Media Winner of the Day: Arthel Neville. Media Loser of the Day: Newsmax

THE DAILY NEWSLETTER – MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

MEDIA WINNER: Arthel Neville

Fact-checking former President Donald Trump is a never-ending task. Just look the number of Republicans still clinging to the completely mistaken belief that Trump won the 2020 election.

And the thing about the former president is you never know when or where his wild misrepresentations are going to pop up.

Countless journalists have been criticized for not challenging — or worse, amplifying — Trump when he spouted nonsense during an interview. We’ve certainly highlighted a number of them for the “Media Loser” column of this newsletter, so we definitely want to give kudos when it’s done right.

Fox News anchor Arthel Neville handled the situation calmly and matter-of-factly when Trump reiterated his false rhetoric complaining about the “rigged election” while visiting an NYPD precinct to honor 9/11 first responders.

“He did not miss any opportunities to air grievances including claiming that the election was rigged, which it was not,” Neville said. “It has been proven in court multiple times. It has been proven that the election was not rigged by elected election officials.” It seems like a simple thing to just state the facts, but that doesn’t make it any less important.

Screenshot via YouTube.

MEDIA LOSER: Newsmax

It’s embarrassing for a news channel to get tricked by pranksters. It’s really embarrassing when the pranksters run pretty much the exact same prank and the news channel falls for it all over again.

That’s exactly what happened to Newsmax when they told their viewers they were interviewing Paul Wolfowitz, who served as Deputy Secretary of Defense for former President George W. Bush.

America Right Now host Tom Basile first fell for the prank last month, being set up by Andy Birchlbaum, a member of the “laughtivism” group The Yes Men, who pretended to be Wolfowitz during a phone interview that was live on-air for eleven absolutely bonkers minutes. Basile never caught on, despite the fact that he actually knows Wolfowitz in real life and Birchlbaum didn’t even try to sound like him.

It got even more insane when Newsmax producers called Birchlbaum a few weeks later to book him on the show again, still having no idea he was not actually Wolfowitz. This time, Birchlbaum launched immediately into a rant about the “new master terrorists,” telling the shocked Newsmax panel that their network “is a much bigger threat to America than the hijackers of 9/11.”

And they still didn’t catch on that it was all a very obvious prank.

Read the full Mediaite Green Room Newsletter here.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!