One is black—the other white. One leaned liberal. Russian dictators and oligarchs frequently quoted the other.

Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon were fired this week. Two very different men. Two entirely different television networks.

As different as the two television stars are – the reason for their downfall is basically the same.

I’ll explain.

I’m Gloria Moraga; I’m a political woman. Please subscribe. Share.

Tucker and Don.

And If I am allowed a personal note, I am because it’s my podcast.

I say Yay! It’s about time. Better late than never. I could go on. But I won’t.

Here’s the back story.

Tucker Carlson worked for Fox. Once a fresh-faced, clean-cut, all-American-looking Dude. He became an ugly, nasty, racist, right-wing pundit. He rose to fame with his misogynistic, fear-mongering, and racist rants. He denied the election and the Jan. 6. Insurrection.

A lap dog for an evil Donald Trump. And a lost Republican Party. The more vicious and crazier his opinion, the more he grew in popularity—the darling of a racist America.

As a lover of television news, I grew so sick of him and his rhetoric that I stopped Watching Fox entirely, which for me was difficult. I like to get all sides. I want to know what the enemy is up to.

We should have watched Hitler and Goebbels a little closer. It may have helped. We did not.

Don Lemon. Formerly on CNN. A handsome, almost beautiful man. Beautiful skin. My sister and I would call each other when his show would come on and we would ooh and ahh about how good-looking and intelligent our Don is. Of course, he’s gay—all the better. We are News, fag hags.

We loved the banter between him and Chris Cuomo.  

Sigh.

A series of events occurred that ended, at least temporarily, the television careers of Lemon and Carlson.

Before I go on, let me say that everybody, I mean everybody who works in television news gets fired at one time or another. If you don’t, you aren’t very good.

Sometimes your job hinges on the whim of one man. Yes. Man. They run the business. They still do. Some things don’t change.

Some people keep their jobs and either get demoted or promoted If management likes you, they promote you to an executive producer or managing editor job.  

That said, let’s get to Tucker and Don.

This is why I think they deserve what happened to them. I read the stories from the LA and New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which Fox Corp owns.

I read the back stories about management not “liking” Don Lemon, which is why he was Demoted to Mornings.

Here is why they deserve what they got.

And it’s not about Journalism, which is important, but I contend most television shows stopped caring about Journalism long ago. Yes. Journalism is more important than ever. But you can’t talk about Journalism in the same sentence as Tucker Carlson or Fox, not a news Network. The same holds for CNN. CNN is a cesspool.

Where is the bar when 60 Minutes gives Marjorie Taylor Green a segment? It’s down in hell someplace.

Tuck and Don forgot the unwritten rule of television news. Don’t fuck with your co-workers.

When I was a young television reporter in Fresno, California,  Yes, I’m going there. I got in the car one morning with my photographer Bobby McCray. A wonderful man and photographer.

And I told him where we were going. And started talking about our story—the story we had to shoot that morning.

He said, hold on there. He didn’t start the car. He said you forgot the most important thing. What, I said; what?

You forgot to ask me where I want to get my coffee. You see, you gotta keep me happy. I can shoot nothing, no story with coffee.

I will never forget that lesson. My motto became, “Well-fed photographer is a happy photographer.”

Television is a team sport. It’s not about the one. It’s about the many.

You can’t do it alone.

You must have a video photographer. You must have an in-studio camera operator. There are producers, directors, and audio technicians.

Oh yeah, many do what we used to call a “one-man band.”

And part of the team, the boss. The news managers, the station owner, and the corporate executive. Always remember whose name is on your pay stub.

You Work for them.

Here’s how the two men disrespected their co-workers. Some of them women. Yes. Women work in television. A woman was Tucker Carlson’s boss.

Don Lemon co-anchored with two strong, beautiful, smart, and talented women.

It is reported that one of Carlson’s favorite words was the C word. A derogatory word used to describe a woman’s body part. It is a word I loathe. It is reported that Carlson used the word to describe his boss.

Of course, this all came out because of the lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting System. A suit fox would have lost. So they settled instead for almost a billion dollars.

And then there is Don. The man I once loved from afar. When he commented on a particular woman politician being “past her prime.” I cringed.

Instead of stopping. Apologies. He went on. Oh, ya. A Woman is in her prime in her 20s or 30s. Google it.

I scratched my head. Is he talking about “SEXUAL PRIME?”

I remember an article, in Cosmopolitan Magazine, about when a woman hits her sexual prime.

He can’t mean that, I’m thinking.

His two co-anchors looked appalled.

I called my sister. I said Don Lemon is going to get fired. I added that he never looked comfortable in the mornings anyway.

But he didn’t get fired. Not yet.

There were reports that he didn’t get along with his co-workers and yelled at one of them off-camera for interrupting him too often on air. Tensions behind the scenes showed on camera. They always do.

Lemon is denying all of this.

Both men will land their feet. They had contracts. They have lawyers. They will be paid off. They will turn up someplace else.

When I posted a short 30-second video about Tucker being fired, there was joy on TikTok. But on YouTube, there was outrage.

The outrage is going to get worse before it gets better. Here’s why.

Abby Grossberg, the former Tucker Carlson producer, is suing Fox News for allegedly forcing her to give misleading testimony in the Dominion case. He had a long interview on Tuesday on MSNBC to dish dirt.

She talked about the life-size picture of Nancy Pelosi in a bikini in Carlson’s office.

Grossberg has an audio recording. Lots of them. She has recordings of Tucker using the C word and creating a toxic work environment.

Suppose Carlson and Lemon had followed the Bobby McCray Golden Rule. Be kind to your co-workers, including your bosses.

Why should you care about these two? Because it’s a lesson for everyone who deals with people every day, respect the people you work with. Be kind to your photographer and everyone else.

I’m gloria moraga; please subscribe. Please follow me on YouTube and Tiktok and check out my website GloriaMoraga.com.

Be safe.