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Journalism Is Dead, Part 3,295,041 Login/Join 
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted
Townhall.com
Derek Hunter
April 19, 2018

The media’s pearls were clutched with both hands this week when it was revealed that Fox News host Sean Hannity was “client #3” for Michael Cohen, one of President Trump’s personal attorneys. “Journalists” were outraged that Hannity had defended Cohen on his radio and TV shows without disclosing this, slamming Fox News in the process. Which is really the only reason they reported the story in the first place.

According to Hannity, his professional relationship with Cohen was extremely limited. “I never paid Michael Cohen for legal fees. I did have occasional brief conversations with Michael Cohen, he’s a great attorney, about legal questions I had, where I was looking for input and perspective,” he said on his radio show.

Hannity reportedly owns a lot of rental properties around the country, and if you have a real estate question and access to a lawyer who works for a billionaire real estate developer, you’d almost be insane if you didn’t pick his brain about your investments, if you had the chance.

If Hannity’s statement is true, and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, I’m unclear how he even qualifies as a client. I’ve never employed a lawyer, but I’d imagine it would involve paying them for their services. I do have friends who are lawyers and I have asked them legal questions. I did, one time, give a lawyer friend $1 as a retainer so I could get attorney-client privilege for the advice I was seeking. It doesn’t even seem like the Hannity-Cohen relationship reached that level.

Yet, because Hannity defended Cohen after his office, home, and hotel room were raided by federal agents, this has been pounced on by liberals as a breach of journalistic ethics.

Margaret Sullivan wrote in the Washington Post, “Fox should do the right thing now: It should address the ethical breach in a public statement, apologize to viewers and discipline Hannity.”

“At any other major news organization, this would be a fireable offense,” Sullivan continued. “(Recall, for comparison, that just months ago, CNN forced out three of its journalists for bypassing editorial processes in publishing an article that the network said was flawed.)”

That “flawed” report wasn’t simply flawed or incorrect on the edges, it was so wrong it was retracted and CNN apologized to Anthony Scaramucci, who was smeared in it, for running it in the first place. That’s a significant difference Sullivan blithely glosses over to make a moral equivalence.

Undaunted by reality, or oblivious to it, Sullivan continues, “But knowing what we do about Fox News, it’s no surprise that Fox stood behind Hannity on Tuesday.”

The network did, in fact, stand behind Hannity, as they should have.

What Sullivan and all the other pearl-clutchers in the mainstream media know, but hope their audiences don’t, is Hannity isn’t a journalist. His job is not to report the news, it is to comment on it. Not in an objective fashion, but to give his opinion and perspective on it. “Hannity” is an opinion show, as are the prime-time line-ups of all the cable news networks. Information isn’t conveyed in an objective manner after 8pm anywhere. Do you think the clown shows on CNN with 8 liberals and 1 conservative who spends more time attacking Republicans than exhaling is an objective “news program”? MSNBC doesn’t even wait till primetime to go hard-left, you have to show your lobotomy scar to even be considered for a hosting job there.

Hilariously, Sullivan writes Fox “viewers see it as a champion against the Swamp and the Deep State, and they neither understand nor expect the need for objectivity,” as if objectivity is rampant elsewhere, or anywhere else. Democrats have no need to get colonoscopies because they know mainstream “journalists” will let them know if they see any polyps while they’re up there.

This is about one thing and one thing only – damaging Fox News.

Liberal journalists hate the competition, they hate the fact that what they used to happily ignore or leave on the cutting room floor now has a pathway to the public.

Conservatives used to only have talk radio to hear about stories liberals wanted buried. Rush Limbaugh carved out a new pathway through which inconvenient information could flow. Fox News came next and really blew up the existing business model and monopoly on information. Then came new media, the Internet was the final deathblow to the propagandists who’d enjoyed exclusive domain over information for decades.

The old order has never gotten over having the curtain pulled back and exposing them as the partisans they are, nor will they ever. Rather than report “objectively,” as Sullivan and her ilk would like you to believe, they’d doubled-down on their biases and insistence that they never existed in the first place.

The Washington Post’s new motto is “Democracy dies in darkness.” And it does. But journalism dies smothered by insistent declarations that it is alive and by countless liberal journalists pressing down on the pillow.

This is one of the subjects covered in my forthcoming book “Outrage, INC: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood” due out June 19. Yes, I mentioned it in my last column, and I’ll mention it a lot more going forward. I’m proud of it, and it's a damn good and funny, thoroughly researched book. Preorder many copies here. Give one to your liberal friends, they need it.

Link




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Just because you can,
doesn't mean you should
posted Hide Post
Hannity is not a journalist, he'll say that himself.

He is a commentator and has an opinion based show.


___________________________
Avoid buying ChiCom/CCP products whenever possible.
 
Posts: 9456 | Location: NE GA | Registered: August 22, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
The Ice Cream Man
posted Hide Post
If the author of the posted article had talked to a lawyer, he'd know that there's no requirement of a financial transaction to invoke privilege.

He's guilty of the same sin he's accusing others. Its mental, and physical laziness.
 
Posts: 5706 | Location: Republic of Ice Cream, Miami Beach, FL | Registered: May 24, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Conservative Behind
Enemy Lines
Picture of synthplayer
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Aglifter:
If the author of the posted article had talked to a lawyer, he'd know that there's no requirement of a financial transaction to invoke privilege.

He's guilty of the same sin he's accusing others. Its mental, and physical laziness.


I had wondered about this. Thanks for making it clear - if you have a conversation with a lawyer, it is automatically privileged.



I found what you said riveting.
 
Posts: 10696 | Location: SF Bay Area | Registered: June 06, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by synthplayer:
quote:
Originally posted by Aglifter:
If the author of the posted article had talked to a lawyer, he'd know that there's no requirement of a financial transaction to invoke privilege.

He's guilty of the same sin he's accusing others. Its mental, and physical laziness.


I had wondered about this. Thanks for making it clear - if you have a conversation with a lawyer, it is automatically privileged.


There are other requirements.

quote:
Although there are minor variations, the elements necessary to establish the attorney client privilege generally are:

The asserted holder of the privilege is (or sought to become) a client; and

The person to whom the communication was made:
is a member of the bar of a court, or a subordinate of such a member, and

in connection with this communication, is acting as an attorney; and

The communication was for the purpose of securing legal advice.[4]

There are a number of exceptions to the privilege in most jurisdictions, chief among them:

the communication was made in the presence of individuals who were neither attorney nor client,

or was disclosed to such individuals,
the communication was made for the purpose of committing a crime or tort, or

the client has waived the privilege (for example by publicly disclosing the communication).
wikipedia Link




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of fpuhan
posted Hide Post
quote:
Democrats have no need to get colonoscopies because they know mainstream “journalists” will let them know if they see any polyps while they’re up there.


Great line! Quote of the day, if you ask me.




You can't truly call yourself "peaceful" unless you are capable of great violence. If you're not capable of great violence, you're not peaceful, you're harmless.

NRA Benefactor/Patriot Member
 
Posts: 2857 | Location: Peoples Republic of North Virginia | Registered: December 04, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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