UNITED STATES: The Fox News producer behind running a controversial chyron headline about President Joe Biden during Donald Trump’s Tuesday response to his criminal indictment has departed the network, as per reports.
Alexander McCaskill, the former managing editor of ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’, resigned after the chyron, or banner, read, “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested,” as per reports.
In a statement on Wednesday, Fox News addressed the banner scandal, claiming that “the chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed.” However, it still drew criticism from a variety of perspectives.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for the White House, called Fox’s airing of the chyron “wrong,” while Tucker Carlson, a former Fox anchor, stated during his Thursday Twitter show that the banner, which he claimed was up for 27 seconds, had “caused the women who run the network” to fear.
Carlson stated that they immediately scolded the producer who had placed the banner on the screen. He quit less than 24 hours later, the former anchor said.
“He had been with Fox for over a decade. He was regarded as one of the most capable individuals in the building. He offered to stay for the standard two weeks, but Fox urged him to clean his desk and go right away,” Carlson added.
McCaskill, the Fox News producer at the centre of the chyron controversy, was named in a complaint filed by Abby Grossberg, a former talent booker for Fox, alleging that Fox News, Fox Corporation, and employees like Tucker Carlson fostered an environment at work rife with abusive behaviours.
Grossberg alleges that McCaskill engaged in religious discrimination when she erected two larger “Hannukah bush” decorations near her desk and three inflatable Christmas decorations in the bookings area, creating “a preposterous display that was distracting and loud”. Grossberg is a Jew.
The lawsuit asserts that McCaskill “habitually belittled female employees”. McCaskill stated that the breastfeeding “mother’s room” was a “waste of space” and should be replaced with a “room of tanning beds for the guys to tan their testicles” while suggesting a marketing concept for Carlson’s End of Men documentary.
Grossberg further alleges that McCaskill and another producer, Justin Wells, allegedly suggested that a junior booker who answered to her “should use her sex appeal to the TCT team’s advantage, such as by’sleep[ing] with Elon Musk to get [an] interview.”
Grossberg’s lawsuit, according to Fox News, was “riddled with false allegations.” However, after its multimillion-dollar settlement in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case and Carlson’s departure from Fox News shortly after, a US news channel claimed on Thursday that the Murdoch-owned station was close to reaching a settlement with Grossberg.
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