WATCH: Humiliating Video Montage of Slobbering Media Love Affair with Michael Avenatti is… Yikes

On-screen graphic from Michael Avenatti’s turn as guest host of The View

Editor’s Note: This post was published in February 2020, but we are posting again given the events of the day.

Last year the Washington Free Beacon released a supercut of various media outlets (such as CNN, MSNBC, The View) fawning to the point of absurdity over lawyer and criminal Michael Avenatti, who was so popular with the jet set press comparisons to “the Holy Spirit” were made.

That video was re-upped on social media by the Beacon after Avenatti was found guilty in his extortion trial, the latest in a series of legal woes for the former darling of the media.

(Remember that phrase for later: darling of the media.)

Why was Avenatti so popular? Avenatti was representing porn star Stormy Daniels as she famously pursued legal action against Donald Trump over an affair and subsequent hush-money and cover-up scandals. But in truth, his clients were really #TheResistance at large, and there are no bigger fans of that movement to be found than on cable and network news.

And the montage, of course, proves that.

It’s quite a collection, and one that made a splash again over the last 24 hours.

Fox News Channel’s Brit Hume shared the Free Beacon’s tweet on Friday, pondering whether the people featured are capable of being embarrassed by it.

How’d you like to be featured in this montage? Are the people in it capable of embarrassment? https://t.co/l5piLPwUEg

— Brit Hume (@brithume) February 15, 2020

Certainly it would appear that some are not embarrassed. This excerpt is from Brian Stelter‘s Reliable Sources email newsletter.

…But Avenatti conviction gave right-wing outlets a cause to celebrate

Darcy sends one more: The right-wing media universe might have been reeling from the DOJ’s McCabe decision, but it soon started celebrating over another legal story: Michael Avenatti’s conviction. The Avenatti story was the top story Friday afternoon on websites like Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, and others. Breitbart teased how much time he might serve in their homepage headline. Fox (predictably) characterized Avenatti as a “media darling.” Other right-wing personalities did the same, zinging not only Avenatti but news organizations for having given him so much air time back when the Stormy Daniels story was dominating headlines.

Note the scare quotes around “media darling.” (Predictably) the implication from Oliver Darcy is that Avenatti was no media darling at all. Perhaps he should tell that to Ana Navarro‘s “holy spirit” comments or The View’s graphics department (see above) or … anyone in that video montage at all.

This type of commentary is often referred on conservative social media as a “conservatives pounce” story. The implication is that an outlet avoids reporting how or why something may reflect negatively on a Democrat or liberal (or the media) and instead takes the “conservatives are making a big deal” angle. A sort of absolution by avoidance. Politico ran such an article after a man opposed to Trump tried to murder GOP voter registration volunteers with his car, in a story you probably haven’t heard much about. (Unless you saw this minuscule mention, of course.)

It is a frequent framing for shows like Reliable Sources, for which the main TV fare is discussing Fox’s TV fare.

Some TV personalities, though, such CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, were more inclined to show regret. (Although Anderson Cooper, with whom he was speaking, still sought absolution.)

Pollster and Fox News regular Frank Luntz called out the general media reluctance to admit their gross misjudgment of Avenatti’s character, focusing in particular on Stelter’s newsletter paragraph on the topic.

“CNN and MSNBC featured [Michael Avenatti] on their networks a combined 108 times within a 2-month span,” he wrote. “We need on-air mea culpas, not an email newsletter blaming it on Fox News.”

Indeed. Much like MSNBC repeating propaganda from Iran, or the Jussie Smollett story and reactions, or the Covington Catholic story, or erroneous or unsubstantiated reports regarding then-nominee and now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that were hyped on CNN, this is yet another example of a chance for the media to say “oops” and just not taking it.