Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he won’t read and isn’t planning on reading several New York Times articles about his career and show content.
On Sunday, the NY Times published a lengthy series online and featured it prominently on the front page of its website, dubbing Carlson an “American Nationalist,” replete with heavily edited, stylized, and distorted photos of Carlson.
“I’ve never read the ratings a single day in my life. I don’t even know how. Ask anyone at Fox,” Carlson told the outlet in response to the NY Times’ article. “Most of the big positions I’ve taken in the past five years—against the neocons, the vax, and the war [in Ukraine]—have been very unpopular with our audience at first.”
In a statement to news outlets on Sunday and Monday in response to the articles, Fox News said that its editorial content has driven higher viewership.
“Fox News Media has grown through strategic innovation, redirecting investments in journalism to encompass more than 50 percent of the budget while expanding our footprint beyond one legacy linear network to eight thriving platforms,” the network told The Hill. “As a result, we’ve doubled our audience, achieved unrivaled results, and have become the destination that more Democrats and independents choose for their news coverage, while our competitors have lost dramatic levels of viewership.”
And last week, Carlson suggested on his show that he was aware that the NY Times was going to publish what he described as a hit piece against him and his show.
During the broadcast, Carlson described the paper’s writers as “obedient little establishment defenders” and are individuals who “will say anything to please their bosses, they’re suck-ups, brown-nosers, lickspittles ... not people you’d want to have dinner with.”
“If you don’t obey them, they denounce you as a racist,” he added. “Why do they do this? They do it because it works. But here’s the thing. It can only work if you play along with it. And we don’t plan to.”
