Three high-profile firings cast harsh light on US TV’s workplace culture
T hey say three makes a trend and US television was convulsed last week by a trio of scandals and sudden sackings that cast a harsh spotlight on a too often toxic workplace culture that floods the top echelons of TV land in America as surely as the fill-in lights of a broadcast studio.
It also helped cost the jobs of three of the biggest names in the media landscape as well as convulsing some of the most powerful media empires in America.
The first head to roll, at midday on Monday, was the powerful rightwinger Tucker Carlson, Fox News’s 8pm primetime chieftain, who was suddenly ditched from his prominent perch at the network in a move that roiled the worlds of politics and media alike.
Carlson had shown hints of dissatisfaction some weeks before his execution, telling the podcast Full Send podcast that the media were “part of the control apparatus” and he had spent his “whole life being part of the problem”.
“For too long I participated in the culture of anyone who thinks outside of pre-prescribed lanes is a crazy person, and I really regret doing that,” he said.
Those comments came as a discrimination lawsuit was being readied by Abby Grossberg, Carlson’s former booker, that cast a brutal spotlight on the internal culture of Carlson’s show and some of its top executives.
Grossberg had been fired by Fox News shortly after she filed two lawsuits against the company in March claiming that Fox News, Fox Corp and employees including Carlson fostered a workplace rife with abusive behaviors, that included claims of bullying, antisemitism and sexism.
Grossberg claims she was “isolated, overworked, undervalued, denied opportunities for promotion, and generally treated significantly worse than her male counterparts, even when those
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