‘Journolist’ Email Victim Hugh Hewitt On Dave Weigel: ‘He Got Screwed Here’

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by Frances Martel | 3:36 pm, June 29th, 2010

» 12 comments

On today’s America Live, Megyn Kelly interviewed a real-life victim of MSNBC contributor Dave Weigel‘s furious private emails, radio host Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt, who Weigel called “buffoonish” in one of the emails leaked last week, fielded questions on Weigel, media bias, and the personal insults towards him, but while Kelly was consistently incensed at Weigel throughout the interview, Hewitt’s response was, at best, tepid.

Kelly opened the interview with a question attacking Weigel for being a “huge fan of the f-word” and noting that “it was clear from the emails he sent that he hates Republicans, he hates conservatives, or at least has a lot of really negative things to say about them.” Giving Hewitt the floor, he quickly directed the conversation away from attacking Weigel, who he called “a very talented, passionate, very good reporter, and I’ve been receiving his darts for years. In my business, if you’re not getting the darts from people on the left… you’re not doing your job.” And instead of attacking Weigel for his partisanship, he chalked up the scandal to his naivete:

“The problem is not Dave Weigel. He got screwed here. Someone on this Journolist thing, this private email server of 400 different lefty journalists, stabbed him in the back, and I think maybe his youth led him to believe that you could trust journalists, and you and I both know, you can’t trust journalists. Even if they are the same ideological bent, they are looking for a story.”

After letting Hewitt get a few jabs in at MSNBC (“he’s going to have to slow down, use small words with Keith [Olbermann]“), Kelly tried to bring back the blame to Weigel. “I think it’s great that you can take a punch,” she noted, but later pointed out that, to her, “the problem comes when the opinion crosses into what is supposed to be straight journalism,” and that Weigel wasn’t exactly open about his opinions. Except that didn’t get Hewitt to attack Weigel, either. “I’ve been reading Dave for a long time… so I knew he was not a conservative.” He also put the blame on the Washington Post, who did not tell viewers they were going to get “iconoclastic journalism– he’s not really a left-winger.”

The discussion from today’s America Live below:

America Live, Dave Weigel, fox news, Hugh Hewitt, Journolist, Megyn Kelly, msnbc, Washington Post

Moderate

Being hated by the extreme left is good for business, just ask Glen Beck.
paulmdoro

Since you’re so moderate, is it also good business to be hated by the extreme right?
tatboy

Really paulmdoro? Compare FOX’s rating to MSNBC? Compare Glens or O’Reilly’s book sales to Olbermann’s? Compare your liberally newspapers sales to conservative ones? How’s Newsweek doing? It may be “good” business to be hated by the right. But the numbers and facts just bare out that it is “better” business to be hated by the left. It’s just simple basic math here… no getting around it.
paulmdoro

Does Olbermann write books? That would be news to me.
tatboy

paulmdoro said:
Does Olbermann write books? That would be news to me.

Try amazon…
paulmdoro

I guess I just don’t care. I have no interest in reading a book by him.
Grammie

paulmdoro said:
Does Olbermann write books? That would be news to me.

Yes, he does. In fact I think two of them.

Your not knowing that is perfectly understandable Paul b/c he didn’t sell very many of them. In fact I think they were both just pure rehashes of things like his Speshul Comments and were designed to appeal to his MSNBC audience.
felixw

For journalists to complain about a leak is laughable. They make their living off leaks. They cultivate leaks. They brag about the leaks they have used for scoops. For them to gripe when their own comments are leaked doesn’t pass the sniff test. The more the complain about this, the more ridiculous they look.
notsofast

The problem is not Dave Weigel. He got screwed here. Someone on this Journolist thing, this private email server of 400 different lefty journalists, stabbed him in the back, and I think maybe his youth led him to believe that you could trust journalists, and you and I both know, you can’t trust journalists. Even if they are the same ideological bent, they are looking for a story.”

Hey, that’s why they are called libs!
notsofast

Grammie says:
June 29, 2010 at 4:20 pm Grammie(Quote)
Thumb up 0 Thumb down 1

paulmdoro said:
Does Olbermann write books? That would be news to me.

Yes, he does. In fact I think two of them.”

I bet they were fiction, like the broadcast he does each night.
Pablo

felixw said:
For journalists to complain about a leak is laughable. They make their living off leaks. They cultivate leaks. They brag about the leaks they have used for scoops. For them to gripe when their own comments are leaked doesn’t pass the sniff test. The more the complain about this, the more ridiculous they look.

Wouldn’t it be delightful if James Risen or Eric Lichtblau are participants? Talk about karma…
jrcmi

HUGH HUGETWITT defended Weigel?!

Maybe Beck’s right about the end being near. (Buy gold!)

There was obviously a right-wing “mole” on journolist. “Honor” and “integrity” are just dirty words to many of them.