In November 2020, when NPR reported Tucker Carlson's win in the defamation lawsuit brought against him on the basis that the viewers of his top-rated news program don't show up expecting truth or facts, it should have been clear that Tucker's word wasn't worth a wooden nickel. But, for those that need more concrete evidence of that assertion, you can easily find it within the recently revealed tax statement revealed by The Daily Beast, along with a variety of ethically problematic connections between the organization and its donors.
While most know Carlson from his primetime Fox News show, a large part of his career journey was his role at The Daily Caller, the "conservative answer to the Huffington Post" that he founded with Neil Patel, former policy advisor to Vice President Cheney, in 2010. That said, it came as a bit of a surprise when Tucker told The Wall Street Journal in 2020 that he was leaving the Daily Caller and selling his stake in the website, regardless of the growing popularity of his Fox News program,
"I'm just too absorbed in what I'm doing," he explained to the WSJ. "I wasn't helping in any way, because I've got an hour to do every night [on my Fox show]."
Despite that, the Daily Caller News Foundation's 2021 tax statement [the official title of the document released by The Daily Beast]--covering the year following Tucker's empty explanation--reveals that he continued to hold his chairman position and invested the same amount of time as is recorded on all previous filings by the foundation--five hours per week.
But this statement filing includes something that those in the past have not--a list of donors to the 501(c)(4) organization, also known as a "dark money" group which isn't required by law to disclose donor information. And this illuminating information has revealed that the non-profit has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from individuals [as well as entities] who have received favorable coverage. Some were even given the opportunity to author opinion pieces!
In a conversation between Kelly McBride, senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newark Center for Ethics and Leadership, and The Daily Beast [who originally broke this story], McBride lays out, "With any news organization that solicits donations, you really have to have an editorial policy that articulates how you separate out your loyalty to your audience and to your journalistic mission from your ties to your donors. Such a policy would ideally include an advisement to donors that they can't influence editorial work, and a promise of transparency whenever there's a conflict of interest. You’re looking for, first of all, separation between fundraising and the editorial product, and you’re also looking for clarity around what donors can expect in exchange for their donation, as well as transparency so the audience understands a tagline on an op-ed would be an obvious transparency mechanism."
The journalistic and ethical standards listed on The Daily Caller's website don't include any policy regarding donor influence over editorial content; it doesn't even mention the foundation at all. However, it's now validated that some donors have contributed content themselves.
Read a more thorough breakdown of the findings in The Daily Beast's article here:
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