Erik Wemple

IRS scandal story: Hard on White House, hard on media

Erik Wemple — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:37:39 GMT

The White House has had some trouble getting its story straight regarding the events surrounding the IRS scandal. Same thing can be said for the media. Around 6 p.m. on Monday, the New York Times issued a report saying, in … Continue reading →

Andrea Tantaros advises listeners to punch Obama supporters

Erik Wemple — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:10:13 GMT

On her radio show yesterday, Fox News provocateur Andrea Tantaros mouthed an impassioned defense of journalists against the intrusions of the Obama administration: Let me tell you how people and journalists are being treated these days. They are being stalked, … Continue reading →

Maddow shames Republicans and InfoWars conspiracist Alex Jones

Erik Wemple — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:09:08 GMT

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Every TV commentator in the land has to decide whether to give air time to fringe inhabitants. Those on the most extreme edges of politics, after all, might … Continue reading →

Fox News’s Roger Ailes responds to Justice Dept. investigation

Erik Wemple — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:56:21 GMT

Fox News chief Roger Ailes has sent a memo to his subordinates at the leading cable news network. He sent this memo to his staff today in connection with the federal investigation into an alleged leak to Fox News reporter … Continue reading →

New York Times poaches Politico’s Jonathan Martin

Erik Wemple — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:43:23 GMT

Politico reporter Jonathan Martin is jumping from the six-year-old politics site to become the national political correspondent for the New York Times. A release from the New York Times says this is a big move: The job is a storied … Continue reading →

What’s the deal with James Rosen’s parents?

Erik Wemple — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:49:45 GMT

On Tuesday night, Fox News’s Kimberly Guilfoyle appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor” and outlined another tick in the James Rosen-Fox News-Stephen Kim tick-tock: “But, also, James Rosen, I e-mailed with him tonight. And he told me that even his parents’ … Continue reading →

Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly calls ‘Rosen thing … ridiculous’

Erik Wemple — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:09:05 GMT

Bill O’Reilly last night brought on a pair of guests to discuss, among other things, whether the Justice Department’s journalist-snooping activities have any merit. The consensus? No. This week’s big story on the leak front concerns Fox News reporter James … Continue reading →

The Benghazi approach to government transparency

Erik Wemple — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:16:49 GMT

News outlets are forever agonizing about how to get the government to cough up information — FOIAs, stakeouts, tough questions, maybe even subterfuge. The eight-month-old Benghazi scandal suggests one approach that journalists may not want to replicate: Error. Though we … Continue reading →

Obama will be worse than Nixon on press freedom: Former NYT lawyer

Erik Wemple — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:40:15 GMT

James Goodale has a position of privilege from which to render judgments in re: Obama v. Nixon on the question of respect for press freedoms. He represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case and wrote a book … Continue reading →

Fox News commentator denounces Democratic-scandal journalism

Erik Wemple — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:42:52 GMT

Zero, one, two or three scandals or controversies are now dogging the Obama White House, depending on your political perspective.No matter how you view the issues, however, there’s a strain of journalism that pops up in these times, and last … Continue reading →

What the media can learn from drug dealers

Erik Wemple — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:42:27 GMT

At what point will Poynter.org organize a media seminar run by longtime drug dealers? If the recently publicized probes by the Justice Department into the activities of media organizations deliver one lesson, it’s that news outlets may want to review … Continue reading →

AP phone records: Former DOJ officials finally articulate other side of controversy

Erik Wemple — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:30:49 GMT

After the Associated Press phone-records story broke last week, Attorney General Eric Holder declared that he didn’t know too much about the specifics of the case. That was because he’d recused himself from involvement in the leak investigation. He subsequently … Continue reading →

AP phone records: Attentive people disapprove!

Erik Wemple — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:10:35 GMT

The Justice Department’s secret seizure of Associated Press phone records has by no means captivated the country. According to polling by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 16 percent of Americans are “very closely following” the … Continue reading →

Fox News: ‘They went into our computer servers at Fox News’

Erik Wemple — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:25:27 GMT

Yesterday afternoon on Fox News, host Shepard Smith issued a stunning statement. In a chat with judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, Smith took apart the revelations about Justice Department snooping into the communications of Fox News reporter James Rosen, a story … Continue reading →

Daily Show’s Jon Stewart lumps ABC News into Washington scandals

Erik Wemple — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:22:19 GMT

We have incompetence and wrongdoing in the Obama administration — along with the Republicans’ “fact-free, bone-deep certainty and contempt,” argues Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show.” Time, then, for the press to get to work — or drum up yet … Continue reading →

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes attacks “braaahzen intransigence”

Erik Wemple — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:17:12 GMT

When MSNBC dumped the brash and union-boosting radio guy Ed Schultz in favor of Chris Hayes on the network’s 8 p.m. time slot, it sent the message that it was going for brainier fare. At the time of the announcement, … Continue reading →

Fox News: Blindsided by Rosen investigation?

Erik Wemple — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:48:41 GMT

All day long, Fox News has been giving extensive air time to a Post story on a federal investigation involving Fox News reporter James Rosen. A federal probe, reported The Post, was looking into Rosen’s attempts to get information from … Continue reading →

The REAL problem with ABC News’s Benghazi story

Erik Wemple — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:44:19 GMT

ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl has issued a statement in response to criticism of his May 10 story on the Benghazi talking points: “I regret that one email was quoted incorrectly and I regret that it’s become a distraction from … Continue reading →

Fox News’s Chris Wallace picks over carcass of Benghazi issue

Erik Wemple — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:11:14 GMT

More than eight months after the horrific attacks on U.S. interests in Benghazi, the story has pretty much run out of juice: *The failure to protect the U.S. diplomatic post is a consensus breakdown by government. *The nature of the … Continue reading →

AP lawyer: ‘We’re not going to go away’

Erik Wemple — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:23:44 GMT

News organizations and their minions have a way of looking helpless in the face of Justice Department phone-records subpoenas. As noted in this blog, former AP reporter John Solomon was the subject of a secret subpoena back in 2001; he … Continue reading →

‘Doctored’ Benghazi e-mails rankle Dem lawmaker

Erik Wemple — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:06:08 GMT

Washington wants yet another leak investigation. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) today asked for an accounting as to how “doctored” e-mails relating to the Obama administration’s deliberations on Benghazi wound up in the hands of the media. The impetus for Schiff’s … Continue reading →

IRS scandal: Peggy Noonan vs. Nate Silver

Erik Wemple — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:46:49 GMT

Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote yesterday that the Obama administration’s difficulties with the IRS story aren’t limited to the political organizations that were targeted for audits. The rot goes much deeper, she writes: The second part of the scandal is the … Continue reading →

AP subpoena: Who says 550 interviews is enough?

Erik Wemple — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:43:39 GMT

So the Justice Department says that it conducted “over 550 interviews” before it took the measure of secretly subpoenaing the phone records of journalists with the Associated Press. In addition, it reviewed “thousands of documents” and took other steps as … Continue reading →

Carney: No ‘scandals’ here

Erik Wemple — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:57:02 GMT

MEMORANDUM FROM: The Erik Wemple Blog TO: Copy desk, Washington Post editorial department RE: IRS “scandal” It has come to my attention that we should not refer to the difficulties at the IRS over the targeting of various groups for … Continue reading →

Politico’s self-promo backfires

Erik Wemple — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:59:10 GMT

There’s a fabulous promotional series on the advertising section of Politico’s website. It’s a bunch of expertly produced video testimonials on Politico and the brand of news it presents. The formula goes like this: Politico finds professionals and asks them … Continue reading →