NY Mag: The Breakup

This is great.

Read the whole thing.

NY Mag:

“Where people still read the New York Times, they were appalled. And worse, Murdoch’s children — most of them, anyway — were among the people who still read the New York Times. So not only was he wrong, but his son James, who had taken a very liberal turn in recent years and had singled out Carlson as perhaps Fox’s most pernicious influence (and had likely been a helpful source for the Times’ story), was right. Even Jerry Hall, Rupert Murdoch’s fourth wife, whose views Murdoch was always eager to avoid, read the New York Times. She was now full of How could you let him on the air? How could you support this? … And what are you going to do about it? questions. But, pointing to another problem, Lachlan — his firstborn son, whom he had picked to be CEO of Fox Corp. after a decadeslong Succession-in-real-life struggle against James — did not read the New York Times. That incuriosity was just part of Lachlan’s disengagement from the media business and even Fox News itself. Murdoch was at a loss to defend his star, except to say, as though this were a virtue, that he didn’t really think, deep down, Carlson actually believed most of the things he said on the air. …

The positions were: Fox’s — or Murdoch’s — continued determination not to go to a billion but with anything under it fair game, and Dominion’s expectation that it had considerable room to go above $500 million with the hope that it could yet break through Fox’s billion-dollar resolve.

There was also a sweetener: putting Hannity on the table. The Fox News host would be fired concurrently with the settlement. Murdoch had always wanted to get rid of Hannity, and perhaps MAGA insider Hannity’s scalp would make Dominion more likely to accept a nine-figure settlement? It was a thing they might have done without this suit, and might do in the future anyway. Still, rolling it into the deal was convenient psychologically and tactically.

But it would be a gentleman’s agreement. …

The dinner reinforced for Murdoch that he really did like Tucker. He liked him much better than he liked Hannity, whom he didn’t like at all. But there was, too, a sense that the problems he created were greater than his value. Among his children, the Fox backlash could often seem to be Tucker backlash. Without him, you might take down the Fox temperature by what? Twenty percent? Thirty percent? Maybe more? This was a Murdoch calculation: How much could you cool things and still have Fox be Fox?Hannity had been offered as a sweetener. But Carlson, the ratings leader, increasingly the real, hard-core face of the new demagogic right wing, was sweeter.

 He won’t go to a billion. He just won’t. Not going to happen. It’s Rupert. You know Rupert and money, when he digs in. So that’s it. We’re here.

Seven hundred and eighty-seven million dollars. There it is. Far and away the largest defamation award ever made, outside of Alex Jones — and Jones isn’t good for it and we are. And while we’re not making this a part of anything — he can’t live with that — we do understand what you want and things will happen. It will happen by the end of the week. It will be done.

Can you live with that? Can you live with $787 million … and Carlson? …

Unable to admit that Carlson was a casualty of the Dominion settlement — and this had become such an unwritten secret at the highest echelons of Fox that the secret seemed no longer to exist, with Murdoch waving off the settlement as Dinh’s — Fox had landed on a rationale that basically accepted the liberal case against itself. Carlson had to go because … he offended the New York Times!

…

Trump also began to casually discuss Carlson as a possible vice-president, a wicked -maneuver against Fox and Murdoch. Trump’s political wars were always as much against Republicans as against Democrats. It was natural to now take the fight to Fox. …”