Fox News has reportedly parted ways with the producer behind a controversial chyron that appeared briefly on the network in primetime, calling President Joe Biden a "wannabe dictator, while accusing him of ginning one of the ongoing criminal investigations of rival Donald Trump.
The Daily Beast first reported on the exit of Alexander McCaskill, who served as senior producer for Tucker Carlson Tonight until that show's namesake was fired himself from the network in April.
McCaskill also posted a selfie from his private Instagram account exiting Fox News HQ with a box ... and what appears to be on first glance a scythe. In that post, McCaskill said Fox News was "the best place I ever worked" and that he'd asked management to let him go.
Moving his act to social media, Carlson in his most recent Tucker on Twitter installment this week referred to his former producer (not by name) and said he quit after “the women who run the network panicked.
“First they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen,” Carlson said. “Less than 24 hours after that, he resigned. He had been at Fox for more than a decade. He was considered one of the most capable people in the building. He offered to stay for the customary two weeks, but Fox told him to clear out his desk and leave immediately.”
Fox News didn't immediately respond to Next TV's inquiry for confirmation and comment. When asked about the chyron earlier this week, the network responded, "The chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed.”
The producer's exit represents only the latest turbulence for what is still the top-rated cable news channel ... and what remains as arguably, as this week's chyron once again revealed, the most powerfully divisive force in American society.
Carlson and his production staff have largely been at the center of this tumult.
In April, Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a libel case filed against the network by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems. That case was tied to reports on Fox News in the aftermath of the 2020 election and January 6, 2021 insurrection at the nation's capital.
Instrumental in putting Fox in the compromised circumstance where the company felt the best course was coughing up such a large settlement: Multiple text messages made by Carlson, clearly communicating a preference for ratings points and share price vs. truth and journalism. Those texts were rendered into damning evidence.
Meanwhile, the former host and his producers, McCaskill specifically, further fell under scrutiny when they were all named in a lawsuit filed by another Tucker Carlson Tonight producer, Abby Grossberg. She claims they created a toxic environment.
