Did Megyn Kelly get played by Donald Trump?

Here are the latest reports from The Washington Posts ‘Eric Wemple’.

Did Megyn Kelly get played by Donald Trump?

Fox News’s Megyn Kelly had a sound strategy. She had absorbed an endless amount of Twitter-borne abuse from Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump following their famous showdown at the Aug. 6, 2015, primary debate; Trump even boycotted the January Fox News debate in Iowa over concerns about her. So Kelly in April went to Trump’s […]

Andrea Tantaros lawsuit: Roger Ailes victimized his female underlings twice

If Andrea Tantaros’s lawsuit against Fox News had been filed on July 5, it would have dominated the day’s news. A former Fox News host on the show “The Five” and later “Outnumbered,” Tantaros alleges that now-deposed Fox News chief Roger Ailes sexually harassed her, isolated her and demoted her. On two occasions, alleges Tantaros’s […]

Trump assists with promotion of new Washington Post biography on Trump

The Internet yields various ways to search for the most critical journalism on a guy like Donald Trump. You can search on Google, set up a Google Alert, launch a search on Twitter, filter TV transcripts. Or you can just check out the Twitter feed of Trump himself. In the space of just more […]

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly tweets Olympic-caliber idiocy

Moments ago, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly came forth with this tweet: US dominates Olympics – how can this be if we are a terrible country that persecutes minorities? Press is deceiving world about the US -BO’R — Bill O’Reilly (@oreillyfactor) August 22, 2016 The policy of the Erik Wemple Blog is to lay down […]

Fox News’s Bret Baier on Trump campaign’s immigration flip-flop: It’s ‘nuance’

Donald Trump on Monday morning told his buddies on “Fox & Friends” that he wasn’t going soft on immigration. “No, I’m not flip-flopping,” said Trump. The disavowal came as the media is pressing the campaign on what looked very flip-floppy: Over and over again, the candidate has campaigned on an initiative of deporting all 11 million undocumented […]

Latest in Fox News embarrassments: Sean Hannity

Fox News host Sean Hannity isn’t just shilling for Donald Trump. He’s not just orchestrating applause for the candidate’s most abhorrent policy positions. He’s not just facilitating and reciting every Trump talking point in marathon interviews. He’s not just providing logistical assistance with Trump’s vice-presidential search. He’s also advising the candidate, as the New York […]

Donald Trump launches sexist, McCarthyite Twitter attack on ‘Morning Joe’ hosts

In his campaign to become the country’s No. 1 media critic, Donald Trump this morning tweeted these messages: Tried watching low-rated @Morning_Joe this morning, unwatchable! @morningmika is off the wall, a neurotic and not very bright mess! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2016 Some day, when things calm down, I’ll tell the real […]

Big attribution problems at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pulled a sneaky maneuver this summer. In mid-July it published a column on race relations by columnist James E. Causey containing the incorrect claim that the unemployment rate for white men in 1954 was zilch. It appeared that this fanciful statistic had been sourced from a website named YourBlackWorld.net. Instead of […]

Whither Ohio University’s ‘Roger E. Ailes Newsroom’?

Back when Roger Ailes bought himself a campus newsroom, he had a better reputation. It was 2007 and Fox News, the cable channel he’d founded a decade before, was years into its dominance over rivals CNN and MSNBC. Sure — Ailes’s network engaged in routine distortions of the news for the sake of its conservative […]

Gawker legacy: Poking the elites, even when they’re colleagues

Gawker.com is kaput. The flagship site of Gawker Media — featuring the sites Gizmodo, Deadspin, Jezebel, Kotaku, Lifehacker and Jalopnik — will stop posting new content after Monday, though it’ll remain online. The halt marks a final and lamentable outcome in a process that started with a $140 million judgment in a privacy lawsuit filed by Terry Bollea, aka […]

With shake-up, Trump campaign confirms NYT story it denied

Mark a victory for much-maligned anonymous sources. Over the weekend, the New York Times published a story that portrayed Donald Trump as a beaten man who was prone to doubting his professional inner circle. “Advisers who once hoped a Pygmalion-like transformation would refashion a crudely effective political showman into a plausible American president now increasingly […]

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel disappeared flawed column on race relations

In a column last month on the sorry state of U.S. race relations, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist James Causey overshot just a touch. Under the headline “Donald Trump’s right: We do have a race problem,” Causey ticked off several bullet points demonstrating the gap between African Americans and whites in this country. One of them […]

With Bannon pick, Trump signals his insistence on sycophantic media coverage

“Disgusting” and “dishonest” and far worse — that’s how Donald Trump has repeatedly characterized media coverage of his candidacy. From the stump, from his Twitter account, from televised interviews, Trump has pounded the media over and over, perhaps as a distraction from sketchy command of policy issues and his speckled business record. Anti-media bona fides […]

CNN host totally owns Trump lawyer Michael Cohen

“Says who?” https://t.co/tHVKtnd1fX — Brian Ries (@moneyries) August 17, 2016 Michael Cohen, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Donald Trump, has delivered some of this campaign’s indelible media moments. Like the time he threatened a Daily Beast reporter looking into Trump’s history. Or like the time he told CNN that Trump’s […]

The inimitable flacking genius of Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson

Defending Donald Trump with logic and facts is impossible. So twisted and indefensible are his positions, utterances and flat-out lies that flacking for the man calls on a mix of deception, deflection and extreme skill. Some folks, like CNN’s Jeffrey Lord, manage this task through the creative use of history. Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, meanwhile, […]

Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly: Trump’s very best enabler

By the time Nov. 8 rolls around, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly may well be the last guy sticking up for Donald Trump. Along with his colleague Sean Hannity, of course. Just off a vacation to France and Ireland, the King of Cable News returned to the airwaves with a fresh commitment to shill for the […]

Report: Roger Ailes is advising Trump. Of course he is!

Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chief, is advising the campaign of Donald Trump as it gears up for a Sept. 26 debate with Hillary Clinton, the New York Times is reporting. Let’s just call it the least surprising scoop of the 2016 campaign. Some biography here: Ailes has always straddled the worlds of television […]

NYT editor: Trump pushback gives us no ‘pause at all’

New York Times Deputy Executive Editor Matthew Purdy sounds unimpressed with complaints from the Trump campaign regarding a pair of tough stories recently published by his newspaper: “There’s nothing that has been raised about these stories that give us any pause at all.” No, not even this killer tweet from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump […]

Why do Republicans get all the red meat?

PHILADELPHIA — John King, a political wise man at CNN, surveyed the speakers on the third night of the Democratic National Convention. “I think if you look at what was said tonight, who spoke tonight, the issues they talked about tonight, whether it’s immigration, whether it’s economics, whether it’s equal pay, whether it’s just her there at […]

Clinton campaign manager on press conference absence: ‘We’re working on her schedule on a rolling basis’

In closing out his press conference Wednesday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called on Hillary Clinton to hold one of her own. “So ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. I think it’s time for Hillary Clinton to do a news conference because it’s been almost a year now. And it would be interesting to […]

Balanced journalist Wolf Blitzer: What a ‘powerful’ convention speech

A word of caution for the small and elite group of GOP and Democratic convention speakers: If you’re feeling good because CNN host Wolf Blitzer called your speech “powerful,” feel again. He says that about everyone. To wit: *After Joe Biden spoke last night, Blitzer said, “Powerful speech from the vice president. Anderson [Cooper], over […]

Donald Trump’s trickle-down media thuggery

It’s troubling that the campaign of Donald Trump routinely denies credentials to reporters from news outlets that have produced critical coverage of him. It’s troubling that Donald Trump bullies reporters — especially female ones, such as NBC News’s Katy Tur and Fox News’s Megyn Kelly. It’s troubling that Donald Trump has threatened to “open up” […]

Bill O’Reilly irretrievably loses it over White House slaves

PHILADELPHIA — If James Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch are looking for a moment in which to make a statement about their vision for Fox News, now is it. These two brothers — sons of mogul Rupert Murdoch and two-thirds of the triumvirate at Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox — are widely known to […]

Bill O’Reilly blames ‘far left loons’ for backlash over his ‘well fed’ slaves comment

Far left loons distort tip about @FLOTUS statement that slaves built White House. She’s correct & I provided facts. More on The Factor -BO’R — Bill O’Reilly (@oreillyfactor) July 27, 2016 PHILADELPHIA — In a “Tip of the Day” segment Tuesday night, Bill O’Reilly reported that Michelle Obama was correct — slaves did, in fact, […]

Donald Trump cites Greta Van Susteren in stiffing requests to release tax returns

Donald Trump’s tax returns are in the news again. Reports are circulating that Russian hackers may have propagated the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in an effort to tilt the electoral playing field toward Trump. So what business ties might Trump have with Russian oligarchs? In a press conference this morning, he said, “None.” […]

Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly vouches for slaves’ living conditions

PHILADELPHIA — On Monday night in a widely praised speech here at the Democratic National Convention, first lady Michelle Obama made a poignant observation about her life and race in America: “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, intelligent, black young […]

Trumpite Jeffrey Lord continues making mockery of CNN programming
PHILADELPHIA–Perhaps Jeffrey Lord is drunk on hollow praise. Back in March, the CNN political commentator, hired specifically to float pro-Donald Trump opinions on air, battled fellow CNNer Van Jones over the Ku Klux Klan. The on-air clash came on CNN’s coverage of Super Tuesday, days after Trump, in an interview with Jake Tapper, failed […]

What could Roger Ailes teach Donald Trump?

Donald Trump is telling the Hollywood Reporter that he’d be open to the possibility of securing the services of ex-Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who resigned from his position last week in the middle of a sexual-harassment scandal. “I would think about it. We have a great team. We have a great campaign going. But Roger […]

Florida Democratic congressman comes out against questions
Please behold the glory of a Democratic congressman being held accountable. Under the bylines of John Bresnahan, Marc Caputo and Jake Sherman, Politico on Tuesday morning unfurled a scoop that could tilt things in Florida politics. The ex-wife of Alan Grayson, the Florida representative who’s running for a Senate seat, is alleging a two-decade string of […]

Like Roger Ailes, Fox News’s Rupert Murdoch worships the all-cleansing doctrine of ratings

A Memo from Rupert Murdoch to Fox News staffers. “There’s no doubt this has been a challenging time.” pic.twitter.com/wZxaDcgfx8 — Emily Steel (@emilysteel) July 26, 2016 Looks as if there’s some continuity amid the tumult at Fox News. As captured above, Rupert Murdoch, the interim chief of Fox News and executive chairman of 21st Century […]

New York Times will add editor’s note to story that omitted record of cop who criticized Black Lives Matter

The New York Times chose a suitable approach to exploring the attitudes of American police officers in the aftermath of the high-profile police killings that have launched the Black Lives Matter movement: Ride-alongs. Sunday’s front page featured a story titled “One Police Shift: Patrolling an Anxious America,” which includes scenes from post-Ferguson policing in 10 U.S. […]

Leave Politico’s Ken Vogel alone
Four years ago, Politico dinged New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti for sharing an advance copy of a column by Maureen Dowd with a CIA spokesperson. “This didn’t come from me,” wrote Mazzetti in an email unearthed by a records request from Judicial Watch, “… and please delete after you read. See, nothing to worry about!” A […]

WikiLeaks emails: Pro-Clinton CNN political commentator pre-checked op-ed with DNC