"Media is going crazy;" Sean Hannity, hear this; "Friends of Roger" leaving Fox; NBC's weak Rio ratings; Gawker-Hulk talks

By Brian Stelter and the CNNMoney Media team. reliablesources@cnn.com The weekend is over! The work week is beginning. Scroll down for 15 great stories, including new revelations about Roger Ailes, an in-depth look at the ratings for Rio, and this weekend's box office report. But first... Right and wrong responses to "rigged" conspiracy  On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," I had a message for Sean Hannity: Donald Trump's repeated warnings about a "rigged" election are dangerous. Third-world dictatorship stuff. A few days ago, President Obama rightly called it "ridiculous." But Obama is probably not the best messenger on this subject. Instead, leaders who are trusted by Trump's base -- like Hannity -- should be reassuring people about the integrity of the voting system. Is that happening? No. Conservative media heavyweights are helping Trump spread doubt and fear. What they're doing is is downright unpatriotic. I showed a couple examples involving Hannity... Watch the four minute long essay here... The bottom line When a presidential candidate -- any candidate, Republican or Democrat -- is challenging the very legitimacy of our democratic process, interviewers cannot just skip ahead to the next subject. Journalists cannot just quote the sound bite and move on. We can't just let it seep into the discourse. Nor can we ignore something so disturbing. We have to stop and fact-check and contextualize what he or she is saying. For people who have genuine concerns about voter fraud, there should be Q&A's like this one by the NYT... Hannity tweets back Hannity responded to my essay with some tweets that made it seem like he didn't actually watch it. Mediaite's Josh Feldman noted that Hannity didn't "respond to the substance" at all. Maybe he will on Monday... "Do normal standards apply?" On a related note, in Monday's NYT, Jim Rutenberg raises one of the key questions of the entire election cycle: "Do normal standards apply? And if they don't, what should take their place?" Trump's candidacy is "extraordinary and precedent-shattering," Carolyn Ryan tells him, and "to pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous with readers." So what extraordinary steps should journalists take?  -- Related: Ezra Klein (Who we tried to book for this weekend's show! But he was tied up) wrestled with similar Q's recently: "This election isn't just Democrat vs. Republican. It's normal vs. abnormal." Drudge is slipping Don't believe everything you read, Drudge edition: On Saturday night two photos of Hillary Clinton slipping on the stairs started making the rounds on pro-Trump Twitter accounts. On Sunday afternoon an obscure right-wing site turned the tweets into a "story." By the evening, it was the banner headline on Drudge, playing into the "Clinton is secretly sick" conspiracy theory. None of these commenters pointed out that the photo was actually six months old. After two minutes of searching, I found that it was taken in February, when she slipped on a staircase... Gawker and Hulk in settlement talks again WSJ's Lukas Alpert has this Sunday night scoop: "Gawker Media Group is engaged in preliminary talks with the former professional wrestler known as Hulk Hogan to reach a settlement over a $140 million invasion-of-privacy judgment that forced the digital media company into bankruptcy." Gawker's bankruptcy auction is set for August 15...   -- Context: Prior talks "led nowhere," we'll see if this time is any different... Fox News without Ailes How Ailes spent Fox's money  Fox News is, indeed, cleaning house in the wake of Roger Ailes' resignation. "With Ailes gone," Gabriel Sherman reports, "Fox executives are now looking closely at how Ailes spent Fox money. And what they are discovering is that, beyond the sexual-harassment claims, Ailes was also able to use portions of the Fox budget to hire consultants, political operatives, and private detectives who reported only to him, according to a senior Fox source. Last week, according to the source, Fox News dismissed five consultants..." Some of these consultants, a source told me, were "no-show jobs" for "Friends of Roger." The arrangements beguiled some staffers. Others did Ailes' dirty work for him -- Sherman focuses on the use of private investigators in this story, which is a must read... Reactions to Sherman's story Noah Shachtman: "Ailes harassed dozens of Murdoch employees, spent Murdoch $ to go after Murdoch enemies... & we're supposed to believe Murdoch had no idea?" ... Tommy Vietor: "Ripping a page from Nixon's playbook, Roger Ailes had an enemies list and Fox News Plumbers" ... Goldie Taylor: "News that Ailes hired paid fixers with corporate $$$ should surprise no one." If the tables were turned... Jon Favreau tweets: "Can you even imagine what the coverage would be like on Fox if one of their competitors did what Roger Ailes did? Every hour, every show."  -- ICYMI: Ken Doctor ties Ailes, Trump and Murdoch together in this must-read...  -- On Sunday's "Reliable," Michael Wolff said Fox will change "entirely" once the Murdoch sons really take over... Watch... "Another Anita Hill moment?" Noam Scheiber and Sydney Ember write in Monday's NYT: After the harassment allegations against Ailes and the assault accusations against Bill Cosby, some experts "believe we may be approaching another Anita Hill moment." The story quotes CNN's Carol Costello, who spoke on the air last week about being harassed in her 20s... For the record  -- Don't miss Ben Thompson's latest. It's about Instagram Stories and the "audacity of copying well." He says what Instagram Stories can do is "remove the motivation for the hundreds of millions of users on Instagram to even give Snapchat a shot..." (Stratechery)  -- "Politico exec Peter Cherukuri is leaving the company to become president and chief innovation officer for growing tech startup incubator 1776..." (HuffPost)  -- Public editor Liz Spayd examines the revamp of the NYT's metro desk... (NYT)  -- Tonight at TCA Press Tour: Amazon's Roy Price confirms that "Alpha House" is "not a current show," meaning it's cancelled. Or not? Price says he tries to avoid officially canceling anything because "I like to leave my options open..." (Deadline) "Suicide Squad" laughs off lousy reviews Frank Pallotta emails: A movie about bad guys that got worse reviews had a great opening weekend. "Suicide Squad" shook off a shellacking by critics to nab about $135 million at the box office this weekend. That makes the film the biggest August opening ever -- by roughly $40 million. It's undoubtedly a big win for Warner Bros., but we'll see if bad word of mouth poisons the film's overall totals and curbs anticipation for the next film in the franchise. Read more from Frank here... Rio 2016 Rio ratings much lower than London Trouble for NBC? The ratings for the Rio opening ceremony on Friday were so weak, there was immediate speculation that the network would have to offer "makegoods" to advertisers. The show had the lowest overnight rating for a summer Olympics opening ceremony since 1992, Frank reports. Saturday's prime time #'s were also well behind comparable London 2012 #'s. "With a second day of depressed TV ratings in from Rio, the finger-pointing has begun," Variety's Andrew Wallenstein writes. "Given massive 30+% declines in the 18-49 demo, what could be sapping the strength of one of the biggest draws on the calendar?" Heavy ad loads? Hmmm. "Maybe digital viewing is finally starting to cannibalizing TV," Wallenstein asserts. I don't know if I buy it, but read his argument here... Oddly enough, I watched more Olympics programming this weekend than I watched during all of London. (Maybe that just means I'm getting older?)  -- McKay Coppins ‏tweets: "I've never been a die-hard olympics-watcher, but so far this weekend it's proven a nice antidote to the cynicism/despair of covering 2016..."  -- What will Sunday's #'s look like? John Ourand tweets: "Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles on air tonight. If NBC's TV ratings are going to rebound, the bounce starts tonight." Frank will be following up on this story on Monday... What a difference four years makes About those heavy ad loads: They really haven't varied much versus 2012. After the complaints during the opening ceremony, NBC told AdWeek the following: "Given that the commercial load was very similar to London, we believe that consumption habits, such as binge-watching and 'marathoning,' have changed perceptions among the viewing audience regarding commercials."  Leslie Jones wins Twitter From the "comfort of her couch," Leslie Jones has been live-tweeting and live-yelling at the TV. Time says: "If You're Not Watching the Olympics With Leslie Jones, You're Doing It Wrong." Let's see how Jim Bell decides to incorporate her into the NBC coverage... I'm sure Holt wears these shorts behind the anchor desk too Lester Holt in the field, or rather on the beach, in a piece for Sunday's "NBC Nightly News:" Well earned credit for NBC's producers and editors Here's a fun WashPost read about the awesome amount of work that goes into those "athlete videos that make you cry." Work "begins in earnest 14 to 18 months before Opening Ceremonies, with 25 staff members working on the profiles..." Clinton's Olympics ads  Last week I mentioned the Hillary Clinton campaign's multi-million-dollar ad buy during the games. The ads have been appearing for three days now... I spotted one during women's gymnastics in the 8pm hour tonight... The ads aren't Olympic-themed, but they're airing during patriotic programming... 92 days to Election Day Forgetting what a "normal" election is like I said on this morning's show that I feel like we're forgetting what a "normal" election feels like. What "normal" political rhetoric sounds like. Mitt Romney never called Barack Obama "monster." Just for fun, take a look at ABC's The Note from four years ago today... August 7, 2012... The top stories were about the fund-raising race, Obama's warning about the "Romney Hood" tax plan, and Jeb Bush getting a convention speaking slot... "The media is going crazy" Just in case you're wondering if Trump has eased up on his anti-media campaign this weekend... At 5:31pm Sunday he tweeted: "The media is going crazy. They totally distort so many things on purpose. Crimea, nuclear, 'the baby' and so much more. Very dishonest!"  -- From Sunday's "Reliable:" Dan Abrams on Trump's media bashing: "It was a smart strategy in the Republican primaries. I think now it doesn't make as much sense..." Panel of pro-Trump pundits This morning's "Reliable" began with a panel of pro-Trump commentators -- Scottie Nell Hughes, Amy Kremer, Kristin Tate, and John Phillips -- talking about media bias. Politico's Patrick Reis noted that they stayed on message, focusing on Hillary Clinton, essentially what they're advising Trump to do. I'll write about these segments in more detail tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can watch part 1 and part 2 here...  -- Recommended reading: By Callum Borchers: "Why Donald Trump's surrogates are actually doing a great job" Clinton camp pushes back on NYT column Clinton campaign aides are rejecting the premise of Alessandra Stanley's latest NYT piece. In "Hillary's New Go-To Gesture: Hand to the Heart," Stanley said "it's a gesture unfamiliar from her past campaigns, but it's a favorite this time around… It's a subliminal message of sincerity that some language experts consider contrived." Jennifer Palmieri responded last night: "Thanks to supporters who have posted photos of Hillary over the yrs w/ hand on her heart. Dumbfounded by NYT story." Today she linked to a slideshow of Clinton hand-heart gestures dating back to the 1990s... "My letters are so great" Tampa Bay Times reporter Mark Puente shared the "best letter to the editor" in Sunday's paper:  Catch up on Sunday's show Did you know you can listen to Sunday's show as a podcast? Here's the audio. You can also watch the segments here or read the transcript... Send us feedback!  What do you like about today's newsletter -- and what do you think we should improve? Email your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We'll be back tomorrow...  Paid Content Share Tweet Forward Subscribe to Reliable Sources Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. Tips, thoughts or questions are always welcome at  reliablesources@cnn.com. ® © 2016 Cable News Network, Inc. A Time Warner Company.  All Rights Reserved. You are receiving this message because you subscribed to CNNMoney's "Reliable Sources" newsletter. Our mailing address is: Cable News Network, Inc. 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