Abstract:
Tucker Carlson, a host of Fox’s News’ political show ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ has been
accused of making various racist and sexist remarks since 2006. His top writer,
who produced the scripts every night for his show was recently fired from Fox
news as dehumanizing comments made by him were found on a forum via a CNN
investigation. Fox News has had a
lengthy history with their news anchors and employees making controversial
comments in the past. These offensive comments and actions have led to many
PR-nightmare’s over the years for Fox.
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| Fox News Logo |
This paper will dive into the
various controversies Fox News has been through over the recent years, and
ethically analyze the situations. The analysis will be in the scope of
Individualism, Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Virtue Theory. An individualist
would hold Fox accountable for hurting the company's ability to achieve maximum
profit. Utilitarian’s would consider this situation a failure because it made
everyone disappointed, and sad, which is the exact opposite of the goal of
utilitarianism: to maximize happiness for all beings. A Kantian analysis of this controversy would show that Tucker
Carlson’s comments were not ethically permissible, as they treated their
viewers as a mere means opposed to as an end. Finally, virtue theory would
criticize the lack of empathy, accountability, and character from all
employees, and owners of Fox News.
Background:
Fox News is an American political news television channel
that was launched in 1996, under Fox entertainment group. Ever since their
launch they have been a top news channel, with various shows of political
commentators giving their opinions on the countries burning topics and daily
headlines. In 2016, shortly after Donald Trump won the presidential election,
Fox News hired a news anchor, Tucker Carlson, to host his very own show on the
weeknights.
Born May 16, 1969, 51-year-old Tucker Carlson is an American political commentator, best
known for his conservative views and nightly television show “Tucker Carlson
Tonight” on Fox News. As of 2020, his show is the most-watched cable news show
in the United States.
The Case:
Tucker Carlson’s top writer Blake Neff, resigned after
racist and sexist comments he made were uncovered by CNN. Neff was known to be
Carlson’s best writer at Fox, and was with the company from the time that the
show started until his resignation in July of 2020. On top of writing for
Tucker Carlson, he also was a “WarGaming Subject Matter Expert'' for the Marine
Corps College since October of 2016. The controversy arose after a CNN lead
investigation found that Blake Neff was using a pseudonym on a
public forum to
post racist, sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic remarks.
The
comments posted by Neff date back to over 5 years ago, and were consistent
until the day of his resignation. With the discovery of the posts, and the
resignation from Fox, the Marine Corps College immediately cut ties with Neff
stating, “We immediately removed Mr. Neff from the list of experts who support
our educational wargaming program. Mr. Neff's language and behavior do not
represent Marine Corps University or the United States Marine Corps.” The
situation resulted in heavy scrutiny for Fox, with viewers and critics
wondering how they can have such demeaning and degrading comments come from a
top writer for the #1 news broadcast in the country. The audience was put on
edge even further after Tucker Carlson attempted to clear the air at the start
of one of his shows. Carlson stated, “What Blake wrote anonymously was wrong,
we don’t endorse those words, they have no connection to the show. It is wrong
to attack people for qualities they cannot control...” Tucker then went on and
directly attacked the critics of the show stating “self-righteousness also has
its costs” in reference to all the people happy that Neff was publicly exposed
and fired. Carlson tied “cancel culture” into his response about Neff, and the
critics were not pleased with his response to the obviously offensive remarks.
Fox News was slightly late to get their response to the situation out, but
eventually issued this apology. “
We want to make
abundantly clear that Fox News Media strongly condemns this horrific racist,
misogynistic and homophobic behavior. Neff’s abhorrent conduct on this forum
was never divulged to the show or the network until Friday, at which point we
swiftly accepted his resignation,” Scott and Wallace added. “Make no mistake,
actions such as his cannot and will not be tolerated at any time in any part of
our workforce”. After addressing the incident he proceeded to finish his
nightly show like usual, but with another announcement at the end. Carlson
announced he would be taking the next week off for a ‘long planned’ fishing
trip. The last time Carlson announced he was taking a break was in August 2019,
after he made claims earlier that week that white supremacy was a hoax.
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| Tucker Carlson calling white supremacy a hoax during one of his shows |
Stakeholders
The stakeholders of Fox News hold the company
up to a high standard and a high value when it comes to the accuracy, speed,
and reliability of their reporting. Having the most watched political news show
on air in the country is a great accolade that is reflected in the stakeholders
of Fox. Fox’s number one priority when a situation like this arises is to
maintain its relationship with its viewers, which are the most important
stakeholders, because without them there would be no business. Another
important stakeholder relationship to maintain is its partners. All of the
company’s that partner with Fox to run commercials question the safety of
displaying their brand on Fox News after a situation like this takes place. Fox
did a good job at getting an apology and explanation of the situation out to
the public quickly, to assure the public, and it’s sponsors that they do not
align themselves with the twisted views of their former employee Blake Neff.
Fox’s biggest competitors, like MSNBC and CNN news networks, are big
stakeholders of Fox, and benefit off of this controversy by gaining the viewers
that left Fox because of what happened. To keep the stakeholder’s best
interests in mind, Fox will have to do a better job at monitoring their
writers, and anchors, to help prevent a similar situation from occurring again.
Individualism:
Individualism’s main focus and ideals, brought
about by Friedman, is about maximizing profit. Friedman believes that profit
should be at the forefront of every business that is attempting to reach its
max profitability. Another key principle of individualism is to remain within
the law when attempting to maximize profit, for the sake of being ethically
permissible. From an individualist perspective, this situation hurt Fox News.
Blake Neff getting exposed for writing these messages brought a whole bunch of
problems to Fox news. Fox lost viewers as the story spread across other news
outlets. The situation hurt Fox’s reputation in the public eye, and while they
did not break the law, Fox was doing the exact opposite of making profit.
Multiple sponsors no longer ran ads on the show, including Disney, Papa John’s,
and T-Mobile. Fox was put in a tough situation as they did not know what Neff
was doing, so they had little control in their outcome, but this was definitely
against individualist views. Fox would be ethically responsible for allowing
Tucker Carlson to say controversial things on the air that offend certain
people and cause the advertisers to pull away.
Utilitarianism
The goal of Utilitarianism is to maximize
self-happiness and the happiness of others. “Under a utilitarian framework, all
beings who are capable of experiencing happiness should be considered when
weighing the costs and benefits of actions” (Salazar). In this situation, with
Utilitarian ideals, the principle of utility was not effectively displayed.
Happiness was not maximized for everyone. Blake Neff and Tucker Carlson making
controversial comments provided negative feedback for the company and was
extremely hurtful to the sales of the company. The stockholders would be very
unhappy as a result of this claim because the value of the company dropped and
sales went down. The viewers at home are not happy because they now are going
to have a hard time trusting the news network. It was a bad look for the
company and which made everyone unhappy, and dissatisfied.
Kantianism
The formula of humanity is to not treat someone simply as a
means but always as an end. This means to not use people and don't lie,
exploit, manipulate, steal, disrespect, degrade, objectify anyone. In this
situation, the formula of humanity was not applied. Blake Neff and Tucker
Carlson offended millions of people when they made their hateful and careless
comments. Neff’s comments in particular were degrading and objectifying women
and people of color. Carlson’s comments over the years have been disrespectful
to women, immigrants, and people of color. Fox News fails from the perspective
of Kantianism, by failing to take action against Carlson as he said the
comments that were degrading to millions of people. Fox treated their viewers
as a means and had disregard for their emotions. Fox took no action, and stood
by Tucker Carlson, allowing him to make hateful, degrading, and misleading
comments weekly on the top political news show in the country. By doing this,
they showed a lack of care for their viewers, and furthermore showed their lack
of acknowledgment for them as human beings. Fox treated their viewers as a mere
means, not as an end.
Virtue Theory
Courage, Justice, Honesty, and
Self-Control are the four virtues to evaluate to find out if someone is being
ethical in their business profession. These virtues are critical to a business
in order to remain ethical, have a good public image, and maximize success. Fox
News showed a lack of courage, as they allowed Tucker Carlson, and Neff to
display such offensive and bigoted rhetoric every weeknight on live television.
Their lack of moderation showed a blatant disregard for its millions of viewers
at home, along with the company and show’s reputation of being reliable.
Carlson and Neff both showed a lack of self-control numerous times when they
let their personal opinions interfere with their job, which is to provide
reliable and accurate news to the public. The offensive posts made by Blake are
the complete opposite of everything him, Tucker, and Fox News stand for.
Although Fox did issue an apology after Blake Neff was caught making the
horrible posts online, they have not acted, or shown any signs of disconnection
between themselves and Tucker Carlson. They do not have the virtue of Justice
in their company, because if they did, Neff would have been fired long before,
and Tucker Carlson would have had punishment for his offensive comments over
the years, where sponsors were lost in the process.
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| Blake Neff |
Justified Ethics Evaluation
In my opinion, Fox News, Tucker
Carlson, and Blake Neff all have a clear disregard for the stakeholders of Fox,
along with people in general. Tucker Carlson’s lengthy history of controversial
comments, with clear public backlash should have been a major red flag for Fox
News when hiring him. Fox’s claim to be reliable is hard to defend after
hearing controversy after controversy constantly about it’s top news show host.
Blake Neff getting exposed was something that, in my opinion, Fox News and
Carlson can never fully recover from. The man who was writing and preparing the
monologue for the top-rated political television broadcast in the nation being
exposed as a racist is a shocking headline that causes a huge amount of public
relation problems. Tucker Carlson stands strong with his views on political
issues, which causes him to receive a great deal of support, from the right
leaning people in American politics, and a lack of support from the left
leaning Americans. Tucker’s show is fueled on his opinion based political
subject matter, which revolves around hot topic issues that are easy to start
controversy. Ethically speaking, Carlson needs to be more careful about what he
says, and Fox needs to do a better job at enforcing honesty, character, and
justice within their company.
Action Plan
The current issue that revolves around this situation is
that Tucker Carlson and Blake Neff have made controversial posts and comments
over the years that have Fox News on constant watch by the American people. Fox
News has become a hotbed for controversy. To resolve this issue, Fox getting
rid of Neff was the correct move. On top of parting ways with Neff, Fox needs
to perform a company wide rebrand, and let their employees know that offensive
comments will no longer be disregarded or defended by the company. A set of
core values that Fox should have moving forward should be to: Respect everyone
from all different backgrounds, report honest, and accurate news in a timely
fashion, and hold all employees accountable for their actions.
The new mission statement of Fox News is to bring you fast,
reliable, unbiased news from all around the world. We respect and value all
people from various diverse backgrounds and strive to appeal to everyone when
it comes to delivering the news to our nation. This statement differs from the
original because it focuses on encompassing everyone, and takes consideration
for anyone who can be watching from home, no matter what their background or
political views are. Fox needs to refrain from being heavily biased towards
conservatives, and find a common ground that can be liked and appreciated by
all political viewpoints.
According to the society of professional journalists:
Journalists
should:
–
Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before
releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible.
–
Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable. Give
voice to the voiceless.
–
Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
–
Boldly tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience.
Seek sources whose voices we seldom hear.
–
Avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the ways their values and
experiences may shape their reporting.
–
Never deliberately distort facts or context, including visual information.
Clearly label illustrations and re-enactments.
Moving forward, Fox news should adhere to these principles
to stay ethically correct and bring the channel more success in the future.
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