Tony Award winner Ben Platt (image via official Facebook)
News Round-Up: September 15, 2021
Some news items you might have missed: • Washington Post: An FDA review of evidence on whether a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is widely necessary struck a neutral tone Wednesday, setting the stage for a potentially fractious debate among expert advisers to the agency this week. Continue reading “News Round-Up: September 15, 2021”
News Round-Up: September 14, 2021
Some news items you might have missed: • Outsports: Out pro baseball player (and country music songwriter) Bryan Ruby (above) sang the national anthem at Dodger Stadium on Sunday as the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the San Diego Padres. Continue reading “News Round-Up: September 14, 2021”
Shepard Smith Will Host One-Hour News Show On CNBC
Shepard Smith (screen capture)
The newscast, which will be called “The News with Shepard Smith,” is set to launch in the fall. Smith’s title will be chief general news anchor and chief breaking general news anchor.
Smith joins CNBC after spending 23 years at Fox News Channel, where he anchored “Shepard Smith Reporting,” “The Fox Report” and “Studio B.” He also served as chief news anchor of the network and managing editor of the breaking news division.
“I am honored to continue to pursue the truth, both for CNBC’s loyal viewers and for those who have been following my reporting for decades in good times and in bad,” Smith said in a press release.
CNBC Chairman Mark Hoffman said Smith has a track record of fact-driven storytelling.
“We aim to deliver a nightly program that, in some small way, looks for the signal in all the noise,” Hoffman said in the press release. “We’re thrilled that Shep, who’s built a career on an honest fight to find and report the facts, will continue his pursuit of the truth at CNBC.”
Dan Colarusso, CNBC’s senior vice president of business news, said Smith’s program aims to go beyond financial markets, “to tell rich, deeply reported stories across the entire landscape of global news.”
Smith casually came out during an interview with HuffPost in October 2016.
Out News Anchor Shepard Smith In Talks With MSNBC
Shepard Smith (screen capture)Former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is reportedly exploring a return to television news.
After months of behind-the-scenes clashes with Fox’s right-wing political personality Tucker Carlson, Smith (who came out in 2017) abruptly announced on October 11 he was leaving the network where he’d worked for 23 years.
In his farewell announcement, he told viewers he was looking to begin a “new chapter,” and it looks like that chapter may take place at Fox News’s competitor, MSNBC.
The Daily Beast reports the 56-year-old out journalist is in talks with MSNBC President Phil Griffin about anchoring a new show at the more liberal-leaning news network once his non-compete clause with Fox expires.
An unnamed insider at MSNBC told The Daily Beast, “it’s unclear what slot he would take, but we’d want him in primetime.”
“We are well aware [Jeff] Zucker [president of CNN] is also pursuing him, as are a number of the networks,” added the source.
One possibility might be the 5 p.m. slot currently held by the lackluster, ratings-challenged MTP Daily currently hosted by Chuck Todd. There are rumors the powers that be might move Todd and his crew to a morning slot.
If Smith does end up at MSNBC he would be joining fellow out journalist Rachel Maddow, who currently hosts the top-rated show on the network.
One wonders, though, if his years at right-leaning Fox News might color how MSNBC’s more liberal audiences connect with the veteran newsman. When Greta Van Susteren left Fox after 14 years for MSNBC, she only lasted six months before the plug was pulled on her new gig, For the Record with Greta.
Wherever he lands, his new network will need to be ready to pony up some heavy-duty duccets as Smith was reportedly earning $15 million a year at Fox News.
You can watch Smith’s goodbye to Fox News below.
News Round-Up: October 11, 2019
InstaHunk Dan Tai enjoys a Texas sunset (image via Instagram)
“I am a little surprised at Speaker [@newtgingrich], who I greatly respect. This is the exact opposite of unconstitutional.” Chris Wallace scolds Gingrich for calling impeachment inquiry “unconstitutional.” https://t.co/jh0nAu1Xuo pic.twitter.com/8PogRbiopZ
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) October 11, 2019
News Round-Up: August 8, 2019
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| Some guy… |
Some news items you might have missed:
• #TBT: The above photo was from one of my last headshot sessions while I was still an actor. I hated having to take headshots. I remember early on in New York City, I was sitting for one photographer. He told me, “Turn away, then look at me and think ‘SEXY.’ I turned away and then shifted back to the camera…but there was no click as the photographer said, “Umm, no…” And there you have it LOL.
• Splinter: Friends say the Dayton shooter’s slain sibling was transgender.
• The Hill: House Republicans in the Illinois delegation are calling for President Trump to not commute the prison sentence of former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving 14 years on federal corruption charges.
• Advocate: Donald Trump attacked another gay journalist. This time out Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, one of the few Fox personalities willing to criticize him, as worse than “Fake News CNN.” Trump has previously denounced CNN’s Don Lemon calling him “dumb.”
• Axios: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to President Trump on Thursday asking him to use his Article II powers to call the Senate back into session in order to consider gun control legislation passed in the House.
• Web Series: Funnymen Matthew Wilkas & Dan Gordh are back with Season two of their absurdist sketch series, Matt & Dan. The comedy duo promises more guest stars, bigger wigs, and more twisted, uncomfortable situations.
Premiering August 15, the eight episodes in Season 2 will include a zombie apocalypse, surviving a plane crash in the Himalayas, and stripping at a bachelorette party.
Fox News’ Shepard Smith: “Our Opinion Programming Is There Strictly To Be Entertaining”
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| Fox News’ Shepard Smith |
File this under “Infighting is funny.”
Fox News’ Shepard Smith told TIME Magazine recently that Fox News’ evening opinion shows are meant to be “entertaining,” not “news.”
Via The Hill:
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith says opinion programming on his network doesn’t “really have rules” and exists “strictly to be entertaining,” in an interview published Thursday.
“Some of our opinion programming is there strictly to be entertaining,” Smith told Time Magazine’s Daniel D’Addario in a piece titled, “Shep Smith Has the Hardest Job on Fox News.”
“We serve different masters,” Smith, 54, added when discussing the difference between the opinion side of Fox News, including shows such as “The Sean Hannity Show,” and the network’s news division. “We work for different reporting chains, we have different rules. They don’t really have rules on the opinion side. They can say whatever they want. If it’s their opinion.”
The interview comes as the network announced today it is re-signing the veteran anchor to a multiyear contract as Fox’s chief news anchor and managing editor of breaking news.
And then Sean Hannity slapped back on Twitter:
While Shep is a friend with political views I do not share, and great at breaking news, he is clueless about what we do every day. Hannity breaks news daily-Warrant on a Trump assoc, the unmasking scandal, leaking intel, Fisa abuse, HRC lawbreaking, dossier and more REAL NEWS! 9p https://t.co/zJpnnyFTtP— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) March 16, 2018
However, Hannity has pointedly said many times in the past that he is NOT a journalist, he’s a pundit. So – which is it, Sean?
Nutjob Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham also chimed in:
Always liked Shep, but his comments were inconsiderate & inaccurate. The hard working team at the Ingraham Angle does real reporting, develops impt sources and scores big interviews. Very proud of them. https://t.co/3aR1EHAK3Z— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 16, 2018
Fox News’ Shep Smith: Trump’s Attack On Libel Laws Is “A Word Salad Of Nothingness”
Fox News host Shep Smith was not having Donald Trump’s not-even-thinly-veiled attack on author Michael Wolff when the Trumpster announced he wants his administration to explore a possible overhaul of “very unfair” libel laws.
“For clarity, because we’re in the position to report facts here, all of that about libel laws––that was just a word salad of nothingness, because none of that means anything, except ‘look over here’. He couldn’t change the libel laws if he wanted to change the libel laws, he couldn’t change ’em if he got the Congress in there. These are state laws.
“He’s not a dictator. He’s not a king. He can’t change the libel laws. That’s preposterous.”
As Shep rightfully points out, the president can’t change laws. Only Congress can.
And Congress can only change federal laws. Libel laws vary state to state.
Lord, can someone inform Trump about such issues before he goes off half-cocked and says these stupid things?
Watch below.
Wild And Wilder: White House Alleges UK Spied On Trump For Obama, UK Slaps Back
Donald Trump’s allegation that President Obama ordered “surveillance” on Trump during the presidential campaign continues to get even more unbelievable.
On Thursday, during a White House press briefing, spokesman Sean Spicer cited comments by Fox News contributor Andrew Napolitano asserting a British spy agency was involved in the alleged surveillance of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign.
Napolitano had stated on-air that President Obama had asked Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, the intelligence collection agency known as the GCHQ, to surveil Mr. Trump.
Said Sean Spicer:
“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the N.S.A., he didn’t use the C.I.A., he didn’t use the F.B.I., and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What is that? It’s the initials for the British intelligence spying agency. So simply, by having two people saying to them, ‘The president needs transcripts of conversations involved in candidate Trump’s conversations involving President-elect Trump,’ he was able to get it and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”
The British government immediately denied the allegation on Thursday in a statement issued by the spy agency, labeling the assertions “nonsense” and “utterly ridiculous.”
Today, President Trump was asked about the kerfuffle at a press event with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by a German reporter. Trump answered, “We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it. You shouldn’t be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox.”
Shortly after Trump’s comments, Fox News’ Shepard Smith issued this strongly worded statement from his network: “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary. Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time in any way, full stop.”
.@ShepNewsTeam responds: “Fox News cannot confirm judge Napolitano’s commentary.”Back to you, @PressSec and @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/z9UamLkkRP
— Tom Namako (@TomNamako) March 17, 2017
CNN’s Jake Tapper has clearly had just about all the BS he can handle from Trump. Tapper opened his show on CNN thusly:
“In a fevered effort to try to force this outlandish claim into something remotely resembling – passably, perhaps, maybe – the truth, the White House appears actually willing to repeat another wild accusation that potentially could alienate our nation’s most important ally.
“Does smearing British intelligence make your family more safe? No? So why is the White House doing it? What is the White House defending here? Because it damn sure isn’t national security or American credibility before the world.”
How does any of this “make America great again?”
Watch Tapper below:
“What is the White House defending here? It damn sure isn’t national security or American credibility before the world.” – @jaketapper pic.twitter.com/3LSUKZT5hj— Colin Jones (@colinjones) March 17, 2017