Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) went after Fox News in an interview on Fox News, Politico reports.
Said Cheney: “We all have an obligation, and I would say Fox News especially, especially Fox News, has a particular obligation to make sure people know the election wasn’t stolen.”
Dan Rather: “Republicans desperately want the mainstream press to cover the daily news cycle through the lens of traditional party politics. At the same time, they go on their propaganda channels and stir up their base against the mechanics of fair and open elections. They spread the poison of illegitimacy to attack the Biden Administration. On Fox News you get a concerted and coordinated attack. Outside of that echo chamber you get what was once the normal news diet of a spectrum of different stories.”
“But this is not a normal news environment. This is an attack on American values, and our ability to continue to function as a government that represents the will of the majority of Americans. The Big Lie is everything right now and the press and the American people must not provide safe harbor for it to continue to metastasize.”
This is worth watching: Former Obama speechwriter David Litt confronted Newsmax host Rob Finnerty during a segment — intended to be about Elon Musk hosting Saturday Night Live — over the network’s promotion of conspiracy theories about Donald Trump winning the 2020 election.
David Frum: “To Carlson, it’s all just sounds and images on a box, to be spoken, then forgotten. Say one thing today, the opposite tomorrow. Urge a war on national television, then disavow it afterward as if it had nothing to do with you. It’s cynical, but above all it’s cowardly.”
“Maybe that’s the fascination of the Carlson TV persona. We all sense that if a Murdoch ordered him, he would say the opposite of everything he says now. Last year, he flipped from ‘COVID is real’ to ‘COVID is fake.’ He could flip from anti-vax to pro-vax literally tomorrow.”
“Carlson’s like a one-man TV special effect, a creation of market analysis of race-baiting as a segment within an ever more fragmented infotainment industry.”
Washington Post: “Newsmax’s visibility rose during the Trump era in no small part because Ruddy’s did. In numerous news stories that were often built on the accounts of unnamed Trump aides and allies, Ruddy was the rare associate willing to lend a colorful quote with his name attached. Through sheer ubiquity — and a strategically public presence at Trump’s clubs — he cultivated a brand name as a Trump ‘insider’ — though advisers to the former president maintain Ruddy was never as close to the man as he led people to believe.”
“Along the way, he presented an image of his small television operation as a David poised to overcome the Goliaths of cable news — and perhaps even join forces with the Trump family.”
“Yet Ruddy’s attempts to attach himself to Trump, and ingratiate himself with Trump’s base, have landed him in legal jeopardy. Far more so than Fox, Newsmax promoted Trump’s lie of a stolen election, and carried on with that message through and beyond Jan. 6, when a violent mob stormed the Capitol.”
Bloomberg has a fascinating story of how Jeff Bezos used his ownership of the Washington Post to beat back tabloid coverage of his personal life.
Some were curious why Tucker Carlson ripped into GOP pollster Frank Luntz and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy this week for not disclosing Luntz rented a room to the top House Republican.
Well, Playbook reports that Carlson “failed to mention that his brother, Buckley Carlson, worked as ‘vice president of message development’ in the early 2000s for Luntz, who is a notoriously hard-charging boss. We’re told they had an acrimonious split. Tucker Carlson and Luntz didn’t get back to us with a comment.”
“The lies these days are moving at the speed of light while spreading so much darkness. Take, for example, the uproar over this New York Post story that claimed that copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Kamala Harris were being given to migrant kids in their welcome kits. That tale from the border didn’t just border on B.S., this was USDA, grade A bullshit. And the reporter who wrote this story resigned, claiming she was forced to make it up, but the damage was done, pumped out over the airwaves at the bullshit factory known as Fox News.”
— Jim Acosta, on CNN.
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Donald Trump last month “was pitched on launching a multi-billion dollar media and technology company built around his personal brand,” Axios reports.
“It was to be comprised of three divisions: Trump+ (a subscription-based content business that gets compared to Netflix and Disney+), Trump Social Media (which would take a stake in existing companies or build its own), and Trump Technologies (which would provide alternatives to internet services like AWS and Stripe, and promise not to censor customers).”
From the Delaware News Journal: “Delaware man to deliver first joint address to Congress Wednesday night”
“Martin Baron, who retired recently as executive editor of The Washington Post, is working on a book about his leadership of the paper during the administration of President Donald Trump,” the AP reports.
New York Post reporter Laura Italiano says she has resigned from the newspaper after being told to write a false story about Vice President Kamala Harris.
The New York Post deleted a story that suggested copies of a book by Vice President Kamala Harris were given to migrant children who have crossed the border in “welcome kits,” CNN reports.
Playbook: “OK, some of you will argue that he lost it long ago. But as careful students of his evening show, we’ve noticed that Carlson has gradually become more unhinged in recent weeks. He’s devoted enormous attention to apologias for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. He seemed noticeably perturbed the night that Derek Chauvin was found guilty. And under the banner of just asking questions! he has given quarter to anti-vaxxers and Covid-19 conspiracists.”
“But on Monday night, during a rant where it was hard to tell whether Carlson was serious or not — his Trump-like way of distancing himself from the content of his monologues is to always keep you guessing as to whether he’s just putting you on — Carlson made a comment that was beyond the pale even for him, and especially strange for a self-styled anti-nanny state libertarian.”
Said Carlson: “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid at Walmart. Call the police immediately, contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.”
“Months after the inauguration of President Biden, One America News Network, a right-wing cable news channel available in some 35 million households, has continued to broadcast segments questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election,” the New York Times reports.
Said OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp in a March 28 report: “There’s still serious doubts about who’s actually president.”
“That segment was one in a spate of similar reports from a channel that has become a kind of Trump TV for the post-Trump age, an outlet whose reporting has aligned with the former president’s grievances at a time when he is barred from major social media platforms.”
NPR: “CNN. ABC News. The New York Times. Fox News.”
“Those are the publishers of four of the five most popular Facebook posts of articles about the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine this week. They’re ranked 2 to 5 in total interactions, according to data from the tracking tool CrowdTangle. The No. 1 posting, however, isn’t from a news organization. Or a government official. Or a public health expert.”
“The most popular link on Facebook about the Johnson & Johnson news was shared by a conspiracy theorist and self-described ‘news analyst & hip-hop artist’ named An0maly who thinks the pandemic is a cover for government control.”
“Editors at Proyekt, a small Russian website, were jittery as they hit the button to publish their latest investigation – one of their most provocative to date,” The Telegraph reports.
“The team had been researching something completely different when they stumbled upon an incredible story: a secret lover of Vladimir Putin and a teenage daughter who looked incredibly like the Russian president.”
“They knew the consequences would be drastic, and they were right. Since the exclusive was published, some sources no longer take the team’s calls. Emails and social media accounts are often hacked. Some of the journalists were followed.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.