Media

Rupert Murdoch’s Long Journey to Dumping Tucker Carlson

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The first thing to know about Michael Wolff’s new book, The Fall, is that it is absurdly rich in delicious details and insights about the most powerful family in media, the Murdochs, and all the various players in their world. A lot of (but nowhere close to all) those amazing details made it into this nearly 7,000-word cover story, which — among other things — describes how an embattled, 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch decided to fire his biggest star at Fox News, Tucker Carlson. It is also about Murdoch’s seething hatred for Donald Trump, his efforts to undermine him in the Republican Party, and Carlson’s curious position within those various dynamics. Michael’s thoroughly reported story gets inside the heads of both Murdoch and Carlson. In the case of the latter, it clues us into his thinking about what might be next for a semi-employed right-wing TV star: “His only alternative … might be to run for president. The White House. There it was, absent a note of irony: He could be unemployable but for the presidency.” Michael’s work here clues us in on not only what has been happening on the American right, but what might happen next.

—Jebediah Reed, editor, Intelligencer

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do Rupert Murdoch didn’t want to dump his ratings leader and favorite Fox host. But was Tucker Carlson giving him a choice?

Illustration: Jeffrey Smith
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