Well, this is big. Very big indeed.

Tucker Carlson just announced that he is returning to the (virtual) airwaves. He will be broadcasting his show from Twitter.

We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023

It’s a bold move, and he combines it with an announcement that suggests inevitable legal action against Fox News for breach of contract and fraud.

Tucker Carlson, two weeks after being ousted by Fox News, accused the network Tuesday of fraud and breach of contract — and made a host of document demands that could precede legal action.

Why it matters: The aggressive letter from his lawyers to Fox positions Carlson to argue that the noncompete provision in his contract is no longer valid — freeing him to launch his own competing show or media enterprise.

• On Tuesday, Carlson announced he would be bringing his show to Twitter.
• “Starting soon we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,” he said in the video. “We bring some other things too, which we’ll tell you about. But for now we’re just grateful to be here. Free speech is the main right that you have. Without it, you have no others.”

The intrigue: The Twitter move would seem to technically violate Carlson’s contract with Fox, but his lawyers’ letter effectively holds that Fox breached the contract first.

• Sources told Axios that Carlson’s lawyers sent their letter before he took to Twitter to announce his new show.

Fox just can’t catch a break, can it? I suspect that the executives there are crying into their Bud Lights right about now, and wondering how large the check they will have to write in order to make this lawsuit go away.

Tucker’s lawyers are already talking about major discovery motions to come, and I can’t imagine that Fox is looking forward to opening up their file vaults once again. It didn’t work out well last time.

🚨🚨🚨🚨

Tucker comes out swinging against Fox.

Scoop: Tucker Carlson accuses Fox of fraud, contract breach https://t.co/DOI4TpZ74i

— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) May 9, 2023

Tucker’s news is huge both for him and for Twitter. He is the second major conservative media figure to jump onto Twitter as a platform for their content. Matt Walsh did so after YouTube demonitized his content on the platform, although unlike Carlson he has a home base at the Daily Wire.

It looks like Carlson will be using Twitter as his primary media platform. That should be good for him, as he can say what he wants without censorship, and good for Elon Musk, as it provides a cornerstone with a guaranteed audience for his move into providing original video content. Musk is determined to make Twitter an “everything app,” and despite all the people betting against him succeeding Tucker’s jump to Twitter is a major coup.

I assume Tucker’s show will be subscriber-based, and I have little doubt that he will get a zillion subscribers. Given Musk’s very generous incentives to content providers to jump onto the platform I expect that others will be looking to see how well Tucker does.

Twitter could become a video analog to Substack, where independent journalists build their own brands and audiences and wind up generating more audience and revenue for their content than any newspaper could provide. Media figures like Tucker, and those with smaller but substantial audiences may find their voice amplified. Tucker’s move may be lateral, or may even increase his reach. For smaller figures? It is quite possible that Twitter will become a subscription platform that amplifies their voice.

Think Bari Weiss, who had a mediocre paycheck at the New York Times. Now she runs a small media empire. The size of the empire is smaller than the Times, but her own income and impact are immeasurably larger than if she had stuck it out at her old job. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows she is making tens of millions a month in revenue, although that is only my guess based upon her “tens of thousands of subscribers.”

Tucker’s message in the video hits all the high points his audience will react to, and it should because what he says is true.

The news media is fatally compromised. What can be said is circumscribed by a narrative that is enforced from the top, and telling the whole truth as you see it is impossible. The vital role that independent journalists and commentators play is to provide context, and alternative points of view, and to broaden the conversation.

Nobody can be right all the time, but when everybody is repeating the same thing all the time as happens now, everybody is certainly wrong. Only through diverse voices, points of view, and multiple sources can something close to truth arise, and reasoned discussion take place.

We are nowhere near that place today. Hopefully, a robust ecosystem of divergent viewpoints will emerge on Twitter to challenge the MSM narrative.

One note of caution: mainstream news organizations have a major advantage about which too few people think, and it’s not their massive reach into people’s homes. We all know they have enormous reach and access to the insiders.

No, it’s resources. All the media outlets have vast networks of reporters to work with, budgets to fly people places, equipment everywhere around the world, and contacts everywhere. It will be difficult to duplicate that for independent journalists. Impossible, really.

I suspect what you will see is a hybrid system that most of us use to gather news. We will continue to rely on MSM outlets to gather data and inform us of breaking news but rely on others to help us navigate the sea of information and make sense of it. It will be highly imperfect and only exist for those of us not too lazy to seek alternative sources.

Yet that’s a huge improvement compared to what we have now. And perhaps it is better than what we have ever had. It’s not like the information market has ever been great, even in the golden age of newspapers. People may wind up having more access to diverse takes on the world in a couple of years than at any point in history.

As bad as the media landscape today, Tucker’s break into the Twittersphere may mark a turning point in media history.