Sarah Palin Shares Unbelievable Way Fox News Let Her Go - Is a Pattern Emerging?
Sarah Palin accused Fox News of firing her in such an indirect way that it begs the question, does the network that has been a home for conservatives since 1996 place any value at all on either its employees or its viewers?
Obviously, Tucker Carlson was not the only person who was blindsided by his sudden termination last week, which was announced in a vague and sudden email.
Carlson’s millions of fans were also suddenly left without a voice to speak for them in a world where the Washington establishment’s narratives too often prevail.
The former host was reportedly prepping for a show when he and those he worked closely with were out of a job. There were rumblings he was let go because of his outward expressions of faith, but we will likely never know.
But the manner in which Carlson’s exit was carried out appears to follow a trend.
Former network anchor Melissa Francis recalled how her 2020 termination was handled in comments she made last year to Megyn Kelly.
Last fall, Francis said she was in her home studio when she learned of her firing by reading it on a teleprompter just minutes before she was to go on the air, TheWrap reported.
After a strange phone call about her no longer being needed, she sat at her desk and waited for the show to begin.
“And all of a sudden, everything went dead in my living room, just lights out, everything dead,” she said. “And I was like, ‘Wow, OK. This is, this is how we’re doing this. Huh? Wow.’”
Francis said her home teleprompter read a blunt message: “You’ve been canceled.”
“I talked to the show staff afterward, and they were like, ‘We weren’t told anything. We have no idea what happened.’ And they were left scrambling. I mean, all of a sudden this poor show team had no idea and they just yanked the electricity on their anchor,” Francis told Kelly.
Earlier this week, Palin told Newsmax the network let her go in 2015 without so much as a phone call.
Well, the former Alaska governor was informed of her termination through a phone call, but it was not placed to her, she said.
Palin said the company “didn’t have the guts” to tell her, and they called her then-husband Todd.
“When I was informed that I was no longer working for them — I wasn’t even informed,” she told network host Eric Bolling. “They didn’t even have the guts to call me. They called my now ex-husband, and I thought that was really weird and weak.”
Palin worked at Fox News as a contributor from 2010 until she said the company called her husband to fire her.
She also said she doubts the network will recover from its decision to cast Carlson aside from what she wondered might be a sinking ship.
“Tucker was the anchor to that entire evening’s line-up. And look at all of the shows nightly aired on Fox — they’re all diminishing in terms of ratings,” she said. “I don’t think that they’re going to recover.”
Palin made her comments to Bolling, a former Fox News anchor while Francis told her story to another network alumnus in Kelly.
Neither seemed surprised.
Carlson has yet to comment on his separation from the network, but it did come suddenly.
To end his final show, he told his millions of viewers he would see them on a Monday — but Monday’s news was that he had been unceremoniously axed.
“We’ll be back on Monday,” Carlson said in what were likely the final words he will ever utter on the network he called home for 14 years. “In the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love, and we’ll see you then.”
Companies of course have their respective bottom lines and are not obligated in any way to let other people make decisions about who will represent them.
But knowing what we do about how Francis, Palin and Carlson each went out, a pattern seems to have emerged.
Fox News appears to deny people with whom audiences have grown to know and love the dignity of even a goodbye.
People who spent years building rapport with the network’s audience suddenly disappear with little or no explanation.
While we’re talking about a multi-billion dollar industry and people who are well-compensated, a business can make tough business decisions while maintaining a culture of courteousness and professionalism.
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