Jerry, this is the news section. I have been adding some general news content for months as it does a number of things, not least of which it drives some eyeballs to our site from non-hams. Nobody is forced to read it, but the material is there for anyone that cares to. Site traffic is going to start paying for the “fun stuff” that everyone wants, so hopefully everyone will keep that in mind when they post in any of the forums. Just like the civility talk that T. Wayne gave at the last Club meeting, we all need to use care in how we interact with each other on the radio, open to all to hear. I submit the same behavior standards apply to posting on the site.
Charles, here are my takeaways: Fox Corporation before settlement: $4 billion in cash on hand. Fox Corporation after settlement: $3.2+ billion cash on hand. Market value: $16.30 billion. Big picture? When they had $4 billion in cash Fox planned to continue using their excess cash to buy back stock and increase its value. Now that they are “down to” $3.2 billion in cash, that outlook is unchanged. The settlement has no material effect whatsoever. What did apparently happen with Tucker Carlson is that during the Dominion litigation discovery phase a bunch of texts and emails showed up where he was highly critical of his bosses. In my opinion, widely shared by and commented on by the legal community, Dominion lawyers were winning the case at every turn. One of the things they did very well was to play to the court of public opinion with selective and highly damaging leaks of that and other testimony. I suspect that if a person publicly ridicules their bosses that person runs a high risk of being fired. In my former capacity as a leader in my pilot union I used to occasionally counsel college educated professionals who complained that my employer was squelching their 1st Amendment rights – The 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights ensures the government cannot infringe your speech (although some would argue it does so anyway in some cases). If you say something they disagree with, your employer may fire you, your spouse may divorce you and your friends may shun you and in the case of our very own Club, a person may be banned from the local repeaters. There are no 1st Amendment protections against any of that. It appears that Tucker Carlson just learned that one the hard way. He was reportedly getting $20 million a year and they are also reportedly fully paying his contract, so he won’t be on public assistance. Having read about his and Don Lemon’s separation I wish them both the best and will not engage in any type of cheering their respective departures.
Maybe I should not have posted it, but I did not expect this news story to provoke any consternation. It was factual and a newsworthy event. Hopefully our readers valued the opportunity to read a Wall Street Journal piece they would not otherwise have had access to. I have posted other news of interest and usually do not get any feedback to them at all. We have some forum moderation tools that I will start looking into so that in the future if anyone thinks a post is overly charged, brings the Club into an unfavorable light, etc., it may be reported for moderator review. I don’t personally think any of this has crossed any lines, but I will generally urge 100% civility in any follow up posts or I will simply lock it.
Take care,
Phillip