Listen to Media Matters' Andrew Lawrence explain why the firing of Tucker Carlson is disastrous for other far-right media figures
Lawrence: “He was essentially an assignment editor for the entire conservative media apparatus”
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Listen to Media Matters' Andrew Lawrence explain why the firing of Tucker Carlson is disastrous for other far-right media figures
Citation
From the May 3, 2023, edition of Sirius XM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
JOE SUDBAY (HOST): It's hard I think for people to understand just how vicious, even when we explain it over and over -- this was a guy who was spewing the “great replacement” theory. This is a guy who was mocking dead, queer people and it's so astounding. And that never seemed to bother the Fox executives. Yet somehow, something happened and he's gone. It's really fascinating.
ANDREW LAWRENCE (GUEST): Yeah, it's very bizarre. And, you know, I'd like to talk a little bit about a point you made about the Ben Collins article and, you know, what gets lost into the mix a lot -- I think it's very well known that Tucker Carlson was a right-wing propagandist, but I don't think what's really understood is how crucial he was. He was essentially an assignment editor for the entire conservative media apparatus.
What he said on his show at 8 o'clock was what Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh would be talking about the next day on their podcast. It's what the rest of Fox News would be talking about. And he found these issues that were just in the fringes, just nowhere near anybody's radar and 8 o'clock on Fox News is such a megaphone that, you know, he would find these weird little stories that backed up hatred and bigotry and all that and he would put his megaphone to it and blast it out and he really just had so much influence.
And I think that like -- we can look at Matt Walsh, who for your listeners who don't know -- I hope they don't -- he's a podcaster, a right-wing podcaster, a disgusting guy, just the absolute worst. And he's really been driving this anti-trans stuff.
And a lot of that, you know -- his profile -- just rose so much when he started going on Tucker. And then all of a sudden, he's in Tennessee standing next to legislators, writing bills for that, anti-trans bills for them to pass. And, yeah, he would exist without Tucker Carlson, but he would not be writing laws without Tucker Carlson. And I think that the impact of losing Tucker in the right-wing is -- it's monumental. It's just -- it's very big and you can see it right now. They're lost. They do not know what to do or say.