Two top producers for Tucker Carlson’s former show have left Fox News, in the latest fallout from the network’s benching of Mr. Carlson.
Alexander McCaskill, a senior producer and formerly the managing editor of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” wrote on Instagram that his last day at the network was Thursday. Thomas Fox, who was a senior editorial producer on that show, also departed this week, according to two people with knowledge of the moves.
One of the people said Mr. McCaskill and Mr. Fox had been in discussions to leave the network before Tuesday, when a chyron that appeared on Fox News called President Biden a “wannabe dictator.”
In a video posted to Twitter on Thursday, Mr. Carlson said the chyron had been posted by a producer at the network who had since left. While he did not identify Mr. McCaskill by name, Mr. Carlson listed facts about the person, such as his length of time at the network, that matched Mr. McCaskill.
“Inside Fox, the women who run the network panicked” after the chyron was put up, Mr. Carlson said. “First they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen. Less than 24 hours after that he resigned. He’d been at Fox for more than a decade.”
A Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. McCaskill’s and Mr. Fox’s departures. In a statement on Wednesday, the company said that “the chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed.”
Mr. Fox declined to comment on his departure in a brief phone call on Friday. Mr. McCaskill did not respond to a request for comment.
The Daily Beast earlier reported Mr. McCaskill’s exit, which he confirmed in a post on his private Instagram on Thursday. “Today was my last day at Fox,” the post said. “It’s been a wild 10 years and it was the best place I ever worked because of the great people I met. But the time has come. I asked them to let me go, and they finally did.”
Mr. McCaskill and Mr. Fox are also both named defendants in a discrimination lawsuit against Fox brought by Abby Grossberg, a former producer at the company who worked for a short time on Mr. Carlson’s show.
Ms. Grossberg has accused Mr. McCaskill and other producers on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” of creating a toxic and misogynistic workplace in which they harassed her, frequently used a crude pejorative to describe women and made anti-Semitic remarks.
Fox News and Ms. Grossberg are in settlement talks, a person with knowledge of the discussions said. CNN reported earlier on a possible deal between the two sides.
A lawyer for Ms. Grossberg and the Fox News spokeswoman declined to comment on any possible discussions.
Ms. Grossberg had also accused Fox News of coercing her into providing a misleading deposition in the blockbuster defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems. She has since dropped that case.
Days after Fox settled the Dominion suit for $787.5 million, Fox took Mr. Carlson off the air. The New York Times reported that Fox leaders had become increasingly concerned about the problems he posed for the network. Mr. Carlson is still under contract with Fox, which has demanded that he stop posting videos to Twitter.
A third top member of Mr. Carlson’s team also left Fox recently. Charles Couger, who was the executive producer of “Tucker Carlson Originals,” Mr. Carlson’s show on the Fox Nation streaming service, left the network in May, according to his LinkedIn profile. Mr. Couger declined to comment.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
