Daily Beast: “The final season of House of Cards is obsessed with death. That’s as creatively winking as anything the series has done, I guess, considering that all of us, whether or not we watch the show, are about as obsessed with how House of Cards will handle the death of Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood.”
Fox Shows Kamala Harris In Story on Shooting Suspect
The Hack Gap
Matthew Yglesias: “The hack gap explains why Clinton’s email server received more television news coverage than all policy issues combined in the 2016 election. It explains why Republicans can hope to get away with dishonest spin about preexisting conditions. It’s why Democrats are terrified that Elizabeth Warren’s past statements about Native American heritage could be general election poison in 2020, and it’s why an internecine debate about civility has been roiling progressive circles for nearly two years even while the president of the United States openly praises assaulting journalists.”
“The hack gap has two core pillars. One is the constellation of conservative media outlets — led by Fox News and other Rupert Murdoch properties like the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but also including Sinclair Broadcasting in local television, much of AM talk radio, and new media offerings such as Breitbart and the Daily Caller — that simply abjure anything resembling journalism in favor of propaganda.”
“The other is that the self-consciousness journalists at legacy outlets have about accusations of liberal bias leads them to bend over backward to allow the leading conservative gripes of the day to dominate the news agenda.”
Cuomo Invites Gianforte to ‘Body Slam’ Him
CNN’s Chris Cuomo invited Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) to body slam him after President Trump praised the Republican congressman at a rally this week for assaulting a reporter.
The Election Needle Returns
The New York Times’ much-criticized election needle — “fluttering with a constantly updating probability” — will be back with a vengeance for the midterm elections “in the hope of contextualizing results from far-off districts within the broader congressional map,” the Columbia Journalism Review reports.
Trump’s ’60 Minutes’ Ratings Nosedive
Deadline: “The newsmag’s 1.8 rating among 18-49 year olds and 11.3 million viewers, while the strongest showing of any non-NFL program Sunday night, marks a 47% dive in the demo and 43% in total viewers, relative to Trump’s most recent previous 60 Minutes sit-down.”
“Trump had bagged a 3.4 demo rating, and 20M viewers overall, in his November 13, 2016 interview on the CBS newsmag, broadcast shortly after his election. That time, unlike this past Sunday, Trump enjoyed no NFL lead-in support.”
Tucker Carlson Can’t Go Out Anymore
Fox News host Tucker Carlson told the National Review that he can no longer go to most restaurants because he will be screamed at by people who dislike his political views.
Said Carlson: “I can’t really go to a lot of restaurants anymore because I get yelled at. I don’t feel threatened, but having someone scream, ‘Fuck you!’ at a restaurant, it just wrecks your meal.”
He added: “I can’t wait for this revolution to end, so I can go back out to dinner.”
Fox Host Complains Trump Was ‘Peppered with Questions’
Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt complained on Twitter that President Trump’s interview on 60 Minutes was unfair because he was “peppered endlessly with questions,” the Washington Post reports.
“The response on Twitter was what you might expect. Earhardt later deleted the tweet.”
Trump No Longer Getting Ratings
Politico: “As he’s ramped up his rally schedule ahead of the midterms, viewership numbers for the raucous primetime events have been roughly similar to — sometimes dipping below — Fox News’ regular programming, and the network has recently stopped airing most evening events in full.”
“During three Trump rallies last week, Fox News showed clips and highlights from his speeches but stuck largely with its normal weekday primetime programming.”
Media Ignores Story on Secret Behind Trump’s Wealth
Media Matters: “Donald Trump rose to prominence and the presidency on the strength of his self-proclaimed mastery of The Art of the Deal. It was that business acumen, Trump claimed, that allowed him to turn a paltry loan from his father into a vast empire. But last week, The New York Times revealed that Trump was not the self-made billionaire he had claimed to be but rather the recipient of at least $413 million from his father, in part through tax schemes the paper described as “outright fraud.”
“The next day, perhaps in an effort to regain momentum, the Times republished its story in a separate section. But that morning, Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox News Sunday — weekly talk shows that focus on politics and historically set the news agenda for the week — all completely ignored it.”
Fox Hires Hope Hicks
“Months after leaving the White House, Hope Hicks will head to Fox to become its new chief communications officer,” CNBC reports.
“Hicks’ move represents a swap of sorts. After she left the White House, former Fox News executive Bill Shine took over a role similar to hers, as deputy chief of staff for communications.”
Reporter Fired for Wearing MAGA Hat
“A reporter for an NBC affiliate in Minnesota was fired Friday, one day after he was spotted wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat while covering a Trump rally for the local TV station,” BuzzFeed News reports.
Vice
Vice, a new movie from Adam McKay, looks at “the epic story about how a bureaucratic Washington insider quietly became the most powerful man in the world as Vice-President to George W. Bush.”
What an amazing cast: Christian Bale as Cheney, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush.
Movie Claims Trump’s Election Was an Act of God
“More than 1,000 US cinemas are screening The Trump Prophecy – which posits that God chose the philandering billionaire to restore America’s moral values,” the Guardian reports.
“This is the theme of The Trump Prophecy, a movie telling the story of Mark Taylor, a former fireman from Orlando forced to retire after suffering from PTSD, which premiered on Tuesday. Between graphic nightmares featuring demonic monsters and hellish flames, Taylor received a message from God in April 2011, while he was surfing television channels.”
As he clicked to an interview with Trump, Taylor heard God say: “You are hearing the voice of the next president.”
Tucker Carlson Takes on ‘Creepy Porn Lawyer’
“Michael Avenatti has to be regretting going on Tucker Carlson’s show right now… It was worse than you’re imagining,” the Daily Beast reports.
Politico: “Even if Avenatti has little chance of winning the nomination, he could still wreck the 2020 Democratic race.”
In Defense of Anonymity
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