Brian Stelter Calls Fox Firing Lou Dobbs ‘Curious’, Says It’s Example Not of Cancel Culture but ‘Consequence Culture’
CNN’s Brian Stelter on Saturday called the cancelling of Lou Dobbs a “curious” move by Fox, saying it isn’t clear why they would punish him but not other on-air personalities that were equally to blame for spreading Donald Trump‘s claims about a stolen election and drawing massive lawsuits against the company.
Stelter also suggested that, even though this is a literal cancellation, it’s less an example of cancel culture than it is “consequence” culture.
Anchor Victor Blackwell discussed the new $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox and Dobbs, and then asked Stelter “Do you know how much of that factor the lawsuit played in, potentially into Dobbs’ firing?”
“Right, that certainly seems like it was a factor, but sources at Fox say there were other factors as well,” said Stelter. “They say Dobbs’ show, although relatively high rated for Fox Business, was actually a loss leader, because advertisers did not want to be associated with his extreme right-wing content.”
Stelter then brought up Fox News host Tucker Carlson as an example of a similar situation with advertisers.
“Of course that’s true for others at Fox, like Tucker Carlson. But Carlson has a much bigger audience. So there are definitely multiple factors here, but the timing is clear,” said Stelter. “The timing is obvious. He was on the air Thursday, the lawsuit was filed on Thursday, he was off the air on Friday, he’s never coming back. That is a shocking move by a network, to make.”
“You have to wonder if what the network is doing is basically coming up with a sacrificial lamb in the midst of this massive lawsuit, and then waiting to see what will happen next,” he continued. “I know that Dobbs and other hosts on Fox rail against cancel culture, they say they’re being canceled. Well this is an actual cancellation, but this might really be more like a consequence culture. There are consequences for constantly peddling falsehoods on television, and at least in this one case, perhaps there are real consequences for Dobbs.”
After a bit more discussion about the lawsuit in particular, Stelter brought up consequences again.
“What we are seeing is a real consequence for the ‘Big Lie’, for people that desperately tried to support Trump and prop up his bid to stay in power,” he said. “Now Dobbs is on Twitter this morning retweeting his fans who say they’ll follow him wherever he goes, but he won’t be able to go anywhere for a while. Dobbs is gonna be sitting on the bench. This is the worst situation for someone like Dobbs who craves air time. Fox is going to pay him to not work. They’re going to pay him the rest of his contract just to sit at home.”
That’s when Stelter talked about why he finds the move “curious.”
“Really interesting dynamic, and it makes you wonder why are they punishing him? Are they punishing him because of his election lies? But if they are, and that seems like the situation here, it seems like there are consequences for him lying about the election, if they’re doing that, if Fox management, the Murdochs, are doing that, why are they not taking action against the other Fox stars who were also promoting Trump’s lies and pushing his propaganda? It’s a curious move by the Murdochs, with more questions than answers right now,” he said.
UPDATE: Fox has two statements out regarding the issues about which Stelter is speculating.
FOX NEWS MEDIA STATEMENT ON LOU DOBBS
“As we said in October, FOX News Media regularly considers programming changes and plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate post-election, including on FOX Business – this is part of those planned changes. A new 5PM program will be announced in the near future.”
FOX NEWS MEDIA STATEMENT ON SMARTMATIC
“FOX News Media is committed to providing the full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion. We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend against this meritless lawsuit in court.”
Watch the clip above, from CNN.
