 2016, acknowledged “getting rid of one conspiracy monger, or all of them, might be big news and an extraordinary step.”
“But if new faces are permitted to peddle the same lies, intentionally misleading the public by lying about the outcome of elections, the network will only further damage the foundations of our democracy and erode trusted institutions, including a free press,” she warned. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a fresh face on TV if it starts to spout the same lies.”
