The eight remaining staffers who formerly worked on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight have been told that their positions are being eliminated after the network
At least one Carlson employee did not news lying down. Gregg Re – the show’s former head writer – unleashed a series of ” tweets Monday evening that targeted Fox’s Executive Vice President of Primetime Programming Meade Cooper.
According to a source familiar with the situation, the staffers, who have been working on Tonight – the placeholder show that’s been airing as the network decided what would replace Carlson’s show – were individually told that their jobs will no longer exist come mid-July.
The eight were offered ‘enhanced severance’ if they decide to stay on through July 14, which is the last day of Fox’s current primetime lineup before the new schedule takes effect.
The staffers were also offered the opportunity to apply for other roles at the network.
The remainder of Tucker Carlson’s staffers were told their positions were being eliminated Monday after the network announced its new primetime lineup
44-year-old Jesse Watters was announced as the new face of Fox News’ coveted 8pm slot, a spot he had been the frontrunner to assume for weeks
Earlier in June, two former Carlson staffers, – both senior leadership for the show – departed the network.Both men were mentioned by name in the discrimination suit filed against the network by former producer Abby Grossberg.
Former head writer Re specifically aimed his harsh commentary at Fox’s Executive Vice President of Primetime Programming Meade Cooper.
‘Meade Cooper did not simply fire all of Tucker’s old team.It’s important to capture the callousness. First, she let the employees hear about the news of their show’s cancellation from a Fox press release. Then, Meade told the employees to hunt around the Fox website to see if they could maybe find another gig,’ he wrote.
He continued: ‘Tune into “Fox News tonight” for its last two weeks on air.Enjoy watching the work product of nine producers, whom Meade Cooper is forcing to work before she fires them. (Under threat of losing their severance). I’m sure it’ll be great content.’
Supporting Re’s comments, Chadwick Moore, an author who wrote a book about Carlson due out later this summer, wrote: ‘Meade Cooper, the exec who fired all of Tucker’s former team yesterday, is a “terrible leader” with no regard for the people who perform day in and day out, Fox staffers tell me.
‘She “lacks creativity” and “pretended to have oversight of Fox Primetime programming for years,” they said.Cooper “benefited from the ascension of women at the network after Roger Ailes departed,’ he wrote.
‘She has now executed the highest performing producers in cable news history. While riding a women’s advocacy wave, many of those she fired yesterday were women, sources tell me.’
Re excoriated Fox News executive Meade Cooper after she fired the remaining eight staffers who used to work on Carlson’s show on Monday.McCaskill, who used to work on Carlson’s show, departed the network earlier this month after he ran a chyron that called Joe Biden a ‘dictator’
Meade Cooper, the Fox executive who allegedly made the decision to fire the rest of Carlson’s staff
Rupert Murdoch’s Manhattan-based news outfit announced Jesse Watters would be replacing Carlson in a statement early Monday morning
Carlson remains locked in a legal battle with Fox about the exit from his contract and the launch of his new Twitter show
Carlson’s shocking ouster came in late April after the company settled a massive $787.5million lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems.Even then, the move puzzled many who thought Fox would never have backed down from a fight when it came to their lucrative golden boy – who technically is still under contract.
Earlier this month, the network touted this arrangement after top brass threatened to sue Carlson for violating his contract by way of the launch of a low-budget show that was watched by more than 80million people.
In a report from Axios, lawyers for the media giant are said to have sent official correspondence to Carlson’s legal team claiming the newscaster was ‘in breach’ of his contract when he aired his new Twitter show.
Carlson’s lawyers reportedly argued any legal action by Fox would be a direct violation of their client’s First Amendment rights, as the pundit is said to be looking for a way out of a $20million-a-year contract with the company.
, with no official reason given for why the company let their most-watched anchor go.The aforementioned contract has prevented him from taking work at competing networks.
In the statement to Axios, Carlson’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, accused Fox executives of engaging in hypocrisy by silencing Carlson, pointing to how the company claims to ‘defend its very existence on freedom of speech grounds.’
On Monday, Fox announced that Jesse Watters will take over the 8pm prime time slot after Carlson was yanked from the air by the network this spring.
Announced as part of a shuffle that will also see Laura Ingraham shift earlier in the evening and late-night host Greg Gutfeld move up to 10pm, Watters will now man the hallowed 8pm slot winstar88 – left vacant by Carlson back in April.
will also see Ingraham, previously the host of the 10pm hour, kick off the primetime programming block at 7pm.Seasoned commentator Sean Hannity, meanwhile, will keep his old 9pm time, top brass confirmed in a statement.
It comes almost two months to the day that Carlson was days after it paid $787.5million to settle a defamation suit linked to remarks made on air by the commentator.
In the time since, rumors swirled as to a possible replacement – with a frontrunner eventually surfacing in 44-year-old Watters, whose rise can be traced back to his days as a production assistant on the O’Reilly Factor when he was just 24, when he gained notoriety as a dogged man-on-the street correspondent.