*Brian Stelter has worked as a press reporter for The New York Times and CNN. The book "The Network of Lies." is about to be published.
Last week, Fox News' Tucker Carlson and CNN's Don Lemon were abruptly fired, side by side. The firing of the two sign anchors cemented an idea I've been wrestling with for years.

After being fired without a chance to say goodbye to viewers, his farewell broadcast of the April 21 episode of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" was watched by 2.6 million people. At 8 p.m. ET, 1 percent of the U.S. adult population sat in front of a TV to watch the Tucker Carlson news. 1% doesn't seem like that big of a number, but on Monday when Carlson's dismissal was announced, the news immediately made top news. To accurately gauge the impact of cable news, we need to look not at viewership but at its impact on people beyond it, and at its reputation.

That's a lesson I've learned in my nearly nine years at CNN. I worked at CNN as an anchor for a weekday media criticism program. Fox News and Tucker Carlson's radicalization and rightward swing were staples of my program. Those who sit in front of the TV at 8 o'clock and watch Tucker Carlson's every move carefully are certainly loyal fans of Carlsen, but there are far more people who listen to Carlson than the news viewers (who count the ratings). Add in the people who watch Fox News at a local restaurant or bar or in an airport waiting room instead of at home, watch Tucker Carlson on the Internet or on their smartphone instead of TV, or listen to Carlson's arguments on the radio or podcast, and Tucker Carlson has tens of millions of viewers.

Multiply that number by Fox News anchors and news show hosts, and you can get a glimpse of how big and wide the influence of Rupert Murdoch's media empire is. Nielsen, a ratings aggregator, has an indicator called cumulative viewership. This figure, which is still unfamiliar to many, is the sum of all viewers watching the show, as described above. In terms of cumulative viewership, Fox News had 63 million cumulative viewers in the first quarter of this year. Fox News executives won't like this metric very much. Over the same period, CNN had a cumulative audience of 68 million, more than Fox News. In fact, the cumulative viewership metrics aren't enough to look at the true influence of famous news hosts like Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon.

That's why I can dismiss some predictions that the end of cable news is not far off. You can find out by doing a simple calculation with a few numbers. CNN's operating profit, which has shrunk somewhat recently, is expected to reach $900 million this year. Fox News' operating profit is usually twice that of CNN. It will have a tough competition with the endless content provided by streaming services that have become mainstream, but even if there are only 20~30 days a year when people pick up the remote and think, "Today is the day I have to put everything else aside and listen to what the news is saying," cable news can run a station with enough profit.

Perhaps cable news channels are more influential than ever. Clearly, it's ideologically polarized. But CNN and Fox News, which talk about the same facts and are virtually opposites, make the same money. It is usually subscription fees and advertising revenue paid by cable operators. If you look at the cable channel schedule, Fox and CNN are usually lumped together. I often play two channels at the same time or superimpose live viewership tables on top of each other, envisioning two news channels competing for the same audience. Of course, the facts are quite different. Even though Carlson and Lemon were fired for similar reasons (accused of swearing worsening the work environment), the two anchors were actually in different parallel universes.

Fox News certainly has a news bureau, reporters, and editors, but the station is effectively the organ of the Republican Party, specializing in political entertainment programs enjoyed by conservative voters. At Fox, "unfair news" and "facts" are not important virtues. Fox News reporters are well aware of this. (Whenever I talk to Fox News reporters, they lament the fact that Carlson is being pushed off the air with conspiracy theories and biased claims without even trying, and that he is not even allowed the opportunity to correct baseless lies.) CNN, on the other hand, is still a station with the basic function of a news bureau that gathers, verifies and delivers news. Even though it costs much more than Fox News and is not profitable, it is proof that it has bureaus around the world and sends correspondents and reporters to deliver the news.

The difference is huge. Don Lemon, one of CNN's news anchors, became a celebrity. Tucker Carlson, the main news host for Fox News, became the de facto power in the unelected Republican Party. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has always had to keep an eye on Tucker Carlson so as not to offend him, to be praised by Tucker Carlson. Far-right websites and social media eagerly waited every night to see what Tucker Carlson would say, eagerly amplifying and reproducing it as soon as the news came out. This power is difficult to measure exactly. However, it is a feature of today that should not be left out when assessing the real influence of cable news.

Tucker Carlson always tells stories of good and evil. Every day, he preached inflammatory claims, picking out conspiracy theories or words full of hatred directed at foreigners, minorities, and the weak. By repeating the same story every day, he gained absolute power. Fans who followed Carlson were brainwashed by his words, turning a blind eye to the truth and closing their ears. Bruce Bartlett, who worked in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, criticized Murdoch's broadcast machines for "brainwashing." Don Lemon also said that Fox is no longer a news channel, calling it a "Fox propaganda station."

Judging from the facts that have been known to the world during the litigation between voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News, Bartlett and Lemon's point does not seem to be far wrong. Before the court's ruling, the two sides agreed to close the case for $787.5 million, the most expensive media defamation lawsuit ever, and there is a bittersweet paradox in this settlement.

(The rest of the story is in soup)