The Fox News producer thought to have been responsible for running a provocative banner headline about Joe Biden during Donald Trump’s response to his criminal indictment on Tuesday has left the network, according to reports.
Alexander McCaskill, former managing editor of Tucker Carlson Tonight, resigned following the banner, or chyron, that read “wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested”, according to the Daily Beast.
Fox News had addressed the banner debacle in a statement on Wednesday, saying “the chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed”. But it still provoked criticism from multiple angles.
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that Fox airing the chyron was “wrong”, while the former Fox host Tucker Carlson said during his Twitter show on Thursday that the banner, which he said was up for 27 seconds, had caused “the women who run the network” to panic.
“First they scolded the producer who put the banner on the screen,” Carlson claimed. “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.”
McCaskill, the Fox News producer at the center of the chyron controversy, also featured in a lawsuit brought by former Fox talent booker Abby Grossberg that claims Fox News, Fox Corp and employees including Tucker Carlson fostered a workplace riven with abusive behaviors.
Grossberg claims she was subjected to religious discrimination by McCaskill, who placed three inflatable Christmas decorations in the bookings area – “a preposterous display that was distracting and loud” and a smaller one by her desk with a sign that read “Hannukah bush”. Grossberg is Jewish.
McCaskill, the lawsuit claims, “habitually belittled female employees”. While pitching a promotional idea for Carlson’s End of Men documentary, McCaskill remarked that the breastfeeding “mother’s room” was a “waste of space” and should be replaced with a “room of tanning beds for the guys to tan their testicles”.
Grossberg also claims that McCaskill and another producer, Justin Wells, once remarked that a junior booker who reported to Grossberg “should use her sex appeal to the TCT team’s advantage, such as by ‘sleep[ing] with Elon Musk to get [an] interview’”.
Fox News has said that Grossberg’s lawsuit was “riddled with false allegations”. But following its multimillion-dollar settlement in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case, and Carlson’s exit from Fox News sooner after, CNN reported on Thursday that the Murdoch-owned station was close to settling with Grossberg.
