Joe Concha

Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) filed a $150 million lawsuit against the McClatchy Company, alleging "character assassination" by the newspaper chain, which owns The Fresno Bee in his home state. Rep Nunes claimed in a Virginia state court that Republican consultant Liz Mair conspired with McClatchy reporter MacKenzie Mays to spread smears and falsehoods, including an allegation the congressman "was involved with cocaine and underage prostitutes" during a 2015 charity yacht party.

Fox News chief news anchor Shepard Smith pushed back on escalating tensions between the news media and the Trump White House, declaring that "journalists are not the enemies of the people." "For those of you at home, if I may, journalists are not the enemies of the people. It's quite the opposite," Smith said. "Our profession is enshrined in the Constitution and the fourth estate holds the essential job of being your eyes and often ears and, when appropriate, your voice.

President Donald Trump's newly proposed budget includes a proposal to end federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), part of a package that includes $300 billion in new spending overall. CPB provides federal funding for PBS and National Public Radio stations. "The Budget proposes to eliminate Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) over a two year period," according to the proposal.

Fox News fired former Democratic strategist Bob Beckel May 19 for allegedly making an inappropriate remark to an African-American employee. "HR was informed of the incident on Tuesday evening and did a thorough investigation within 48 hours," a source familar with the matter said. "The network came to a decision that Bob needed to be terminated early this morning." Beckel was co-host of “The Five," a roundtable opinion program that recently moved from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. amid the scheduling shake-up following host Bill O'Reilly's firing over sexual harassment allegations. It's not clear what the alleged remark was, but Fox said that Beckel's words were "insensitive."

President Donald Trump's former campaign adviser, Roger Stone, claims he "had to kill" an "insane effort" by Fox News host Sean Hannity to become White House chief of staff. "Sean Hannity and his lackey Bill Shine blocked me from Fox because I blocked Sean's insane effort to become @realDonaldTrump [White House chief of staff]," Stone tweeted May 2.

Shine resigned from Fox News as its co-president on May 1 amid criticism of his handling of sexual harassment claims. Hannity quickly responded to Stone, denying he ever asked for consideration for the job, which was awarded to former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. "Roger, with all due respect, I NEVER EVER ASKED to be considered for any WH job, nor would I ever have accepted, nor is that my skill set," Hannity tweeted.

Fox News anchor Heather Nauert has been hired by the State Department to be its spokesperson. Nauert, 47, has been a news anchor on “Fox & Friends” since 2012 and has been with Fox News and local New York Fox affiliate Fox 5 for most of the past 20 years, save for a two-year stint at ABC News from 2005-2007. “The Department of State is pleased to welcome Heather Nauert as the new State Department spokesperson,” a State Department announcement said. “Nauert comes to the department with more than 15 years of experience as an anchor and correspondent covering both foreign and domestic news and events, including the 9/11 terror attacks, the war in Iraq, and the genocide in Darfur, Sudan."

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll reports that registered voters, by a 2-1 margin, want President Trump to cut down on his tweeting. Fifty-nine percent of the 1,000 surveyed say Trump "should stop tweeting so much,” and 28 percent agree with the statement "his tweets are a good way to communicate directly with Americans."

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken just before Trump took office on Jan. 17 showed 69 percent of those polled agreeing with the statement that "in an instant, messages can have unintended major implications without careful review.” Just 26 percent said the tweeting "allows a president to directly communicate to people immediately."

CNN President Jeff Zucker said President Trump is obsessed with his cable news network, spending "his days and nights watching it” despite constantly attacking it in public. "A lot of this is red meat for his base," Zucker said. "He claims that CNN is unwatchable, but the only way he knows that is because he's watching it obsessively. We know that he spends his days and nights watching CNN." CNN has been targeted as “fake news” by Trump more than any other broadcast news outlet.

The Washington Post has a new slogan on its homepage: "Democracy Dies in Darkness." Post spokesperson Kris Coratti told CNN that readers should expect to see more of it on other platforms of the publication. "We thought it would be a good, concise value statement that conveys who we are to the many millions of readers who have come to us for the first time over the last year," Coratti said.

A lawyer for a former host on Fox News said federal prosecutors issued him a subpoena in an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. Based on the subpoena claim, federal prosecutors may be investigating Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox for "quietly settling sexual harassment claims against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes without reporting it to the media giant’s shareholders." The revelation came during a hearing surrounding former "Outnumbered" and "The Five" co-host Andrea Tantaros’s lawsuit against Fox News executives in New York Supreme Court. The 38-year-old Tantaros claims that her former network had “operated like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult.”