Cable news ratings; An important point in defense of Fox News — on CNN! — while Tucker somehow makes Trump boring

CNN media analyst and Axios reporter Sara Fischer offered a contrarian — yet vitally important — take on the ongoing Fox News defamation suit Wednesday morning.
In an appearance on CNN This Morning, Fischer began with a solid summary of Tuesday’s stunning news from the Delaware courtroom where the drama centered on Fox’s Sunday disclosure that Rupert Murdoch is still, at least on paper, an officer of Fox News – not just the chairman of Fox Corp. That revelation drew the wrath of the judge in the case.
Fischer then offered a word of caution for those rooting for Fox News to lose the lawsuit.
“As a journalist” she noted being a “little bit worried about this case, because if Fox is to lose, essentially the precedent that is being set is that people who are powerful, that want to sue news organizations, you can, you know the bar gets lowered a little bit for to an extent if Fox loses this case,” Fischer argued.
“And so the thing that I'm watching is even let's say if Dominion wins, do they win for $1.6 billion? If they don't, to me, it suggests that that bar is not as low as it could be if they lost it all,” she added, noting that the final cost to Fox News will have legal significance for defamation cases going forward.
Props to Fischer for offering both an unexpected take in an unexpected environment and for hitting on a deeper and more fundamental issue behind a highly contentious and polarizing topic that has too many people cheering for their own team.

Tucker Carlson spoke with Donald Trump in the former president’s first media interview since being arraigned in Manhattan last week.
It was also Carlson’s first sit-down with Trump after it was revealed the Fox News host privately texted a colleague, “I hate him passionately.” In other texts, Carlson also called Trump “a demonic force” and “a destroyer,” stating shortly after the 2020 election that he “can’t wait” to be rid of him as a topic of conversation.
But none of that animus was anywhere near on display in Carlson’s interview on Tuesday night.
The top-rated cable news host gave Trump the full hour of his show while tossing him softball after softball with no pushback as the ex-president played his greatest hits.
“For a man who is caricatured as an extremist, we think you’ll find what he has to say moderate, sensible, and wise,” Carlson told viewers during the broadcast.
It's not like Trump doesn't have things to answer for. As Carlson himself revealed in private texts, he sees the former president as a malevolent "destroyer." In the years since we've had a riot at the U.S. Capitol and a presidential campaign that has Trump loyalists questioning if he's in it for the country or himself. Carlson didn't ask about any of that.
The interview was dull, uneventful, and void of the kind of tough questions we'd expect from a veteran journalist like Carlson. Or, at least, the Carlson that texts when the cameras are off.