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She Instagrammed her exotic drug-smuggling vacation. Now 'Cocaine Babe' is going to prison
Hannity, Trump and Cohen: The secrets we discover |
We never would have known.
Fox News commentator Sean Hannity could have kept blasting the
FBI and defending Trump’s “Mr. Fixit” without significant criticism. At
least, until his secret tie to the Trump lawyer came to light.
And how did that secret get revealed? Five
news organizations fought for public access to the court proceedings on
Monday where the Hannity-Trump tie was disclosed.
The courtroom fight turned out to be over when a client of
lawyer Michael Cohen had the right to keep his name under wraps. Lawyers for
the Associated Press, ABC News, CNN, Newsday and the New York Times argued it
was a matter of public record to name the client. The judge agreed.
There was a gasp
and some laughter as Hannity’s
name was disclosed — and reporters Shep Smith and Juan Williams of Fox
News couldn’t believe that Hannity had knowingly covered and criticized the
FBI raid on Cohen’s office and homes without telling his viewers that Cohen
had represented him, as well.
The little-known legal efforts by media companies play a big
role in protecting America’s freedoms. Kathleen Carroll, former editor of the
AP and now board chair of the Committee to Protect Journalists, advised
citizens: “Thank your newsrooms. And thank your newsrooms’ lawyers.”
The big question now is whether Fox News will discipline its
star commentator and restore some credibility to the network, says
the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan. “At any other news
organization,” Sullivan writes, “this would be a fireable offense.”
In a statement Tuesday, the network said it had been “unaware”
of the tie previously, when Hannity slammed raids on Trump’s lawyer without
telling Fox viewers it was his lawyer, too.
“We have reviewed this matter,” Fov News said in a statement,
“and spoken to Sean and he continues to have our full support.”
In the spirit of disclosure, here are other stories that may
be revealing today.
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Quick hits
REMEMBERING BARBARA BUSH: “The widely
admired wife of one president and the fiercely loyal mother of another.”
That’s how the
New York Times described Barbara Bush, who died Tuesday in Houston. The
Washington Post said her “embrace of her image as America’s warm-hearted
grandmother belied her influence and mettle.” The Boston Globe’s Mark Feeney
wrote that Bush, popular for her lack of vanity, “wore
her wrinkles with pride, once joking after seeing herself on a pair of
magazine covers that ‘it looks as though I had forgotten to iron my face.’”
“While she was unpretentious, plainspoken and down-to-earth,” the
Los Angeles Times wrote, “Bush was also a Northeastern blueblood who was
strong-willed, politically shrewd, always blunt and occasionally caustic.”
WEANING US FROM POLLS: New guidance from
the AP discourages making polls the top of a story, says the AP’s David
Scott. The money phrase from the new AP Stylebook: "Poll results
that seek to preview the outcome of an election must never be the lead,
headline or single subject of any story.” Why? “The 2016 election was a
reminder that polls aren’t perfect,” Scott
says. “They’re unquestionably a piece of the story, but never the whole
story.”
SPEAKING OF: Polling and data-driven site FiveThirtyEight is moving from
one part of Disney to another. Nate Silver’s site will go from being overseen
by the ESPN unit to ABC News, with appearances on the network, Variety
reported. Financial terms were not disclosed. FiveThirtyEight
is expected to continue providing “data-driven sports coverage” as well
that can be utilized by ESPN.
HELP US: Another Digital First executive pleads with the public to
support ownership that takes a long-term view and understands the public
service role of journalism. The column by Frank Pine, executive editor of the
Southern California Newspaper Group, follows pleas by leaders at Denver,
Boulder and Northern California properties owned by the cost-cutting hedge
fund Alden Global Capital. Pine, who oversees 11 dailies and more than 20
weeklies, wrote:
“If the Fourth Estate as we know it is to survive, it will require ownership
that is invested in its long-term success and a strategy that prizes purpose
over profit.” (Hat tip: Ivan Lajara)
LINES, DRAWN: The Pulitzer choice for editorial cartooning has divided the
comics community, the Washington Post’s Michael
Cavna reports. Jurors for the first time chose two people — a writer and
an illustrator — for the award, which went to the New York Times, which does
not have an editorial cartoonist on staff. The award, some cartoonists say,
shines a light on freelancers when fewer cartoonists have staff jobs.
HOW KENDRICK LAMAR WON: The jury for the Pulitzer’s music
prize made an unprecedented recommendation, and the 17 members of the
Pulitzer board unanimously accepted it, giving the award for the first time
to a non-classical, non-jazz musician. “We’re very proud of it,” Pulitzer administrator
Dana Canedy tells
Journal-ism’s Richard Prince. A
2007 Pulitzer winner, Mei Fong, noted it took the board 71 years to get
from Margaret Mitchell’s nostalgic slave-era novel “Gone With The Wind” (big
line: “I don’t give a damn”) to “Damn,” Lamar’s stunning and probing latest
release. The celebrations
started right after the ceremony.
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What we’re reading
HERO: The engine exploded in midair and a woman was being sucked
out of the cabin. Pilot Tammie Jo Shults, one of the Navy's first female
fighter pilots and first to fly a supersonic F/A-18, kept
her cool, helping safely land a Boeing 737
Southwest Airlines jetliner with 148 people aboard. In tower
communications obtained by NBC Philadelphia, she calmly informed them that
she’d be coming in for an emergency landing. “We have a part of the aircraft
missing, so we’re going to need to slow down a bit,” she can be heard saying.
AP reported that after the landing, she walked through the aisle and spoke
with passengers to make sure they were okay.
HIDDEN ASTRONAUTS: The passed the tests. They would help America in space. But the secret program for female astronauts was canceled in 1961, the subject of congressional hearings the following year and “Mercury 13,” a Netflix film out Friday. “I was rarin’ to go,” says one of the 13 female astronaut candidates interviewed. It would be a dozen years before women could train for space. Here’s the trailer.
THE STARBUCKS STOPS HERE: The coffee
purveyor announced it would be closing 8,000 stores for racial-bias
training following an arrest of a black customer in Philadelphia that
prompted outrage. The closing May 29 will provide training to 175,000
workers, the
company said. (Hat tip: Gregory H. Lee Jr.)
HOW RACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH DOES IT: The feature
subjects the 2018 Pulitzer winner “has often chosen — among them Dave
Chappelle, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Beyoncé — have been arbiters
of black excellence, geniuses who, in Ghansah’s work, exist not in a vacuum,
not as exceptions, but in a community that has incubated the genius.” That’s
from Danielle Jackson’s profile of the
master profile writer for Longreads.
MERCY: “It’s about time,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle’s Aiden
Yaziri, “we properly worshiped Beyoncé.
The latest opportunity? The city’s Grace Cathedral has announced a
special Episcopal Mass on April 25 dedicated to Queen Bey’s music and
accomplishments. The event is part of a series that began with a program on
Mary Magdalene called “The Original Nasty Woman.”
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What we’re listening to
‘IMAGINE
A MAN OF MY STATURE … BEING GIVEN AWAY AS A PRIZE’: The death
of longtime NPR Morning Edition news anchor Carl Kasell has been leavened
with the joy and zaniness he exhibited in his late-career work on the NPR
game show “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” This NPR remembrance
highlights five “away messages” he recorded for winners on the show
(“Wait Wait” had such a limited budget that Kasell’s voice on a recorded
phone message was the draw.) “I’m your boogie man,” Kasell intones in news
delivery fashion on one message. “That’s what I am.”
BEAT IT: On the Vox daily news podcast “Today,
Explained,” a 55-second parody of a Michael Jackson tune delivers
this take on America’s EPA chief. “He’s got a super-secret silent phone
booth … He’s got security to watch his every move … They hit the Rose Bowl,
went to Disneyland, too … He’s Pruitt. Scott Pruitt.” The podcast, known
for sharp takeaways on current events, has run parody before, such as a
AC/DC flavored angle on political gerrymandering.
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