Tucker Carlson
25th April 2023
Don’t worry about Tucker; Tucker will be fine.
The hills are alive with Narrative media talking heads attempting to dance on his grave; were they in a similar situation (such as Don Lemon), they would be hurting, because there are a limited number of slots for left-wing hatemongers, so they think he’ll have to go and live in a doghouse somehwere. But such celebrations are quite premature.
Scott Adams is fond of saying that he never really appreciated freedom of speech until he got ‘cancelled’. He is doing quite well with his subscription podcast Coffee with Scott Adams on the locals platform, now the sole vehicle for the Dilbert cartoons. (It’s dirt-cheap for what you get, and I highly recommend it.) Tucker is similarly liberated now, and has a ton of options.
Almost immediately there was a public job offer from Heritage Foundation, and I’m sure he’s gotten calls from American Enterprise Institute, Manhattan Institute, Cato Institute, and other right-wing think-tanks. Sure, he won’t be making the money he was making at Fox, but such fellowship positions (which can pay up to $200,000) entail no actual duties other than to be active in speaking and writing and ‘spreading the word’, which he will be doing anyway.
I presume that his next major move will be a book, a best-selling tell-all exposé of life inside the Fox universe. Being fired gives Tucker carte blanche to grind Rupert Murdoch’s face into the dirt in print, and I (for one) wouldn’t be able to resist that temptation.
Plus he could go the podcast route, which is such a moneymaker for Joe Rogan and others. His audience at Fox is a built-in fanbase for such an endeavor, and he wouldn’t have to share the proceeds with a bunch of Crustian bureaucrats.
Or he could do radio. Dan Bongino has a daily show in Rush Limbaugh’s old time slot; Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Mike Gallagher, and Mark Davis make a good living on the airwaves. He could start by guest-hosting in various places, and when one of the big names decides to retire he could just step into their shoes, as Hugh Hewitt did when Bill Bennett gave up his morning show.
And then there’s writing columns for places like the New York Post, Washington Examiner, Washington Free Beacon, NewsBusters, The Foundry, the Daily Wire (which Tucker helped to found), and even major newspapers that feel like stirring up the zoo. (I doubt that The Dispatch and The Bulwark would be interested, but they’re not the only game in town.)
And then there’s giving speeches. Speaking fees for people with Tucker’s public footprint can be very sweet. Bill Buckley used to make up the money that National Review annually lost by such means.
Don’t worry about Tucker; Tucker will be just fine.
UPDATE: All eyes on Tucker
UPDATE: Tucker Leaves the Sinking Ship: How Long Does Cable News Have Left Anyway?
UPDATE: Observations On Tucker John Hinderaker at Power Line.