by tyler | May 3, 2023 | CNN, media
In a newly revealed text message, ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson made a racist comment and said he found himself briefly rooting for a mob of Trump supporters to kill a person, according to the New York Times.
“A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington,” Carlson wrote in the January 2021 text message to a producer, the New York Times reported late Tuesday. “A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living s**t out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it.”
The text message, which was included in redacted court filings in the Dominion Voting Systems case, was swept up in discovery as part of the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit against Fox, according to the Times.
The text message alarmed Fox’s board of directors and played a role in Carlson’s abrupt firing last month, the paper reported.
Fox News declined to comment to CNN on the report. Tucker Carlson did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The network announced last week that Fox News and Carlson had severed ties. The decision to part ways with Carlson was made by Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, a person familiar with the matter said.
The announcement came one week after Fox News settled a monster defamation lawsuit with Dominion for $787.5 million over the network’s dissemination of election lies. The lawsuit had exposed Carlson disparaging his colleagues. A lawsuit filed in March by his now-fired top booker, Abby Grossberg, also included a number of allegations of sexism on his show.
But the text revealed by the New York Times remains redacted. At the end of his text, Carlson reportedly continued that he does not condone violence.
“Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be,” Carlson continued, per The NYT. “The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Carlson’s racist message wasn’t shocking considering his frequent anti-immigrant comments on his show.
“What’s not news is the fact that Tucker Carlson is a white nationalist,” Greenblatt tweeted. “What is news is the fact that this somehow is surprising to anyone.”
Fox has not publicly commented on Carlson’s departure other than to say, “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
by tyler | Apr 28, 2023 | CNN, media
Musician Ed Sheeran played guitar and sang on the stand Thursday as part of his testimony in a copyright infringement trial about whether his smash single “Thinking Out Loud” copied the classic Marvin Gaye song “Let’s Get It On.”
Sheeran played the opening line of “Thinking Out Loud” in an attempt to rebut the testimony of the plaintiff’s expert witness, Alexander Stewart.
Stewart is a music expert called by the plaintiffs. On Wednesday, Stewart claimed the chords Sheeran played in the first 24 seconds of the song were “virtually identical” to “Let’s Get It On.”
Sheeran denied he played the chords in the way Stewart described, and played the two versions to show the difference.
“It helps his argument, obviously,” Sheeran said. “It works very, very, well for him, but it’s not the truth.”
Sheeran testified that he and co-writer Amy Wadge wrote “Thinking Out Loud” in less than a day in February 2014 when Wadge was staying at his house in the UK.
They were working on music and had written about two other songs when Sheeran went upstairs to shower before dinner, he said. Sheeran described coming out of the shower, hearing Wadge playing chords, and thinking “we need to do something with that.” After returning home from dinner that night, they finished the song and recorded it on an iPhone voice message, he said.
Wadge came up with the basic chord progression in the opening part of the song, Sheeran testified. They likely alternated to come up with chords in another part of the song and both collaborated on the lyrics, he said. Sheeran said he and Wadge both had relatives who were ill or had recently died, and thinking about their long marriages served as inspiration for the song.
Sheeran was previously briefly called to testify Tuesday by attorney Keisha Rice, who represents the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the song “Let’s Get it on,” with Marvin Gaye.
During his earlier testimony, the musician said the idea of creating the medley was “probably mine.” He said if he had indeed copied “Let’s Get It On,” then he “would’ve been an idiot to stand on stage in front of 20,000 people.”
Defense attorneys did not cross-examine Sheeran on Tuesday.
Sheeran is accused of copying “Let’s Get It On” by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the 1973 hit with Gaye. Townsend’s daughter Kathryn Townsend Griffin, sister Helen McDonald and the estate of his former wife, Cherrigale Townsend, are the listed plaintiffs on the “Thinking Out Loud” case. Gaye died in 1984 and Townsend died in 2003.
Sheeran’s legal team has argued throughout the week that the sounds used in both songs are common in pop music.
In his opening statement Tuesday, Townsend attorney Ben Crump noted Sheeran played his ballad and Gaye’s song back-to-back in a medley during a concert, and called the moment a “smoking gun.”
by tyler | Apr 26, 2023 | CNN, media
Musician Ed Sheeran’s court case continued Wednesday in a high-profile copyright trial about whether his smash single “Thinking Out Loud” copied the classic Marvin Gaye song “Let’s Get It On.”
Dr. Alexander Stewart, a music expert called by the plaintiffs on Wednesday, testified about the similarities he perceives in aspects of the two songs, saying that the chord progression in the two songs “sound very, very similar” to him.
Sheeran is accused of copying “Let’s Get It On” by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the 1973 hit with Gaye. Townsend’s daughter Kathryn Townsend Griffin, sister Helen McDonald and the estate of his former wife, Cherrigale Townsend, are the listed plaintiffs on the “Thinking Out Loud” case. Gaye died in 1984 and Townsend died in 2003.
In Stewart’s testimony Wednesday, he said in his view the two songs “have the same harmonic rhythm,” referring to the rate of change of the chords. In particular he sees melodic similarities in the verse, chorus and interlude of Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud,” he said.
British singer Sheeran’s legal team has argued that the sounds used in both songs are common in pop music. “No one owns basic musical building blocks,” Ilene Farkas, Sheeran’s attorney, told the jury in opening remarks Tuesday.
In his own opening statement Tuesday, Townsend attorney Ben Crump noted Sheeran played his ballad and Gaye’s song back-to-back in a medley during a concert, and called the moment a “smoking gun.”
Sheeran was called to the stand Tuesday by Townsend attorney Keisha Rice, and during his testimony the musician said the idea of creating the medley was “probably mine.” He said if he had indeed copied “Let’s Get It On,” then he “would’ve been an idiot to stand on stage in front of 20,000 people.”
The singer was present in court on Wednesday but was not expected to testify.
by tyler | Apr 26, 2023 | CNN, media
Fox News has agreed to give voting technology company Smartmatic additional documents about Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and other senior corporate executives. Smartmatic is suing the right-wing network for $2.7 billion over its airing of 2020 election lies.
The agreement was announced Wednesday at a court hearing in Manhattan. New York Supreme Court Judge David Cohen scheduled the hearing after Smartmatic raised concerns about whether Fox was complying with its pretrial obligations to turn over relevant evidence.
“We will produce the materials as quickly as we are able to,” Fox lawyer Winn Allen said.
Fox also will give Smartmatic documents related to Rupert Murdoch’s son Lachlan Murdoch, who is the CEO of Fox Corp., as well as relevant materials about Chief Legal Officer Viet Dinh and Raj Shah, a former Trump administration official who is now a vice president at Fox Corp.
These materials will include deposition transcripts and exhibits, apparently from the recently settled defamation case involving Dominion Voting Systems, a Smartmatic lawyer said in court.
New York Supreme Court Judge David Cohen had already agreed to a “broadening of discovery,” according to a ruling issued Tuesday, where he ordered Fox to make additional materials available, including information about the network’s 2020 ratings and about its internal fact-check team. But Smartmatic wanted more.
In a letter to the judge, Smartmatic lawyers said they “noticed obvious gaps” among the records Fox Corporation has already provided. They claim the right-wing outlet might be holding back material the Murdochs.
Fox lawyers said in recent court filings that they’re complying with all court orders and pointed out that Fox Corp. has already produced more than 30,000 documents to Smartmatic.
The monster case pits Smartmatic against Fox News, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Fox hosts Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, and former host Lou Dobbs, who all promoted the baseless lie that Smartmatic rigged the 2020 election. An appeals court recently dropped Fox Corp. as a defendant, but Smartmatic refiled its lawsuit and is trying to re-add the parent company.
These figures falsely claimed Smartmatic was created to steal elections for former Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, and that a global cabal of Democrats and socialists used Smartmatic software to flip millions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. (In truth, there wasn’t any widespread fraud in 2020, and Smartmatic’s machines were only used in one county that year.)
With the Dominion litigation settled, Smartmatic’s suit is the biggest pending defamation case against Fox News. The global voting technology company wants $2.7 billion in damages. Fox denies wrongdoing and has accused Smartmatic of trying “to chill First Amendment freedoms.”
by tyler | Apr 25, 2023 | CNN, media
A high-profile copyright trial over whether Ed Sheeran’s smash single “Thinking Out Loud” copied a classic Marvin Gaye song officially kicked off in a Manhattan federal courtroom on Tuesday.
Ben Crump, a lawyer representing the family of the co-writer for Gaye’s 1973 hit “Let’s Get It On,” said in his opening statement that Sheeran played his ballad and Gaye’s song back-to-back in a medley during a concert, and called the moment a “smoking gun.”
Sheeran, who was present in the courtroom, is accused of copying “Let’s Get It On” by the heirs of Ed Townsend, who co-wrote the song with Gaye. Townsend’s daughter Kathryn Townsend Griffin, sister Helen McDonald and the estate of his former wife, Cherrigale Townsend, are the listed plaintiffs on the “Thinking Out Loud” case. Gaye died in 1984 and Townsend died in 2003.
In Tuesday’s court proceedings, Crump attempted to portray Sheeran as someone who recognized the “magic” of Gaye’s soul song and then used it to catapult his career. “Thinking Out Loud” would go on to win the 2016 Grammy award for song of the year.
“if you remember nothing else about this trial, about this case, it is about giving credit where credit is due,” Crump told the jury, which was selected Monday.
Sheeran’s legal team argued that the sounds used in both songs are common in pop music. “No one owns basic musical building blocks,” Ilene Farkas, Sheeran’s lawyer, told the jury in opening remarks.
There have been a number of prominent music copyright lawsuits in recent years.
Gaye’s family has previously sued other artists for copyright infringement—and won. The estate successfully sued singer Robin Thicke and producer Pharrell Williams for $7.4 million in 2015 for borrowing from Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” for their hit “Blurred Lines,” though the case turned into a five-year legal battle that ultimately saw the judgment reduced to $5.3 million. The ruling also awarded Gaye’s family 50% percent of the royalties from “Blurred Lines” moving forward.
But other, recent copyright cases have had different outcomes.
Taylor Swift faced a similar case in 2017 over her smash hit “Shake It Off,” which was settled and dismissed last year. Led Zeppelin was sued in 2014 over its iconic tune “Stairway to Heaven” by the estate of late Randy California, former lead guitarist of the 1960s band Spirit, for lifting part of their single “Taurus.” A 2020 appeals court ruled in Led Zeppelin’s favor.
Sheeran, meanwhile, has faced previous legal battles over his music and won. In a 2022 case over his song “Shape of You,” a judge ruled in Sheeran’s favor that he did not copy grime artist Sami Switch’s song “Oh Why” after the musician accused Sheeran of plagiarizing a key part. He was also sued in 2016 over his single “Photograph,” which was settled out of court.
After his successful 2022 legal battle, Sheeran posted a video to his Instagram voicing his concern over the recent wave of music copyright cases.
“It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry. There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify. That’s 22 million songs a year, and there’s only 12 notes that are available,” Sheeran said. “I’m not an entity. I’m not a corporation. I’m a human being. I’m a father. I’m a husband. I’m a son. Lawsuits are not a pleasant experience.”
by tyler | Apr 25, 2023 | CNN, media
The real reason for Fox News’ abrupt firing of its most popular star remains a mystery that the media industry will surely be chewing on for months.
But if history is any guide, there’s one thing we can count on: Cutting Tucker Carlson loose is not a sign that Fox is ready to change its ways.
Carlson may have been its loudest and most extreme vanguard of far-right pandering and misinformation, but he was hardly the first. He will not be last.
“The O’Reilly Factor” was a tentpole in Fox’s programming, occupying the 8 pm slot for nearly two decades. Its host, Bill O’Reilly, a self-styled populist patriot who railed against politically correct liberals, was shown the door in 2017 after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct sent advertisers fleeing.
When O’Reilly left, speculation swirled about whether it would mark a turning point for Fox. Commentators wondered aloud then, as they are doing now, about how O’Reilly’s messy and expensive exit would surely be a wake-up call.
Instead, Carlson took over and managed to juice its already dominant ratings, averaging more than 3 million nightly viewers. He achieved that by, among other things, seizing on fears among older White conservatives over immigration, race and sexual politics in America. He regularly brought fringe, racist talking points such as the “great replacement” conspiracy theory into the mainstream.
The content on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” made “The O’Reilly Factor” look like “Leave It to Beaver.”
That strategy wasn’t a new one for Fox. Glenn Beck, whose show premiered at the start of President Barack Obama’s first term, was an early experiment in mixing right-wing talking points with fear, moral outrage and performative disbelief about an imagined liberal agenda to destroy the country.
“There will be a new Tucker Carlson, and it’s a good bet he or she will be even worse,” wrote David A. Graham in The Atlantic.
For now, the coveted 8 pm time slot will be filled by a rotation of hosts.
Carlson had become a thorn in Fox’s side for a few reasons. Not least: His behind-the-scenes trash-talking of President Trump and his own false narratives about the 2020 election were expected to be damning evidence in the defamation trial against the network, which paid $787 million to settle earlier this month. He’s also being sued by a former producer who alleges there was rampant sexism and misconduct on his show.
Fox hasn’t connected either of those legal headaches to Carlson’s ouster, but there’s almost certainly more to the story that isn’t being made public.
“This isn’t the kind of decision Fox would make in some kind of weighing the pros and cons performance review,” writes Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo. “There would need to be some big, fat near-existential reason behind it…We just haven’t heard it yet.
Whatever Fox’s reasoning, it’s safe to assume that whoever replaces Carlson will have to be cut from the same cloth. Because, as the Dominion documents made clear, Fox is, for the first time in its history, facing serious competition from the far right in the form of ultra-conservative cable outlets OAN and Newsmax.
In other words: Fox now needs its audience even more than its audience needs it, and the network can’t afford to let down its pro-Trump base.
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