Commentary: Newsletter Peddlers Offended by Real Journalism Quit

Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg

An 82-second movie trailer was supposedly all it took for two of the most perpetually outraged—and chronically wrong—political pundits to quit their gigs at Fox News.

“The trailer for Tucker Carlson’s special about the Jan. 6 mob at the Capitol landed online on Oct. 27, and that night Jonah Goldberg sent a text to his business partner, Stephen Hayes: ‘I’m tempted just to quit Fox over this,’” New York Times media columnist Ben Smith revealed in an unnecessarily lengthy article on November 21 to explain why the pair resigned before they were let go by the network, as a Fox executive later confirmed to the Washington Post. “‘I’m game,’ Mr. Hayes replied. ‘Totally outrageous. It will lead to violence. Not sure how we can stay.’”

Carlson’s documentary, “Patriot Purge,” aired in three separate segments on the network’s streaming service, Fox Nation, a few days later. It’s unclear whether Goldberg or Hayes watched the film in its entirety but additional commentary—given to Smith over Zoom while “clad in athleisure,” a word intended to lend muscularity to two of the laziest commentators in the business—suggests that neither did.

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