| | | | Sean Hannity had a "yuuuge" opportunity. Just three hours after Donald Trump raised the specter of violence against Hillary Clinton, referencing "second amendment people" who might be able to stop Clinton, the Fox News host had an exclusive interview with the candidate.
So what did Hannity do? Did he seize this moment to challenge Trump? To denounce talk of political violence? No. He basically put words in Trump's mouth and blamed the media.
"So, obviously, you are saying that there's a strong political movement within the second amendment and if people mobilize and vote, they can stop Hillary from having this impact on the court, but that's not how the media's spinning it," Hannity said. Then he handed the softball to Trump. "What's your reaction to that?" | | "Nobody in that room thought anything other than what you just said," Trump said, even though video of the rally showed otherwise. Trump also claimed that "there can be no other interpretation. Even reporters have told me."
As Philip Bump just said on "CNN Tonight," "I'd love to know who the reporters are..." | | | Here's the thing about Hannity... | | Hannity's not a journalist. But what I said on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" about Trump's "rigged election" conspiracy theory applies to this situation too. Even an interviewer who openly supports a candidate, who's rooting for a candidate, has a responsibility as a broadcaster/as a member of the media. When a candidate is saying something dangerous, the interviewer has to push back... | | | Trump says media "desperate" | | | In the 10pm hour, Trump tweeted, "Media desperate to distract from Clinton's anti-2A stance. I said pro-2A citizens must organize and get out vote to save our Constitution!" That's not what I heard him say...
-- WashPost's Alyssa Rosenberg tweets: "Donald Trump's entire campaign premise is that he's *simultaneously* saying what he means and being misunderstood by different audiences..." | | | NY Daily News calls on Trump to end his campaign... | | | My experience with a Fox News "spy" | | You may have seen headlines on the blogs today about my dating life. Kinda awkward for a happily married man! The story dates back to 2005… I told my wife about it years ago, but hadn't shared it publicly til this morning on "New Day…" So here goes:
When I was running the TVNewser blog in the mid 2000s, I became friendly with a low-level Fox News staffer. We went out on what I thought (hoped?) were dates. But they were not dates. I found out later — after the staffer left Fox — that these were intelligence gathering missions. After our dinners and Gchat sessions, she would report back to Brian Lewis, the Fox News P.R. chief at the time, detailing my opinions and attitudes about Fox and its rivals. Sometimes Lewis would feed her questions to ask. TVNewser, after all, was an important outlet for news-about-the-news, so the motive was obvious. But the staffer was put in a highly uncomfortable situation.
When I found out, I took it in stride. Maybe I shouldn't have. But I had grown accustomed to Fox's tactics. I thought the story was worth sharing today because Gabriel Sherman reported that Ailes sicced private detectives on journalists and other people he viewed as opponents...
-- Benjamin Freed's reaction: "Fox News ran an actual honey pot operation..."
-- Gawker for the win: "Signs You Are Actually Dating a Fox News Spy" | | | David Folkenflik tweets: "The thing about reporting on both Ailes & Trump is that the facts themselves are so outlandish it can trigger charges of hyperbole or bias..." | | | Headlines the Murdochs hate to see | | | Carlson team says it is still "actively litigating" | | | Speaking of the potential settlement... Sarah Ellison reported on Monday that "21st Century Fox has begun discussing a settlement" in the Gretchen Carlson suit. Note what a spokesperson for Carlson's legal team told Hadas Gold today: "The Carlson team is still actively litigating, we're not the source of any information regarding a settlement, of which we have no knowledge…" | | | One of Ellison's other scoops on Monday was about the existence of "audio tapes recorded by multiple women in conversation with Ailes." I hosted a Facebook Live chat with Ellison this afternoon, and she repeatedly said the contents of the tapes are "explosive," according to her sources... | | | Judge orders Glenn Beck to name sources | | | Jackie Wattles reports: "A federal judge ruled today that Glenn Beck must give up two confidential sources he says informed his reports on the Boston Marathon bombing. Judge Patti Saris told Beck that the court cannot determine whether Beck is liable for defamation unless he unveils the identity of two 'confidential government sources' Beck says told him 23-year-old Abdulrahman Alharbi was involved in the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist attack." Alharbi was not involved, and he's suing Beck. Read more... | | -- "Facebook's News Feed Has A Friendship Problem." This matches up with the problem I've been having on Facebook lately. Great piece by Katie Notopoulos... (BuzzFeed)
-- Via Mark Glaser: One lesson from the FT's coverage of Brexit: "put the most popular questions on Google to your own reporters," let them answer (MediaShift)
-- Chloe Melas interviewed Hugh Grant today... About his involvement with Hacked Off and other subjects... Look out for her story tomorrow...
-- Today in Envy: "Elisabeth Hasselbeck is moving from her Greenwich mansion to a Nashville estate..." (Variety) | | | Disney's biggest acquisition since Lucasfilm | | Frank Pallotta emails: An ESPN streaming service doesn't exist yet, but Disney is paving the way. The House of Mouse confirmed today that it is paying $1 billion for a 33% stake in BAMTech, the MLB's streaming unit. It has the option to acquire a majority stake later.
The subheds of the press release tell the story: "BAMTech will Enhance Digital Delivery of Disney, ESPN and ABC Programming... New ESPN-Branded Multi-Sport Direct-To-Consumer Service to be Launched..."
-- NYT notes that this is "Disney's biggest acquisition since it purchased Lucasfilm for $4.4 billion..." | | | Disney earnings beat expectations | | More from Frank: This afternoon Disney announced quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street's expectations, in large part because of strong results from its parks and movie studios -- but not as much from ESPN. Read more...
-- Also: Bob Iger was asked on CNBC about Disney's much-discussed succession plan. "It will be successful," Iger laughed, not giving any more details... | | | How's THIS for a fact-check? | | (h/t Jay Rosen) Tonight the WashPost quoted Trump saying "Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment," and then wrote:
"Clinton has never said she wants to eliminate the Second Amendment. Even if she did, neither the president nor the Supreme Court nor lower-level federal judges have the power to do so. There are two ways to alter the Constitution. One requires a two-thirds vote of Congress and then approval by three-fourths of the nation's state legislatures. The other requires calling a constitutional convention and, again, approval by three-fourths of the states." | | | Trump is being outspent on ads by Jill Stein | | | Since the primary season ended, the Trump campaign has spent $0 on TV ads. Clinton's campaign has spent $91 million. Here's the killer stat in Mark Murray's report for NBCNews.com: "The Trump campaign ($0) is also being outspent on ads by Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson ($15,000) and the Green Party's Jill Stein ($189,000)." The data comes from a firm called Advertising Analytics... | | | This is what Trump said about TV ad spending at a rally in NH last weekend: "It's a little early to spend. You know it's like the racehorse, right? Hangs back, hangs back, hangs back. And I think we've got some pretty good ads. But we don't want to go too fast." | | | Whew: Gawker's party approved | | "It seems almost everything involving Gawker finds its way into a courtroom nowadays," WSJ's Lukas Alpert and Tom Corrigan write. "A blowout bash to celebrate the company's '14 years of independent journalism' ahead of a bankruptcy auction next week became the subject of debate in court on Tuesday. Lawyers for Gawker's creditors said they felt the party didn't constitute the 'ordinary course of business.' In the end, the creditor's committee—led by representatives of former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose invasion-of-privacy legal victory forced Gawker and its founder Nick Denton to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection—decided not to object to the event because the cost is expected to be only $1,000..."
(Wait, how's Denton throwing a party for only a thousand bucks? BYOB?) | | By Lisa France:
-- NBCUniversal has entered into a magical deal with Warner Bros. for the rights to "Harry Potter..."
-- Leonardo DiCaprio can do a lot of things but we aren't sure that archery is one of those things. Meet the Oscar winner's Olympic doppelgänger...
-- The Rock is usually such an easy going guy, but he's slammed his 'Fast and Furious' male costars...
-- *NSYNC may have just reunited for a photo, but with all the '90s resurgence, we are holding out hope for more... | | | Catch up on Sunday's show | | | 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... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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