Fox News fires Tucker Carlson.

by Thinus Ferreira

Fox News (StarSat 261) on Monday abruptly fired host Tucker Carlson (53) who was blindsided that he was getting axed from the rightwing American TV channel.

According to American media reports, Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch decided to fire Tucker Carlson, who made the decision together with his son, Lachlan Murdoch who is Fox Corp. executive chairman, and Suzanne Scott who is Fox News Media chief executive.

"Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor," Fox News said in a terse statement on late on Monday afternoon.

Tucker Carlson's senior executive producer Justin Wells was also fired on Monday.

Tucker Carlson who was a contributor on Fox News became a daily host in 2016.

Fox News fired Tucker Carlson due to the discrimination lawsuit brought against Fox News by the fired producer Abby Grossberg. Abby Grossberg who was the former head of booking, alleges that she was bullied and subjected to rampant antisemitic and sexist comments, as well as vulgar comments to describe women, while working at Tucker Carlson Tonight.

A shocked Tucker Carlson wasn't given any reason why Fox News fired him. 

Producers and other insiders who spoke with various American newspapers said that they were relieved and happy that Tucker Carlson got fired and are hoping for a corporate culture change inside Fox News. They were also blindsided by Tucker Carlson's firing.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Tucker Carlson angered Fox News bosses and the Murdochs when his private messages were revealed in which he criticised them and Fox News bosses. They discovered that he disliked them and their decisions, in sentences using profane and derogatory language.

ALSO READ: CNN fires Don Lemon.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 23 October 2020.

Here's the latest news about TV that I read and that you should read too:

■ Bloodbath at the South African public broadcaster while SABC executives keep their cushy jobs. (subscription required)

There's panic under SABC staffers after executives have downgraded all significant positions and classified 95 personnel as redundant as part of cost-cutting. Heads of news in regions had been sent down to regional news editors, while the executive producers, currently at scale 130, were downgraded to scale 300 as programme producers.

■ SABC3's Expresso presenter and Outsurance TV commercial star Katlego Maboe admits to cheating on partner who allegedly got a sexually-transmitted disease after his illicit hotel sex with another woman: "I was unfaithful".

- Cardova Productions drops Katlego Maboe from Expresso on SABC pending investigation.

- Outsurance removes all Katlego Maboe TV ads "as soon as possible".

■ Former Netflix showrunner reveals "there's a real frustration" over Netflix cancellations and behind-the-scenes shifts at the video streamer.

■ Minorities and women remain shut out in Hollywood, behind-the-scenes it's still mainly white and male - university research.

■ eNCA (DStv 403) silent after complaints with Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) over presenter Karima Brown allegedly calling advocate Andrew Chauke a "corrupt element within the NPA" and part of the "Zuma cabal".

■ In America, NBC News slams Fox News (StarSat 261) and its Tucker Carlson for "dangerously and dishonestly" targeting one of its reporters.

■ Why YouTube took down and blocked the Arise TV News channel's live stream coverage of the #EndSARS public protests in Nigeria.

■ SAFA president Danny Jordaan crying in a spat with SuperSport and thinks SuperSport is siding with his old enemy the PSL when it comes to its sports coverage policy.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 21 July 2020.

Here's the latest news about TV that I read and that you should read too:


■ Netflix "losing its luster as a stay-at-home play".
Credit Suisse downgrades the video streamer.

■ Internal revolt inside racist FOX News (StarSat 261).
Anger and distress over rampant racism at FOX News, both on-air and off-air with growing despair behind-the-scenes under staffers about FOX News' role in demonising and spreading fear about black Americans in increasingly unhinged rants.

■ Fired American sports analyst Jeremy Roenick sues, claims he was sacked because of heterosexual discrimination.

■ Celebrities in masks are a bummer for for the paparazzi trade.
As Hollywood is in social distance-mode, celebrity photogs struggle to get the shots.

■ After this BBC World News (DStv 400 / StarSat 400) report on how terrified Eastern Cape staffers are to work in horrific hospitals ...
... clueless and uninformed so-called Twitter commentators felt the need to weigh-in on the lack of coverage in South African media. A message to these "commentators": It helps to read.

■ Netflix's first original Egyptian series is ready.

■ M-Net's (DStv 101) MacGyver star Lucas Till says he was "suicidal" because of the now-fired, abusive showrunner Peter Lenkov.
Endured numerous instances of verbal abuse, bullying, and body-shaming.

■ Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and more FOX News (StarSat 261) anchors named in new sexual assault and harassment suit.

■ Netflix decides to cancel the Turkish drama series If Only after the Turkish government demanded censorship and that a gay character be removed.
Netflix execs decided to rather cancel the entire production rather than write out the gay character.

■ What we have learnt from the sudden disappearance of live sports on TV.
It created a buyer's market for advertisers.

■ Covid-19 forced Disney to delay production on all of its live-action Marvel shows for Disney+.
Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision pushed out, already-filmed second season of The Mandalorian will arrive later in 2020.

The new Netflix drama series Cursed is accused of stealing prop designs.
Staff with a spine cradling a skull mounted on top was created 4 years ago.
- Netflix's Cursed tried to imitate Game of Thrones but fails.

■ Ugly legal fight continues between the SABC and Owen Ndlovu.
Both the public broadcaster and the producer claim the other one owes them money.

■ eNCA (DStv 403) in a real fright as TV news channel's programming strategies fly out the window along with senior news executives after the arrival of competitor Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405).


■ Former SABC staffer entangled in R300 million Bakgatla Ba Kgafela’s TV academy saga.
The former SABC News executive producer Samuel Nakedi allegedly took R1.5 million of Bakgatla Ba Kgafela's R3.5 million investment into a media centre meant to operate as a TV academy to train young people in TV and film.

■ Netflix announces its most expensive film yet.
A Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling spy thriller, The Grey Man.

■ What Netflix can teach us about font psychology and branding [infographic].
Netflix is very intentional about every detail included in a show's thumbnail design.

■ KaNyamazane filmmaker wants to nurture local talent.
Thulani Mandlazi, director and founder of Mpumalanga Motion Pictures in Mpumalanga, struggling with equipment and funding, trying to get films on MultiChoice and M-Net's Mzansi Bioskop channel.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 14 July 2020.

Here's the latest news about TV that I read and that you should read too:


■ ESPN employees say racism continues behind-the-scenes at the TV sports channel.
ESPN admits it has a problem with diversity.
■ Globally autocrats are cracking down on digital news sites.

■ ABS-CBN, the top broadcaster in the Philippines, has its licence cancelled.
President Rodrigo Duterte can't cope with the criticism and decided it's "payback" time and to shut the broadcaster down.

■ Media and technology companies in identity crises.
Distribution and content companies are redefining themselves because the definition of distribution is changing with broadband-connected television. As a lot of companies are now trying to "control the living room", there are now 3 different tiers to content distribution, each relying on the layers below it.

■ Netflix removes gay character from its Ask 101 series in Turkey.
"The problem with that character was eliminated," says Turkey's Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) after the gay character of Osman was censored by the country and Netflix agreed. 

■ Netlix's The Old Guard is decent enough but could have been so much more.

■ The SABC is a sad, abject bunch of creeps, not the vibrant broadcaster we need (subscription required).

■ Q&A with SABC board chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini about looming job cuts (subscription required).

■  Netflix expected to announce record subscriber growth when it reports latest subscriber numbers this week as it benefits from Covid-19 global lockdowns in many countries (subscription required).

- Data suggests fewer international cancellations because of Covid-19 will be what's boosting the overall subscriber number.


■ MultiChoice and Eutelsat abruptly dump 2 TV broadcasters in Ethiopia from DStv.
Tigrai TV and Dimtsi Woyane TV taken off DStv as the latest media censored by Ethiopian authorities.

■ Racist head writer of Tucker Carlson's show on FOX News (StarSat 261) is gone.

■ South Africa's Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhebane demands an apology from eNCA (DStv 403) and has lodged a complaint with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA).

■ SABC staffers furious with the South African public broadcaster for revealing the identities of those who gave evidence in the commission of inquiry into editorial interference at the SABC.

■ The Pan African Congress (PAC) furious at the SABC for alleged "repeated bias and fake reporting".
The political party has laid a complaint at the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA).

■ Dorothy Ghettuba, Netflix's head of original African series, says the biggest challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns in Africa have been loadshedding, electricity blackouts and data which subscribers are struggling with.

■ Thandeka Gqubule-Mbeki, SABC economics editor, announces that she will be wearing black and embark on a hunger strike to protest against job cuts at the bloated SABC.

■ Coronavirus: From Nollywood to South Africa, CNN International looks at how Covid-19 has impacted Africa's TV and film industry with lockdowns and curfews and how they've been forced to try and adapt.
Is the industry going to run out of content?

■ Tanzania bans Kwanza TV.
Tanzania's draconian government that can't cope with free media shuts down local broadcaster for 11 months ... because of "unpatriotic" Instagram post.

■ The science-fiction TV series version of Aldous Huxley's 1932-novel Brave New World arrives in the future it predicted.

Fox News on StarSat and Cell C black in an 'exclusive investigation' falsely reports about 'racist Cyril Ramaphosa' and the 'racist South African government' that changed constitution to steal land from white farmers and causing 'chaos' in the country.

On Thursday the Fox News Channel (StarSat 261 / Cell C black 502) broadcast a horrifically false "exclusive investigation" in which the Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson called South African president Cyril Ramaphosa a racist twice, and slammed "the racist South African government" as having changed the country's constitution to steal land from white farmers causing "chaos" in South Africa.

None of it is true but Fox News - distributed by the FOX Networks Group throughout Africa on China's StarTimes and Cell C's streaming service - spewed its racist trash as "news" as Tucker Carlson conducted an interview.

On Tucker Carlson's Wednesday night 22 August 2018 episode at 20:00, seen at 02:00 South African time on Thursday morning and in repeats, Fox News vilified South Africa, former American president Barack Obama called a "coward", and gave a biased and very untrue "report" on the land expropriation issue in South Africa.

Tucker Carlson started his "exclusive investigation" saying that "the president of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa has begun, and you may have seen this in the press, seizing land from his own citizens without compensation because they're the wrong skin colour. That is literally the definition of racism."

Tucker Carlson then reported that Barack Obama "praised the racist government of South Africa".

All of this is factually wrong. South Africa's government isn't racist and no proof was given. No farms have been seized. No expropriation without compensation has taken place in South Africa up to this date.

All of these so-called "facts" broadcast to South African and African viewers on the FOX News Chanel were lies.

Tucker Carlson then said president Cyril Ramaphosa "has changed the country"s constitution to make it possible to steal land from people because they are the wrong skin colour".

This is another lie and untruthful reporting. The South African constitution has not been changed as up to the date of this broadcast, but that didn't stop Tucker Carlson from inflaming the story with his racist comments.

The Fox News Channel programme further used the lower third banner to to write deliberately inflammatory headlines, saying "chaos in South Africa as land expropriation begins", and then "South African government is now seizing land from white farmers".

As up to the date of the broadcast there has been no "chaos" in South Africa around this issue at all.

During the programme Tucker Carlson labels this a "human rights tragedy that unfolds".

During the Fox News Channel programme he again says "Why would former president Barack Obama, just a few weeks ago, praise a racist like Cyril Ramaphosa?"

Fox News Channel is lying in what it labels an "exclusive investigation" using deliberate false sentences and inflammatory language to fuel racial division and to give viewers in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa where the channel is also carried by StarSat's broader company StarTimes, a false impression and wrong information about South Africa.

Fox News Channel failed to report news truthfully, accurately and fairly as is required by the Code of Conduct signed by StarSat that carries this channel.

The Fox News Channel on StarSat and the broadcast also engaged in deliberate misrepresentation by calling president Cyril Ramaphosa racist twice, calling the government racist and making several deliberate false statements.