Real reasons

One of the lessons you learn during a career in journalism if you’re paying attention is that you never know what really happened. You can describe what you see and hear but you don’t know what people are thinking and you’re going to miss things.

This is particularly true if you don’t have first-hand knowledge — if you weren’t there or you haven’t compiled the numbers.

This, however, is the era of the pole vault to conclusions. Much of that leaping is on the internet but news organizations are not immune.

I bring this up in light of the surprise firings last week of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon. The Carlson firing from Fox News, in particular, got a tremendous amount of news coverage — i.e. speculation masquerading as explanation.

Carlson was either fired because of too-honest text messages, some outrageous statement on the air, the big settlement of the libel suit against Fox, or a lawsuit for harassment.

There’s no evidence that any of the above is true. One or more might be true but, at least at the time I’m writing this, we don’t know. I have my doubts about these theories — after all, Tucker Carlson has been saying weird stuff in public and probably private for years. Surely, Fox didn’t just now notice this. Money can’t be the reason either — remember all those Bill O’Reilly payoffs.

So, since everyone else is doing it, I’d like to offer my own guesses that I think are just as likely. These could apply to Lemon, too.

The yogurt. Nothing disrupts a workplace more than someone stealing a colleague’s yogurt from the lounge refrigerator. Don Lemon might be excused for this if it was lemon yogurt but no one else has an excuse. If one of those guys got caught cold-handed, there would be repercussions.

Picture Jeanine Pirro spotting Tucker Carlson with a yogurt box labeled “JP. Do not eat upon penalty of death.”

Body odor. There’s only so much stink any employer can put up with. Most of us have never smelled Tucker Carlson so we can’t rule this out.

A billionaire. Harlan Crow can have more than one friend. Tucker might have been invited on some of those yacht excursions with Clarence Thomas. There are other billionaires out there who may have wanted a supportive friend.

The problem: Rupert Murdoch would be jealous. Billionaires like to guard their possessions.

Kickbacks. Have you ever heard Tucker Carlson say anything bad about Reese’s Pieces? Seriously, I’m asking because I never watched his show.

I bring this up because Carlson is famous for his dustup with M&Ms. Could it be that a rival candymaker paid him to cause a ruckus?

If Fox management didn’t get a cut and found out about his side gig, he’d be out the door.

The settlement. I know I said the Dominion lawsuit money settlement probably didn’t cause the firing but consider that the details of settlements are usually confidential. Could it be there was something in there we don’t know about?

Remember how disappointed most of us were that Fox wasn’t forced to bend the knee and beg our forgiveness on the air? Maybe the settlement wasn’t as bad as we thought.

It could have been that Dominion demanded a sacrifice of at least one annoying voice as part of the deal.

I wouldn't have settled for less.

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