https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2023-04-26/tucker-carlsons-firing-reveals-how-afraid-the-media-is-of-independent-journalists/
Tucker Carlson’s firing reveals how afraid the media is of independent journalists
The TV host paid the price because he tried the impossible: straddling the divide between corporate media and critical journalism
While the left is busy hating on Tucker Carlson, and not without reason, it is missing the bigger picture. Carlson was a genuine aberration in US corporate media. Which is why he is gone – sacked by media “titan” Rupert Murdoch.
Yes, over the years Carlson played on white fears, placing him firmly on the right. But he also gave over his massive corporate platform at Fox News to some of the most critical and thoughtful independent journalists and pundits around – from Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Mate to Jimmy Dore.
Carlson not only brought them into the living rooms of Main Street, but he undoubtedly helped them grow their audiences and influence.
In that way, he exposed ordinary Americans to critical perspectives, especially on US foreign policy, that they had no hope of hearing anywhere else – and most certainly not from so-called “liberal” corporate media outlets like CNN and MSNBC.
And he did so while constantly ridiculing the media’s craven collusion with those in power.
But all that is being ignored. Media analysis of Carlson’s departure has focused so far almost exclusively on his clashes with Fox News management, and a series of disrespectful tweets, that have come to light as a result of the recent Dominion court case, in which Murdoch was forced to settle with a massive payout.
But those clashes cannot be understood outside a wider context in which Carlson was pushing against institutional media constraints at Fox designed to prevent the real work of journalism – holding the powerful to account.
Nord Stream silence
Here is just a taste of some of the highlights of his time with Fox News:
* While the rest of the US media ignored a major investigation by the legendary journalist Seymour Hersh, or deflected attention to a crazed, semi-official conspiracy theory involving a rogue crew on a yacht, Carlson dared present evidence that the US blew up the Nord Stream pipelines – an act of unprecedented industrial and environmental terrorism directed against Europe:
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* Uniquely among corporate journalists, Carlson gave airtime to the testimony of whistleblowers from the OPCW, the UN body monitoring chemical weapons. The testimony confirmed that, under US pressure, the OPCW rigged an investigation into a gas attack in Douma, Syria, to blame President Bashar Assad and retrospectively provide the pretext for illegal US, UK and French air strikes:
* Carlson recently broke with the corporate media consensus by highlighting the substance of the Pentagon leaks, not least that US soldiers are covertly fighting in Ukraine. He went further, berating fellow journalists for colluding with the White House in helping to track down the leaker and cover up the most significant revelations:
* And he gave an open mic to Jimmy Dore to explain that the US is currently waging unprovoked wars against Russia and China: “Your enemy is not China. Your enemy is not Russia. Your enemy is the Military Industrial Complex. … The United States is the world’s terrorist.”
As Dore tweeted after Carlson’s sacking: “No one else in all of corporate news ever brings on anti-war voices, [and] the one that did just got axed. Doesn’t matter that he’s the most watched show in all of news – much like when MSNBC fired Phil Donohue for his anti-Iraq War coverage when he had #1 show on network.”
Loose cannon
Rather than welcome this record, blinkered tribalists on the left preferred instead to accuse Greenwald, Mate and others either of outing themselves as rightwingers by appearing on Carlson’s show, or of providing legitimacy to Fox’s white fearmongering.
It even reached the absurd depths that any retweet of a Carlson clip was denounced because, supposedly, the left was poisoning its own well. We would soon convert ourselves from socialism to national socialism.
But if Carlson’s firing by Murdoch suggests anything, it is that the corporate media had grown increasingly fearful of the extent to which Carlson was becoming a loose cannon, and that the kind of independent journalism he hosted and amplified was gaining traction.
Through a rapid rise in his ratings, Carlson proved that there is an appetite, a big one, for stories that question the consensual narrative imposed by the rest of the corporate media, for stories that actually hold the powerful to account – rather simply claiming to – and for stories that refuse to assume Western meddling around the globe is necessarily a good thing.
If it was only white fearmongering that drew audiences and propelled network news hosts to the top slot, then Sean Hannity would surely be king of the ratings, not Carlson.
The reality, the one Carlson confirms, is that there is an audience ready to listen to critical, independent journalism – when it can be found. The job of the corporate media is precisely to stop viewers hearing dissident views, a rule that Carlson played fast and loose with for too long. Now, it seems, he has paid the price.
Fate sealed
It is interesting to consider too, if we are debating the effect of exposing Fox News audiences to leftwing and dissident perspectives, what impact Greenwald, Mate and others had on Carlson himself.
Those who know him well, such as Greenwald, have argued that he is on political path away from the views he once held. There is certainly evidence for this. And it may be that it was just such evidence that sealed his fate.
Sounding more like Noam Chomsky, Carlson refers in the clip below to the media as a “control apparatus” and admits “I spent most of my life being part of the problem”, including by promoting the 2003 Iraq war.
Carlson: “The media are not here to inform you. Really! Even on the big things that really matter like the economy, wars, Covid… Their job is not to inform you. They are working for the small group of people who actually run the world. They are their servants… and we should treat them with maximum contempt because they have earned it.”
Presumably Murdoch understood that he was very much included in “the small group of people who actually run the world”, a group that should “earn our contempt”.
But beyond speculating about Carlson’s motives, the more significant point – the one we should celebrate and highlight – is that media “consumers” are slowly becoming less passive and more critical of traditional sources of information.
Carlson understood that trend and tried to straddle the divide. He had a foot in both the corporate media camp and the independent camp. Through his sacking, he has proved just how untenable that position is.
One – the corporate media – is there to entertain and distract us, and keep us locked into tribal identities, banging heads against each other in utter futility. The other – independent media – is there to help us think more critically about power and about our responsibilities as citizens.
You can’t serve those two masters – as Tucker Carlson just found out the hard way.
( Excellent information in Tucker Show videos at article address )
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https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_war_on_free_speech_is_really_a_war_on_the_right_to_criticize_the_government
The War on Free Speech Is Really a War on the Right to Criticize the Government
“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”— Justice William O. Douglas
Absolutely, there is a war on free speech.
To be more accurate, however, the war on free speech is really a war on the right to criticize the government.
Although the right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom, every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.
Indeed, those who run the government don’t take kindly to individuals who speak truth to power.
In fact, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
This is nothing new, nor is it unique to any particular presidential administration.
For instance, as part of its campaign to eradicate so-called “disinformation,” the Biden Administration likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists. This government salvo against consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information” widens the net to potentially include anyone who is exposed to ideas that run counter to the official government narrative.
In his first few years in office, President Trump declared the media to be “the enemy of the people,” suggested that protesting should be illegal, and that NFL players who kneel in protest during the national anthem “shouldn’t be in the country.”
Then again, Trump was not alone in his presidential disregard for the rights of the citizenry, especially as it pertains to the right of the people to criticize those in power.
President Obama signed into law anti-protest legislation that makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest activities (10 years in prison for protesting anywhere in the vicinity of a Secret Service agent). The Obama Administration also waged a war on whistleblowers, which The Washington Post described as “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration,” and “spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records.”
Part of the Patriot Act signed into law by President George W. Bush made it a crime for an American citizen to engage in peaceful, lawful activity on behalf of any group designated by the government as a terrorist organization. Under this provision, even filing an amicus brief on behalf of an organization the government has labeled as terrorist would constitute breaking the law.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the FBI to censor all news and control communications in and out of the country in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt also signed into law the Smith Act, which made it a crime to advocate by way of speech for the overthrow of the U.S. government by force or violence.
President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it illegal to criticize the government’s war efforts.
President Abraham Lincoln seized telegraph lines, censored mail and newspaper dispatches, and shut down members of the press who criticized his administration.
In 1798, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish … any false, scandalous, and malicious” statements against the government, Congress or president of the United States.
Clearly, the government has been undermining our free speech rights for quite a while now.
Good, bad or ugly, it’s all free speech unless as defined by the government it falls into one of the following categories: obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, and solicitations to commit crimes.
This idea of “dangerous” speech, on the other hand, is peculiarly authoritarian in nature. What it amounts to is speech that the government fears could challenge its chokehold on power.
The kinds of speech the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation, prosecution and outright elimination include: hate speech, bullying speech, intolerant speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, incendiary speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, right-wing speech, left-wing speech, extremist speech, politically incorrect speech, etc.
Conduct your own experiment into the government’s tolerance of speech that challenges its authority, and see for yourself.
Stand on a street corner—or in a courtroom, at a city council meeting or on a university campus—and recite some of the rhetoric used by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Adams and Thomas Paine without referencing them as the authors.
For that matter, just try reciting the Declaration of Independence, which rejects tyranny, establishes Americans as sovereign beings, recognizes God (not the government) as the Supreme power, portrays the government as evil, and provides a detailed laundry list of abuses that are as relevant today as they were 240-plus years ago.
My guess is that you won’t last long before you get thrown out, shut up, threatened with arrest or at the very least accused of being a radical, a troublemaker, a sovereign citizen, a conspiratorialist or an extremist.
Try suggesting, as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did, that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to shed blood in order to protect their liberties, and you might find yourself placed on a terrorist watch list and vulnerable to being rounded up by government agents.
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms,” declared Jefferson. He also concluded that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Observed Franklin: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”
Better yet, try suggesting as Thomas Paine, Marquis De Lafayette, John Adams and Patrick Henry did that Americans should, if necessary, defend themselves against the government if it violates their rights, and you will be labeled a domestic extremist.
“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government,” insisted Paine. “When the government violates the people’s rights,” Lafayette warned, “insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties.” Adams cautioned, “A settled plan to deprive the people of all the benefits, blessings and ends of the contract, to subvert the fundamentals of the constitution, to deprive them of all share in making and executing laws, will justify a revolution.” And who could forget Patrick Henry with his ultimatum: “Give me liberty or give me death!”
Then again, perhaps you don’t need to test the limits of free speech for yourself.
One such test is playing out before our very eyes on the national stage led by those who seem to believe that only individuals who agree with the government are entitled to the protections of the First Amendment.
To the contrary, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was very clear about the fact that the First Amendment was established to protect the minority against the majority.
I’ll take that one step further: the First Amendment was intended to protect the citizenry from the government’s tendency to censor, silence and control what people say and think.
Having lost our tolerance for free speech in its most provocative, irritating and offensive forms, the American people have become easy prey for a police state where only government speech is allowed.
You see, the powers-that-be understand that if the government can control speech, it controls thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.
This is how freedom rises or falls.
Americans of all stripes would do well to remember that those who question the motives of government provide a necessary counterpoint to those who would blindly follow where politicians choose to lead.
We don’t have to agree with every criticism of the government, but we must defend the rights of all individuals to speak freely without fear of punishment or threat of banishment.
Never forget: what the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t step out of line.
What the First Amendment protects—and a healthy constitutional republic requires—are citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.
Tolerance for dissent is vital if we are to survive as a free nation.
While there are all kinds of labels being put on so-called “unacceptable” speech today, the real message being conveyed by those in power is that Americans don’t have a right to express themselves if what they are saying is unpopular, controversial or at odds with what the government determines to be acceptable.
By suppressing free speech, the government is contributing to a growing underclass of Americans who are being told that they can’t take part in American public life unless they “fit in.”
Mind you, it won’t be long before anyone who believes in holding the government accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law is labeled an “extremist,” is relegated to an underclass that doesn’t fit in, must be watched all the time, and is rounded up when the government deems it necessary.
It doesn’t matter how much money you make, what politics you subscribe to, or what God you worship: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are all potential suspects, terrorists and lawbreakers in the eyes of the government.
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