I guess it’s fair to say the final score is Jon Stewart 2, Tucker Carlson 0. First Stewart humiliated Carlson on Crossfire and blasted the embarrassment the CNN show had become. In the subsequent fallout, Carlson was fired and Crossfire, which Stewart said was “hurting America,” has been cancelled.
CNN, which lost the services of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson to MSNBC yesterday, immediately signaled plans to get rid of his former program, “Crossfire,” the 22-year-old shout show that gave birth to dozens of high-decibel cable slugfests.
CNN/U.S. President Jonathan Klein sided yesterday with comedian Jon Stewart, who used a “Crossfire” appearance last fall to rip the program as partisan hackery. “I think he made a good point about the noise level of these types of shows, which does nothing to illuminate the issues of the day,” Klein said in an interview. Viewers need “useful” information in a dangerous world, he said, “and a bunch of guys screaming at each other simply doesn’t accomplish that.”
Klein added, “I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp.”
After its 22-year run, Crossfire will no longer have its own time slot on CNN. Reportedly, Inside Politics will occasionally feature Crossfire hosts “debating,” but it would only be a small, infrequent feature of the afternoon political program.
I guess the only question left is, will anyone actually miss Crossfire?
Post Script: Just as an aside, I noticed the Washington Post chose Howard Kurtz to write the article on the developments at CNN. Isn’t this a fairly obvious conflict of interest? Kurtz hosts his own program on the same network he’s reporting on. In other words, a CNN employee wrote an article for another news outlet about what’s happening at CNN. Am I the only one who finds that problematic?
Update: I should probably clarify the word “fire” as it relates to CNN and Carlson. The bow-tied one had a contract with CNN and began negotiations to have it renewed. Instead, the network decided it no longer required Carlson’s services. To say he was “fired” may not be the most accurate word; perhaps it’s better to say the network “showed him the door.”