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Tuesday night was an unusual evening in domestic politics. On the one hand, President Joe Biden delivered remarks at a White House event celebrating the Juneteenth holiday. On the other hand, his immediate predecessor simultaneously delivered a series of strange lies to a group of supporters in the wake of his federal criminal indictment.
The circumstances surrounding the split-screen were jarring enough, but Fox News viewers saw something far more outlandish. As NBC News reported, around 9 p.m. ET, Fox viewers saw all-caps text at the bottom of the screen that read: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
I’m mindful of the fact that all kinds of manipulated images are often circulated online, but this one was real: Fox News actually featured this on-air graphic.
Part of the problem, of course, was the bizarre lack of professionalism and absence of standards, but making matters worse was the fact that the underlying allegation was utterly bonkers: Whether one loves or hates the incumbent president, Biden is not a “wannabe dictator,” and he did not have his political rival arrested.
A Washington Post analysis described it as “a baseless allegation," adding, “[T]he chyron, which appeared for about 30 seconds, didn’t come out of nowhere; in many ways, it was a culmination. For days and months, Trump and his allies have been pointing in this direction, despite the lack of any actual evidence that Biden played a role in the decision to indict Trump.”
For its part, Fox didn’t seem especially eager to defend the on-screen phrasing. In a statement issued the day after the incident, a network spokesperson said the chyron “was taken down immediately and was addressed.”
But “was addressed” is a great example of passive-voice phrasing. What exactly happened to the person responsible for the absurd message? The Daily Beast reported this morning that the producer who authored the chyron has “parted ways” with the company.
Former Tucker Carlson Tonight managing editor Alexander McCaskill, who features prominently in a toxic work environment lawsuit by a former colleague, is no longer with the network. McCaskill confirmed his exit in a private Instagram post reviewed by The Daily Beast, in which he said it was “the best place I’ve ever worked” and claimed he asked Fox “to let me go.”
Though the reporting hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Carlson himself acknowledged the developments as part of his new Twitter-based program. The producer also published a photo online of him leaving Fox's office building with his belongings in a box.
The story did not escape the attention of the White House. Presidential press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Fox’s message during a briefing this week, and she replied that the chyron was “wrong,” adding, “There are probably about 787 million things that I can say about this.”
The number was not accidental: In April, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems in which the network agreed to pay $787.5 million.