Tucker Carlson took a hard shot at The New York Times last night. Take a look:

He claims that the Times is about to do a story that will reveal where he and his family live. It’s not breaking news that Carlson and his family left Washington DC this spring, and moved to a place he regards as much safer. It has been in the papers that they put their DC house on the market. I knew about this in advance, because I’m friends with him. It really is true that they no longer felt safe there. It broke his heart to have to leave the house in which he and his wife raised their kids, but they felt they had no choice. The place to which they moved is more remote.

According to Carlson’s broadcast last night, the Times is preparing a story that will reveal the location of their current home. In the clip above, he claims that there is no defensible journalistic reason to do this, and that it will put the entire family in danger. The Times denied it, tweeting last night:

.@nytimes does not plan to publish Tucker Carlson’s residence, which Carlson was aware of before his broadcast tonight. pic.twitter.com/npg93Cdmbm

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 21, 2020

I don’t believe them. What does “publish Tucker Carlson’s residence” mean? That sounds lawyerly. Do they mean address? They wouldn’t say “12345 Woodchuck Lane,” of course, but if he were living in a small town somewhere, all they would have to do is mention the town, and anyone who wanted to harm him and his family could find them pretty easily. (I should say, by the way, that I don’t know precisely where they are living, only generally.) Let’s say that Carlson took them at their word, but that their word was no good. It would be too late then — he would have had to put their new house on the market and move again.

So what he did was draw some blood. He named in the segment last night the names of the reporter who is writing the piece on him, and the photographer, and their editor. He didn’t say their addresses, though he could have. He said:

“How would Murray Carpenter and his photographer, Tristan Spinski, feel if we told you where they live, if we put pictures of their homes on the air? What if we published the home address of every one of the soulless, robot editors at The New York Times, who assigned and managed this incitement of violence against my family?”

Well, he doesn’t know that this is intentionally an “incitement of violence,” but I totally get his aggression here. As Carlson points out in the segment, his house in DC was attacked by Antifa, and his wife had to call the police while hiding in the pantry. He says that they got mail afterwards threatening to kill the entire family. This is true. You can imagine that any high-profile person who had to deal with that would want out. And you can imagine why they would fight aggressively to stop any attempt to reveal where they have taken refuge.

Notice that Carlson is not trying to stop critical reporting and commentary on him personally. He is trying to warn them off of writing about where he lives, in such a way that could put him and his family in physical danger. By mentioning the names of those going after him, he clearly sent a signal to his viewers that these people could be doxxed if the Times doxxes him. And he’s sending a warning up the chain of command at the Times that they all better back off with this, because he’s not going to play around — if they do this, he’s going to give them a taste of their own medicine.

I say: good. You see on that segment a husband and father fighting for his family against a malicious, highly politicized institution. What he’s saying is that if the Times makes it possible for antifa to find his family, he’s going to use his high profile platform to make sure a lot of people at the Times have their personal information made public. Mutually Assured Destruction, I think they call it.

It is possible that Carlson was wrong, and that the Times did not intend to reveal where he lives. I wouldn’t trust the Times on that, but again, Carlson was firing a warning shot at them not to go through with it if they were, or the paper’s editors and leadership will pay a commensurate price.

To be fair, if a public figure moves to Smallville, USA, and that fact is public knowledge, it is legal to publish that information. But is it morally justified, especially when it has been demonstrated that the public figure and his family have in the recent past had their private home attacked by militants, and have received death threats? No, I don’t think it is, for the same reason that absurd and hateful Washington Post story about the ordinary person who screwed up and went to a Halloween party in blackface should not have been published. Tucker Carlson is one of the most famous people in America, and that woman is (or until that exposé, was) an ordinary person. But both of them had a moral right to privacy that ought to have been respected by the media. If Tucker Carlson cuffing the Times as a warning is what it takes to get them to back off, good.

The Times is welcome to come after him and his views, and come at them hard, but leave his personal security, and his family’s security, out of it. Maybe it is true that the Times had no intention of revealing their location. But that’s not a risk he was willing to take. Neither would I have done in his position.

Before you Whatabouts ask about Carlson’s firing of his employee who was outed for racist and sexist sh*tposting, I don’t know what to say other than that the guy deserved to be fired, and Carlson handled that properly. What else would you have had him do? When the sh*tposting came to light, Carlson told the man to hit the road.

Second, I see that Carlson has been named in a relatively minor way in a big sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News. The major target is Ed Henry, and the plaintiffs have produced some extremely damaging texts. What Henry is alleged to have done is monstrous, and according to the lawsuit, there is solid evidence against him. Regarding Carlson, the allegation is that he once propositioned a regular commenter, and when she turned him down, he slowed down her bookings. Not that he stopped booking her, but only that he booked her less frequently — this, for unpaid appearances. If Carlson, a married man, really did proposition her, then that’s gross, and certainly a moral offense for which he should be answerable to Mrs. Carlson and to God, but unless I’m missing something, it’s hard to see how the plaintiff suffered materially when she appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight for free.

Fox has officially denied the allegations. As Carlson’s friend, I would not ask him personally if they’re true or not, because I wouldn’t put him in the position of answering something he legally is prohibited from doing. I choose to believe he is not guilty of this allegation, unless proven otherwise in court. But even if he were later determined to be guilty, that would in no way justify putting Carlson’s wife and children at risk by revealing where they live. It’s a completely separate issue. That issue is the point of this post. It is not the fault of Mrs. Carlson or the Carlson kids that their father is a national media figure, and a highly controversial one. Tucker Carlson is not asking the media to back off of criticizing him and his work. He is only demanding that in that criticism, they not put his wife and children in danger. That is perfectly fair, and sadly these days, absolutely necessary.

UPDATE: Several readers have reminded me that “Scott Alexander,” the author of the very popular rationalist-left blog Slate Star Codex (of which I too was a fan) shut down his blog entirely when a Times reporter was prepared to reveal his real name. There was no reason at all for the Times to out him. He had done nothing wrong. His anonymity was key to his blogging. But the Times felt that Journalism™ required it. If they will threaten to do that to some harmless, beloved lefty like Scott Alexander, Tucker Carlson was justified in fearing what they would do to him. If you ask me.

UPDATE.2: Amber Athey has done some great reporting on the lawsuit against Fox News for the Spectator. Turns out the accuser of Tucker Carlson, Cathy Areu, has some basic factual problems with her claim. Excerpts:

A lawyer for Eckhart and Areu admitted to The Spectator that errors were made in the filing, and The Spectator has learned that Carlson’s wife was with him the evening Areu claims that he told her he would be alone.

… The lawyer later admitted during a phone conversation with me that the dates were mixed up due to errors in Areu’s recollection and that the alleged incident did take place on November 30, 2018. The Spectator has learned that the Tucker Carlson Tonight Christmas party for the program’s small staff took place that evening in New York City. Carlson’s wife attended the party. This sits oddly with Areu’s claim that Carlson told her he would not be with his wife and children that evening.

Areu also alleged that Carlson told her he was only going to attend the party for 10 minutes to ‘make an appearance’. It is unlikely Carlson would have said that about a party for his own staff, particularly considering The Spectator learned he attended the entire thing.

Notice too that as of yesterday, Areu’s Twitter profile featured her appearing on the show of the man she claims sexually harassed her. I don’t know about her other claims, but the one against Carlson smells like a shakedown: