From a bow-tie wearing conservative cub reporter to CNN's token right-winger and Crossfire humiliation at the hands of Jon Stewart - how Tucker Carlson came to dominate American media and reshape Fox News in his image

Daily Mail UK ^ | April 24, 2023 | Lewis Pennock

[Morgana]

Tucker Carlson's three-decade media career saw him transform from a little-known, bow tie wearing CNN commentator to one of the most powerful figures in American media.

The 53-year-old is out at Fox News days after it paid $787.5 million to settle the Dominion lawsuit. He has spent years as the face of the network's political coverage through his hugely successful nightly show, Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Carlson divided opinion - and drew fierce criticism from the left - with his polemics on everything from the 2020 presidential election to the Black Lives Matter movement.

But he hasn't always been known as a divisive right-wing firebrand.

His career, which began in the mid-1990s, has included work for a wide range of publications, including a long stint at CNN, and he's also the author of several books.

Carlson started his career in the 1990s as a fact-checker for Policy Review, a conservative journal which ceased publication in 2013. After that, he worked as an opinion writer at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The early years of his print career also included a stint at The Weekly Standard, which closed down in 2018.

As a print journalist, he wrote for publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and Esquire. But, at the time, there were limits to who he was willing to work for.

In 1999, Carlson told how he'd feared he'd be 'written off as a wing nut' if he joined The American Spectator, a conservative magazine.

His TV break came in 2000 when he joined CNN and co-hosted The Spin Room.

[gibsonguy]

I think you may be being too harsh. I think Tucker saw the light especially after the mob terrorized his family at his house