Washington Post media critic. I love family, journalism, pushups. Girl Scout Troop Cookie Mgr.--2018-22 cookie seasons. Tips welcome: erik.wemple
@washpost
.com
New York Times newsroom lawyer David McCraw delivers this response to
@seanhannity
request for retraction and apology related to
@nytimes
coverage: "No." Addressed to Hannity lawyer Charles Harder:
Huge day in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News defamation case, with both sides filing summary-judgment motions. Dominion's version is a nearly 200-page document bursting with text messages from network talent in the tense days following the 2020 presidential election. 1/
A verdict in the case of Democracy Partners v. Project Veritas has been handed down, according to Joseph Sandler, an attorney for Democracy Partners. Project Veritas has been found liable on both counts: Unlawful wiretapping and fraudulent misrepresentation.
A CNN spox just told me that Miles Taylor will remain a contributor despite lying to Anderson Cooper. CNN cannot have it both ways -- slamming Trump for his lies, yet condoning a very big and blatant one by its own contributor.
Intercept EIC Betsy Reed sent me this statement regarding the departure of
@ggreenwald
, saying there's a "fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the production of journalism and the nature of censorship."
More: After a Fox News staffer correctly fact-checked stuff that was coming out of the network's opinion side, all hell broke loose among the prime-timers. Stunning:
Memo is a big win for the
@nytimes
in that it confirms the Papadopoulos issue 'triggered'
the FBI investigation, as the newspaper reported in late December:
There are now upwards of 225 people on the
@politico
Zoom call convened to hash out the decision to invite
@benshapiro
to guest-write an edition of Playbook. People are very mad, I am hearing.
The argument from Dominion -- bolstered by correspondence among the network's top people -- is that Fox News knew all too well that the stolen-election claims were a lie, yet they plowed ahead with programming indicating the opposite. /3
Have a look at this collection of Fox quotes from November 2020, as Sidney Powell and others were spinning their case that the presidential election was stolen.
By filing its suit and plowing through discovery, Dominion has produced perhaps the most piercing look at the internal goings-on at Fox News in its quarter-century history.
In suspending David Wright, ABC News has handed Project Veritas a scalp; exposed its ignorance regarding journalism ethics; screwed a longtime correspondent; and botched the distinction between opinion and bias.
CNN says that the only thing it did wrong in its Joe Rogan coverage was to 'bruise the ego of a popular podcaster.' Here's why that sidesteps the issue:
The minutiae disclosed in the Dominion filing are scandalous: They show just how incompatible is the hosts' candid chatter with the product they put on the airwaves -- and the reason for that gulf is ratings. Period.
Fox News wiggled out of a defamation suit by arguing people shouldn't take the programming seriously (specifically, Tucker Carlson's show). Perhaps to fend off that defense, the Dominion filing goes into detail to show that the network's people see themselves as journalists:
One thing that leaps out of the document is just how panicked were network officials about the viewers' disenchantment with the network's very early call of Arizona for Biden. It appears the whole place was in a state of revolt:
President Trump just decreed: "We must never allow political violence to take root in America." This is the same man who very recently celebrated a politician body-slamming a journalist.
As
@presssec
Jen Psaki nears her last day, some numbers: As of yesterday, she'd done 222 briefings, which is more than all Trump press secretaries combined. They teamed up for 205 briefings, according to data from Martha Joynt Kumar.
I have contacted Fox News for a comment about the newly surfaced recordings of
@tuckercarlson
saying misogynistic things: One thing Fox News cannot say: We're shocked and appalled.
Nearly three years into the Trump presidency, the three major cable-news networks are still running unfiltered his Q&A sessions, wherein he delivers misinformation directly to the American public.
And when the WikiLeaks dumps of 2016 showed reporters' emails with people in the political sphere, the results often were unflattering.
Yet those instances were far more mild than what we see in these Fox News revelations. This is astounding.
Just interviewed Bob Woodward about criticism regarding the timing of his scoop about President Trump's acknowledged downplaying of the coronavirus. 1/
I, too, dislike what
@tuckercarlson
says on television, in books, etc. But this kind of doorstep intimidation is reprehensible. Please respect his family's domestic life.
Here's what Trump-appointed Judge Kelly said about gov't case: "Whatever process occurred within the government is still so shrouded in mystery that the government could not tell me at oral argument who made the initial decision to revoke Mr. Acosta's press pass."
Wondering: Are there scandals of this magnitude at *every* state capital -- and we don't know about them because the U.S. media has by and large abandoned state capitals?
On CNN,
@acosta
just described the chaos within the White House and said that advisers to President Trump are having one heck of a time convincing him of the reality out there. Maybe just quit?
If you were wondering why Senate Rs were so frantic last week about their Kavanaugh timetable, well, here's some critical context from
@RonanFarrow
and
@JaneMayerNYer
One caveat: News organizations that proceed through discovery in defamation suits rarely look good. Think of the New York Times in the Sarah Palin suit -- discovery exposed a shoddy and hurried editorial process that the Times surely didn't want to see in the light of day.
Because of OAN's violation of the coronavirus seat rotation in the White House briefing room, the network has indefinitely lost its shared seat in the briefing room as well as its shared workstation in the basement, according to a source familiar with WHCA's actions.
@willsommer
But let's be clear about all this: Fox News's propagation of this conspiracy theory was one of the most heinous acts in media of the 21st Century. The fact that they fought the Riches in court for more than two years is an outrage of comparable magnitude.
A federal judge in Kentucky today granted summary judgment motions from five media companies (NYT, ABC News, Gannett, CBS News and Rolling Stone) in defamation cases from Nick Sandmann.
Fitting that perhaps the biggest abortion story since the SCOTUS overturning of Roe v. Wade stems from regional/local newspapers, because that's where the reporting on this issue will be playing out for months and years. A brand-new test for a hollowed-out American media sector.
I was the ONLY reporter in the courtroom this morning as the man accused of raping a 10-year-old girl, impregnating her, leading to an abortion in Indiana, was arraigned.
This confirms that the case exists.
In first press briefing since
@acosta
had his credentials yanked and then restored, he asked a question and at least one followup to
@PressSec
. And it all went down without incident.
Politico has released a statement on the backlash against using
@benshapiro
as a guest-writer for Playbook. It says, "we rise above partisanship and ideological warfare."
CNN's
@johnberman
is among the most underrated interviewers in journalism. Always informed, patient, never snarky. A plus: CNN allots enough time for him to wade through the filibustering of his interviewees, in this case VP Pence:
"This is my last newscast here," Shep Smith just said on Fox News. "It's been an honor and my pleasure." He expresses hope that "journalists and journalism" will thrive. "Whoa," says Neil Cavuto upon taking the handoff.
"That is how the terrorist attack of Jan. 6 happened. Millions of Americans infected with the virus of disinformation,” says
@jaketapper
.
"Until those who spread the big lie work to correct it... I fear that the US will continue to be in this bad and dangerous place"
#CNNSOTU
This
@cnn
town-hall event on gun violence is riveting. Great format, perfect timing. Crowd won’t allow a single equivocation, as Sen. Rubio is learning with every utterance.
There will be many, many more videos like this, in which people slammed by
@tuckercarlson
will note that his own company's counsel, to prevail in a defamation suit, argued that there's no reason to take his programming seriously. And that is correct.
CNN is now releasing copies of the network's email exchanges with the Haab family after receiving inquiries this afternoon from the HuffPost and Fox News.
Talking about the tight race in Florida,
@cnn
county czar John King just said that this is why “elections are fun.” My sense is that the country is now united in a consensus that elections are no longer fun.
Now Bloomberg is pulling out of the Saudi investment conference: "Bloomberg will no longer serve as a media partner for the Future Investment Initiative. As we do with every major event in the region, we plan to cover any news from our regional news bureau."
On
@cnn
, John King just advised people to stick with them through a long night. “Brew some coffee,” he said. My sense is that many people are choosing a different sort of beverage.
Weeks ago, Tucker Carlson encouraged lawlessness vis-a-vis coronavirus restrictions. Following unrest over George Floyd's death, he insists every rule be followed:
After David Carr died -- three years ago today -- my son etched this block of wood and mounted it on the door of the room where David stayed on visits to D.C.
@nytimes
Among those who signed that letter were several
@nytimes
employees. The NewsGuild of NY says that members have been called into "investigatory meetings" and an informed source tells me that disciplinary proceedings are under way.
There's notice of a settlement in the suit of Joel and Mary Rich against Fox News et al. for infliction of emotional distress over the network's retracted promotion of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory.
Seeing a lot of arguments that Bob Woodward did something unethical or untoward in "holding" on to his scoop about Trump's admission that he played down the coronavirus. I disagree with the criticism. 1/
Announcement from Fox News: Shepard Smith is stepping down from his role as chief news anchor. This afternoon's show was his last. Fissures between news and opinion at Fox News are for real.
Fox News and CNN are both carrying Trump's immigration remarks live. MSNBC is sticking with
@NicolleDWallace
show, perhaps on the thinking that this guy will just fearmonger.
On a day when we're talking about White House briefing-room working habits, it bears noting that
@PressSec
has returned to the old ritual of calling first on
@AP
and then having the
@AP
correspondent end the session with a "Thank you, Jen."
Judge Rakoff in the Palin v. NYT case is now ruling on the newspaper's Rule 50 motion, which seeks a ruling in favor of NYT based on the contention that Palin hasn't provided enough evidence to support a claim under the law.
The
@nytimes
said it won't "tolerate" participation by its journalists in "protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums” -- in reference to a letter attacking NYT coverage of transgender youth:
Another thought on
@CNN
foul up today: I have read hundreds if not thousands of
@mkraju
stories, and they have been almost without exception unimpeachable. He’ll doubtless get no benefit of the doubt from his network’s motivated critics, though he deserves it.
Tip at least 20% regardless. Working in the service industry is hard work and people deal with all sorts of stuff throughout the day including sexual harassment. You never know what someone is dealing with. Also, some restaurants pool tips and wait staff have to tip out to others
Asked directly whether earlier publication of his interviews would have saved lives, Woodward responded, "No! How?" He pointed out that Trump made that comment on March 19, and he had already made an Oval Office address on March 11. Confirmed cases were taking off. 4/