Journalism

Columbia Journalism Review is partnering with the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation to launch a website that documents press freedom incidents around the country. The site, US Press Freedom Tracker, is nonpartisan and captures incidents involving journalists such as arrests, border stops, equipment searches and seizures, leak prosecutions, physical attacks or threats, and subpoenas.

US Press Freedom Tracker, which launches Aug 2, gathers those data points from news stories and tips, and it’s free for all to use—journalists and news consumers alike. The Freedom of the Press Foundation is running the tracker’s day-to-day operations, with Peter Sterne, its senior reporter, serving as managing editor. The Committee to Protect Journalists provided the initial funding. CJR is among 20-some journalism and press freedom organizations supporting the tracker. Other supporters include the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, Free Press, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Poynter, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Before the tweet left President Donald Trump's fingers, alt-right digital media personality Mike Cernovich had already reported to his 323,000 followers that Reince Priebus was being replaced as chief of staff. Earlier in the week, Roger Stone, on InfoWars, claimed that John Kelly was under consideration for Priebus's job — two days before the New York Times reported it. A week prior, Cernovich reported that Priebus was planting hit pieces on new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Days later, Scaramucci went on a vulgar rant claiming Priebus was the source of leaks in an interview with the New Yorker. But, Cernovich spearheaded the 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theory and claimed that Hillary Clinton had Parkinson's. InfoWars founder Alex Jones claimed that 9/11 and the Sandy Hook shooting were inside jobs and that President Obama was the "the global head of Al-Qaeda." Why it matters: These publishers now appear to have White House access. The fake stories make it hard to spot the true news, but for others, the true news gives credibility to the misinformation.

President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, hosted a “real news” program on his official Facebook page July 30, ostensibly highlighting the president’s accomplishments that she argued have been overshadowed by “fake news.” The video, first reported by BuzzFeed, featured Lara Trump against a Trump-Pence background as she highlighted several stories, such as the president donating his salary each quarter, the country’s economic growth, and president’s interactions with military veterans and the police, which Trump’s daughter-in-law says she “bet[s] you haven’t heard about because there’s so much fake news out there.”

This program, which has more than 2 million views on Facebook, might be a partial fulfillment of rumors from the campaign of the development of a “Trump TV” program. As Vanity Fair reported, Trump was frustrated at the revenue he was generating for other media companies during the presidential campaign, and “win or lose,” those in the Trump campaign thought they had tapped into something. When asked in October by CNN if Trump was considering such a move, then-campaign CEO Steve Bannon only would say, “Trump is an entrepreneur.”

[Commentary] Some of the Rod Wheeler/Seth Rich lawsuit is now undeniable: An outrageously bogus news story was known about, and apparently not discouraged, within the West Wing well before it was published. And once it was published, it become endless fodder for the president’s staunchest defenders: Alex Jones, Newt Gingrich and, more than any other person, Fox’s Sean Hannity — who stopped hammering away at it only when Rich’s parents implored him to stop trashing their son’s name. One of the ugliest falsehoods of the current political era may have been cheered on by the White House. At the very least, it got tacit approval. And that’s bad enough.

A Manhattan federal judge has suspended discovery in a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times filed by former Gov Sarah Palin (R-AK), who is accusing the paper of writing an erroneous editorial that connected her to the shooting of former Rep Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) that left six people dead. In suspending discovery, Judge Jed Rakoff prevents Palin’s lawyers for now from questioning 23 New York Times reporters in an effort to prove the paper is biased against her. Rakoff said he'll rule by the end of August whether Palin's suit against the Times can proceed.

The Fox News Channel and a wealthy supporter of President Trump worked in concert under the watchful eye of the White House to concoct a story about the death of a young Democratic National Committee aide, according to a lawsuit filed Aug 1. The explosive claim is part of the lawsuit filed against Fox News by Rod Wheeler, a longtime paid commentator for the news network. Wheeler alleges Fox News and the Trump supporter intended to deflect public attention from growing concern about the administration's ties to the Russian government. His suit charges that a Fox News reporter created quotations out of thin air and attributed them to him to propel her story.

The lawsuit focuses particular attention on the role of the Trump supporter, Ed Butowsky, in weaving the story. He is a wealthy Dallas investor and unpaid Fox commentator on financial matters who has emerged as a reliable Republican surrogate in recent years. Butowsky offered to pay for Wheeler to investigate the death of the DNC aide, Seth Rich, on behalf of his grieving parents in Omaha (NE). On April 20, a month before the story ran, Butowsky and Wheeler — the investor and the investigator — met at the White House with then-press secretary Sean Spicer to brief him on what they were uncovering. The first page of the lawsuit quotes a voicemail and text from Butowsky boasting that President Trump himself had reviewed drafts of the Fox News story just before it went to air and was published.

President Donald Trump vowed to continue using Twitter, even as his new chief of staff seeks to impose greater discipline in the West Wing. “Only the Fake News Media and Trump enemies want me to stop using Social Media (110 million people)," President Trump tweeted. "Only way for me to get the truth out!" President Trump is tamping down speculation that his hiring of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as his new top aide means the president will curb his social media habit.

Marc McCutcheon of South Portland was watching WGME’s evening newscast as he has for half a century when something came on that shocked him. In the midst of the local news, a taped commentary from President Trump’s former special assistant Boris Epshteyn appeared on the screen, trumpeting the administration’s position with what he thought selective use and abuse of facts. McCutcheon, a small-business owner and political independent, describes the experience as “surreal,” “extremely jarring” and “so out of place with the friendly, local broadcast from news people I’ve come to trust over the years.” There was no rebuttal, no context, no alternate point of view – a situation he found concerning. WGME-TV (Channel 13) and WPFO-TV (Channel 23) each carry the segments nine times a week on orders from their owner, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the nation’s largest owner of local television stations and an aggressive, unabashed disseminator of conservative commentary supporting the Trump wing of the Republican Party. The company has been in the national news regularly because the pro-Trump segments are appearing at the same time the company is awaiting approval from the Trump administration for it to purchase the 42 stations of the Tribune Media company, which will extend its reach to 72 percent of American households.

On July 26, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. Earlier in the night, I’d tweeted, citing a “senior White House official,” that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question—for me. “Who leaked that to you?” he asked. I said I couldn’t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over,” he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he’s inherited in his new job. “I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he said. “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.” In Scaramucci’s view, the fact that word of the dinner had reached a reporter was evidence that his rivals in the West Wing, particularly Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, were plotting against him.

In an arrangement prominent ethics experts say is without precedent and potentially illegal, the White House is referring questions for senior presidential adviser Stephen K. Bannon to an outside public relations agent whose firm says she is working for free. Alexandra Preate, a 46-year-old New Yorker and veteran Republican media strategist, describes herself as Bannon's "personal spokesperson." But she also collaborates with other White House officials on public messaging and responses to press inquiries. It was Preate who responded when the Center for Public Integrity recently asked the White House Press Office questions about Bannon. Preate, however, is not employed by President Donald Trump’s administration or paid by the federal government.

The unorthodox setup means Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, is potentially violating the Antideficiency Act, which provides that federal employees "may not accept voluntary services for [the] government or employ personal services exceeding that authorized by law." The revelations about Preate's work are the latest controversy to embroil the White House Communications Office, which is reeling from a series of high-profile resignations, firings and leadership changes in recent days.