Carlson & Lemon - The Network News Odd Couple

A double massacre kills two news careers in one day.

In one fell swoop, the most controversial personalities of the big two news networks have been put out of our misery.

The firings of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon end years of the two men making as much news as they reported, and in journalism, that’s not good news.

Carlson and Lemon each courted as much notoriety than any of their news subjects. Each were seen by many inside and outside of their organizations as unwanted distractions.

But as much as many might want to say that they were two sides of the same bent journalistic coins, nothing could be further from the truth. While neither would win many popularity contests, the affect each had on their respective organizations and American news in general was profoundly different.

Lemon had on numerous occasions proved to be obnoxious publicly, and until recently, privately a raging misogynist. Soledad O’Brien, Nancy Grace, and other female CNN personalities had unpleasant encounters with him.

His issues with women sparked his biggest and recent public faux pas. The most notable gaffe happened  when Lemon said that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Hale “wasn’t in her prime,” and considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s."

Before that miscue, he argued with his female cohosts that pay inequity between male and female athletes is nonexistent because “people are more interested in the men.” Tell that to Serena and Simone.

So Lemon hates women. Shortsighted, foolhardy, and prejudiced without a doubt.

Anyone who has been paying attention to American media knows that Carlson is all the worst of the isms rolled into one overaged frat boy package.

He’s a misogynist, a bigot, a nativist, a fascist, and lots of other uncomplimentary adjectives.

He lost his job because he was a major reason that Fox News is having to fork over $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems.

He had become too expensive, even to a network that traffics in horrendously reactionary drivel.

It is true that CNN is not the most objective news network.

It is also true that those who appreciate CNN’s news perspective are not the ones who killed law enforcement, spread feces over, and wrecked the Capitol.

CNN watchers are not the ones who are responsible for the majority of mass shootings.

They are not the ones who decry cancel culture, but boycott Bud Light and obsess over drag queens.

That would be the people who watch Fox News.

The people who made a star of Tucker Carlson.

And who will anoint his replacement.

Make no mistake. Fox will find someone to carry his poisoned water.

They have a deep bullpen of right-wing loudmouths to follow in Carlson’s wake.

No, Fox News is far from through.

But they aren’t employing Tucker anymore.

And neither is CNN employing Lemon.

The addition by subtraction principle was at work at both CNN and Fox News.

And America is better off at both ends.