“Desire is an odd thing. As soon as it’s sated, it transmutes. If we receive golden thread, we desire the golden needle.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince
Daley says 'I'll resign' if NSW guns laws change but deal with Shooters Party remains - ABC Local health
Dutton urges voters to dump Fraser Anning - NEWS.com.au
Welcome to the end of the week — a week that was not so great
for Fox News, but was really good for open records. That’s appropriate
considering it was Sunshine Week, which focuses on the media’s access to public
records.
Plenty to catch up on, including the news that Fox News’ Tucker
Carlson was trying to establish his own Fox bureau in a small town in Maine.
Let’s get started.
Tucker Carlson’s Maine event
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson wanted to buy a garage in Bryant Pond,
Maine where he could set up a studio to tape his TV show whenever he vacations
in the area. But Carlson scrapped the plan after Sun
Journal of Lewiston wrote about it. Carlson claims Fox was worried about
the security of all that equipment in a rural studio whose presence would be
widely known. What’s more, Carlson claims the Sun Journal purposely undermined
his plan for a TV home away from home by writing about it.
I
spoke with reporter Steve Collins of the Sun Journal. He broke the story
and even interviewed Carlson, who said in the story that he was “bitter” and
“kind of crushed” about the whole thing.
Collins told me, “(Carlson) repeatedly insisted that he was sure
I was out to get him — just another Democrat doing a hit piece — but he
listened respectfully to my take on it.”
His side of the story
The former editor of FoxNews.com who killed the Stormy
Daniels-Donald Trump affair story before the 2016 election published
the original story Thursday with an explanation as to why he didn’t originally
run it. He did so to prove his motivation was not political.
Ken LaCorte, on his own website, wrote, “In short, we weren’t
close to having this story and I have no regrets holding it, even though it
turned out to be true. Good journalists don’t publish what they ‘know’; they
publish what they can prove. Would you have published this?”
LaCorte’s story comes a week after Jane
Mayer’s piece in the New Yorker claimed LaCorte killed the
Daniels-Trump story when he told the reporter that Fox owner Rupert Murdoch
“wants Donald Trump to win.’’ LaCorte denied ever making that comment.
LaCorte also wrote in his story Thursday: “For an editor
evaluating this story in the days before a national election, it didn’t come
close to meeting journalistic standards.”
Quote of the day
The 2019 First Amendment Awards were handed out Wednesday night
in Washington, D.C., by the Radio Television Digital News Foundation. Among the
winners were CNN boss Jeff Zucker, who provided the most interesting quote of
the night:
“This is an incredible time to be part of the American media.
Not since McCarthy in the 1950s and Nixon in the 1970s has journalism been so
important. And it’s never been better. Whether you like Donald Trump or hate
Donald Trump, the one thing I think we can all agree on is that Donald Trump
has made American journalism great again. The other thing we can agree on is
that the media is not the enemy of the people.”
One pushback on Zucker’s quote: American journalism has always
been great. What Trump has done is make that more noticeable.
Sports site being sold
Mark J. Burns of Morning Consult reports
that the popular sports website TheBigLead.com has been soldand that
co-founder and frequent contributor Jason McIntyre will no longer be a part of
the site. In a deal expected to be announced today, Gannett will sell
TheBigLead.com to Minute Media.
It’s unclear what this means for the future of TheBigLead.com,
but the site — which covered sports, sports and pop culture, and sports media —
is a daily go-to read for me with smart commentary and occasional breaking
news. Deadspin’s Laura
Wagner was not particularly optimistic, writing, “Its sale today to his
shady sweatshop of a digital media company is the end of an era, even if that
era was mostly boring and vipid.”
Winning in court
A Baltimore television station won a big legal battle this
week when
a judge ruled Baltimore City Schools “knowingly and willfully” violated the law by
not releasing important documents about how some students are graded. Fox45
sued the schools on behalf of parents and taxpayers who say children are being
pushed through the system without proper education.
It’s another timely victory considering this is Sunshine Week,
which focuses attention on access to public information, open government and
journalism’s role in promoting transparency.
Speaking Factually
The International Fact-Checking Network is out with its latest
“Factually” newsletter. The big topic this week: two new health
fact-checkers. Also, did “The View”’s Joy Behar really believe Melania Trump
had a body double during a recent trip to Alabama? Read Daniel Funke and Susan
Benkelman’s newsletter and sign up here.
Check it out
He has spent part of his life homeless. Now this teenager has 17
acceptance letters from colleges. CBS
News reports.
How, exactly, did Media Matters and a 24-year-old who works the
night shift come up with the tapes of Tucker Carlson making offensive comments
to Bubba the Love Sponge a decade ago? The
Washington Post’s Eli Rosenberg has the details.
Here’s
a fascinating on-air conversation between CNN hosts Don Lemon and
Chris Cuomo about whether or not Kellyanne Conway should ever appear on CNN —
not long after Cuomo had Conway on his show.
