2020/06/17/Fox News Argues Viewers Don't Assume Tucker Carlson Reports Facts

• when: 2020/06/17
• author: Ashley Cullins
• source: Hollywood Reporter
• topics: Tucker Carlson Fox News
• keywords
• link: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/fox-news-defends-tucker-carlson-karen-mcdougal-slander-suit-1298999
• title: Fox News Argues Viewers Don't Assume Tucker Carlson Reports Facts
• summary: Fox News argues in court that Tucker Carlson's audience knows that things which Carlson asserts, no matter how definitively stated as fact, may in fact have been entirely made up by Carlson on the spot and could be completely false, and that Carlson's employer will not only take no action against him for doing so but will in fact defend him.

"Fox News' attorney Erin Murphy argued that Carlson repeatedly couched his statements as hypotheticals to promote conversation and that a reasonable viewer would know his show offers "provocative things that will help me think harder," as opposed to straight news."

The Carlson quote in question:

"Remember the facts of the story, these are undisputed," stated Carlson before referencing Trump's alleged affairs with McDougal and Stormy Daniels. "Two women approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money. Now that sounds like a classic case of extortion."

—2019-12-05 Karen McDougal, who was paid to keep quiet about an affair with Donald Trump, files suit.

Links

• 2020-06-18 Fox News Argues in Court That Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Have an Obligation to Tell the Truth
• 2020-06-17 Hollywood Reporter @ Twitter: "Tucker Carlson doesn't have an obligation to investigate the truth of statements before making them on his show and his audience doesn't expect him to report facts, a lawyer for #FoxNews told a New York federal judge