The coal baron who was skewered by Jon Oliver on Last Week Tonight is fighting the host's effort to move their legal battle to federal court. Robert Murray and several of his companies sued Oliver, HBO and Time Warner in June — prompting a second segment in which Oliver told viewers about the suit. Murray filed an emergency motion asking the court for a "gag order" to keep Oliver from re-broadcasting the piece or talking about the lawsuit, claiming it is "unfairly tilting public opinion" in the comedian's favor and inciting harassment. "Plaintiffs are quickly learning firsthand about the phenomenon that Time and Fortune magazines have dubbed the 'John Oliver Effect,'" writes Grove in the motion. "Murray Energy’s website has been overrun with messages of 'Eat Shit, Bob.'" HBO had the case removed to federal court and argued the motion for a temporary restraining order was an attempt to "chill constitutionally protected speech." Before U.S. District Court judge … [Read more...]

In early 2014, Lil Jon and DJ Snake's "Turn Down for What" became a smash hit melding electronic dance and crunk rap. Thanks in large part to an eye-catching music video (670 million views thus far!) and a manic hook, "Turn Down for What" experienced crossover success few artists ever enjoy. Now, though, the song is in the cross-hairs of a copyright lawsuit filed on Thursday in New York federal court. Golden Crown Publishing is the plaintiff in the suit, alleging that Freddie GZ came first with his own "Turn Down for What." The publishing company is represented by noted copyright pitbull Richard Busch, who appeared on behalf of the Marvin Gaye family in the "Blurred Lines" lawsuit and recently scored a lucrative settlement in a lawsuit over Ed Sheeran's "Photograph." According to the complaint, a collective known as "Tha Architectz" - Fredley Saurel (a.k.a. Freddie GZ), Maliki Sankoh, and Roberson Bonjean - came to the idea for "turn down the what" in 2012, using a colloquial for "get … [Read more...]

Everyone likes to be right and the easiest way to be right is to surround oneself with people and opinions that are predisposed to be similar to ours. When investing, it pays to be contrary. That sets you up to be wrong some of the time. The thing is, if you are right 60% of the time, and manage risk properly, there is a good chance you'll make money. The most basic principle of investing is buy low and sell high. When doing this you'll seldom hit the actual bottoms or tops; you are buying when the market is going down and selling when it is going up. That in itself is contrary to most retail investors' practice of buying high and selling low. Mutual Fund Flows and Sentiment as Contrarian IndicatorsThe majority of retail (casual) investors use mutual funds and ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) to invest in the markets. Fund flows (deposits vs. withdrawals) are generally regarded as contrary indicators. This is a component of a broader series of indicators classified as investor sentiment … [Read more...]

Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is, obviously, a man of strong convictions. That decisiveness extends not only to the realms of politics and media, but also to all things culinary, particularly relating to the audacity of the city of Chicago. "Mediaite," you might be wailing plaintively from your bunker, "whatever do you mean?" To which we say, "Did you just interrupt me?" And also, isn't it obvious? For decades now, Chicago has been trying to pass off its strange, tomato-covered hubcaps as pizza. And Scalia has, quite frankly, had enough of it. California Lawyer features an interview with Scalia (which we discovered, much to our delight, via NPR) in which he shares his thoughts about Chicago and its deep dish monstrosity, as well as whatever it is that people eat in Washington. Babies? You more or less grew up in New York. Being a child of Sicilian immigrants, how do you think New York City pizza rates? I think it is infinitely better than Washington pizza, and … [Read more...]

On Monday, we reported that the five candidates for RNC Chair supported the National Organization for Marriage's position on same sex marriage, and contrasted that unanimity with GOProud Chairman Chris Barron's assertion that the Republican Party is "welcoming" to gay conservatives. The story drew disparate responses from Barron, and from conservative pundit Dana Loesch of BigJournalism.com, and the daylight between those responses is quite illuminating. I'd like to start with Loesch, whose response seems to rest on the creaky twin pillars that fighting intolerance somehow equals intolerance, and that denying gay people the right to marry is actually a way of upholding religious freedom. In response to this story, Loesch writes: (from BigJournalism.com) Tommy Christopher's reasoning is only valid if one presupposes that marriage is a union created and controlled by the state for business purposes; as my liberal feminist mother would say it's a "piece of paper that lets you do your … [Read more...]

Miss America 2011 Teresa Scanlan paid a visit to the set of Fox & Friends this morning to talk about her win and her goals for the coming year. As it turns out, Scanlan has proven that she's not only a young woman with firm opinions, she's rather rather adept at expressing those opinions clearly, be they about the nature of the Miss America competition… or WikiLeaks. Co-host Gretchen Carlson, herself a former Miss America winner, asked 17-year-old Scanlan a fairly hardball question about the award: How is a competition like Miss America still relevant in 2011? Scanlan answered that America, while grounded in realism, needs a healthy dose of idealism as well, and this is exactly what the competition provides. Interestingly, Fox & Friends mentioned at least twice that Nebraska-born Scanlan - who hopes to become a prosecutor, then a judge - is a "homeschooled Conservative Christian." The AP, meanwhile, adds that Scanlan plans to register as Independent when she turns 18. … [Read more...]

Today, WikiLeaks has released cables concerning U.S.-Egyptian relations, which may help further understand and add context to the current uprising gripping Egypt, with the fate of current President Hosni Mubarak (pictured) up in the air. The continued turmoil and violence threatens not only the fate of the Egyptian government and the well-being of the country's people, but also threatens the stability of the Middle East as a region, as well as the the price of oil and, inevitably, a U.S. economy so reliable on the price of oil. Here are some highlights revealed in the cables. Please note that this is just a sampling, with synopses. For a complete look at cables regarding Egypt, go to WikiLeaks: Government Suppression Of Critical Opinion - Egypt's government took a "series of selective actions" against journalists, bloggers and an amateur poet (who ended up being imprisoned for three months for allegedly "defaming" President Mubarak), including public and private legal action, in an … [Read more...]

Another in a series of potentially embarrassing internal memos authored by Fox News Managing Editor Bill Sammon has recently been leaked, and this one is a doozy. The memo, sent a week before Election Day 2008, reads like the oppo research "fact sheets" that the various presidential campaigns sent out to reporters during that election cycle, with a key difference. The source, in this case, was not a politician's press office, but the Washington deputy managing editor of a major news network. The memo comes from mortal enemy of Fox News and liberal media watchdog Media Matters, who has now released three in a series of these sorts of of internal emails from Sammon. Previous memos from Sammon have instructed Fox News talent on how to frame discussion of health care reform and climate change, and while they were embarrassing, this one goes straight at the question of political bias, in at least the D.C. bureau of Fox News. Sent in the wake of a Barack Obama interview that surfaced in the … [Read more...]

For the month of February, Fox News Channel had the five top rated programs in cable news, and as you'd expect, Bill O'Reilly was number one with an average total audience of 3,194,000 viewers. But the second highest rated show in all of cable news was Special Report with Bret Baier with 2,204,000. Hannity and Beck follow in third and fourth place, with Fox's Shepard Smith in fifth, with just under two million viewers. The same shows take the top five slots among viewers 25-54, with Smith jumping into third place and Baier in fifth. Smith, whose passionate coverage of issues has clearly struck a chord with viewers, and Baier, whose ratings successes recently earned him a long-term contract extension, have steered clear of criticism Fox News regularly gets for politicized coverage. The news anchors, along with fellow rising news star Megyn Kelly, offer Fox a convenient meme for pushing back against accusations of bias: our hosts do politics, our anchors do news. And as the Nielsen … [Read more...]

The Internet is abuzz this morning with a story that Fox News has "lied" in showing a video of an angry union protester from California while claiming its from Wisconsin. The "Palm Tree lie" (described as such because the tropical trees in the background of the protest video are used as proof of the deception) was the top two stories on Reddit's Politics board this morning. They needn't have tried so hard. While, in the 43-second clip that's being linked to on YouTube, it does look like Fox News lied, but watching the entire segment for context makes it clear that they did not. The segment in question occurred during The O'Reilly Factor as Bill O'Reilly was discussing the anger in the union protests. At the top of the piece, he rolled footage of a number of the "union thug" videos that have become so popular on Right Wing news sites in the past few weeks. O'Reilly clearly identified the videos as collectively coming from "all over the country." As many shows do, this B-roll footage was … [Read more...]

Actor Matt Damon visited Piers Morgan's CNN show, taking the time to promote his new movie, The Adjustment Bureau, and… weigh in on Barack Obama's ability to govern. Palm, meet forehead. In Damon's defense (Ed. note: …because I want nothing more than to run with him, hand in hand, along a beach in Aruba. In slow motion. While being 5 foot 8.), the actor was directly asked about his thoughts on Obama's progress by Morgan after being asked whether he caught Sarah Palin's Alaska. (Damon answered that, being the father of four daughters, he doesn't have much time to watch TV.) Damon, you might recall, campaigned for Obama and was once quite a vocal supporter. Damon's response, which basically amounted to the actor expressing his disappointment in Obama, seemed articulate and well-reasoned enough, despite our personal apathy regarding celebrities' political opinions. But his answer, and the fact that he was asked about this in the first place, brought to mind the criticism … [Read more...]

A famous media Wiz once said "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," but we believe that what happens behind the TV screen is important to understanding what ends up on it. In today's inaugural installment of Mediaite In the Control Room, we bring you the insights of Bill Wolff, the Executive Producer of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, as he talks about what makes the show tick, and where it fits in the cable news landscape. In addition to being TRMS's Executive Producer, Bill Wolff is also Vice President, Primetime Programming, for MSNBC. He came to the network in 2005 to handle the "other" Situation, the one with Tucker Carlson, following stints with Fox Sports Network and ESPN, where he created Around the Horn. Before that, Wolff spent several years writing screenplays for Dimension Films and Dreamworks, including the 2005 Martin Lawrence vehicle Rebound. A St. Louis native and Harvard College graduate, Wolff cut his teeth as an intern at NBC affiliate KSDK, and later, as … [Read more...]

Responding to a Twitter taunt about Koppel's spot, Olbermann's brief response, "Ted Koppel is still ALIVE?", gave me a Proustian sensation of deja ecoute, a presence I haven't felt since… Olbermann will, in all likelihood, compose a longer rebuttal to Koppel (perhaps another Special Comment), but his brief Twitter kiss-off is of particular amusement to me because, ironically, it's almost exactly the same as the first statement I ever got from Fox News, the very outlet that Koppel lumps Olbermann together with. The subject, then, was filmmaker Robert Greenwald, and I unexpectedly found myself in agreement with Fox, and disagreement with Greenwald, on the issue of a la carte cable. Greenwald had agreed to do an interview with me, so I contacted Fox News to try and get their side of the story. Here's the response they gave me: "Is Greenwald still alive, or is it just his career that's dead?" I'm sure that both Olbermann and Fox News would be displeased by this comparison, but there … [Read more...]

On Friday morning's edition of Fox & Friends, the program's anchors spent several segments "reporting" on the remarks of Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) concerning the reading of the US Constitution on the floor of the House. While their interpretation of his statement that he's "tired of reading the Constitution" was, perhaps, unfair, their assertion that he "called the Constitution silly" was factually inaccurate. Does the "opinion/news" border fence at Fox entitle Fox & Friends to their own facts? Here's 3 clips from the April 1st broadcast of Fox & Friends: McDermott's remarks, even without any surrounding context, are pretty clear. When he says "I am tired of reading the Constitution and all the silly things we have done for the last 13 weeks," he's clearly referring to the gimmicky nature of the Republicans' insistence upon reading the US Constitution into the record at the beginning of the 112th Congress, a reading that omitted any reference to slavery, or to any parts of … [Read more...]

A few seconds later, Kilmeade repeated the charge, asking "Where is the executive branch writing a budget?" Good point, except that the President did write a budget. The thing weighed about ten pounds, and I got so tired of lugging the thing around, I gave it to WSJ's Jonathan Weisman. As you can see, he was delighted with the gift. I also sat through an hourlong briefing on the budget that Kilmeade says Obama didn't write. There are many legitimate criticisms to make of the President's budget, and subsequent leadership on the issue, but he sure as hell did write one. While Kilmeade admirably defended the President minutes later in the program, it is this kind of factual lapse that has me, once again, questioning Fox News' differing standards for its "opinion" shows, versus its "hard news" programming. They've never really made clear what those standards are. Does being an "opinion" program lower the standards of factual reporting? Do "opinion" programs at Fox have a duty to report … [Read more...]

The web-only versions of his signature Countdown segments are a great way to maintain his fans' interest, but they also sort of remind me of the Scrubs gag where Chuck Woolery tells Carla and Elliot that Love Connection was never canceled, it's just not on TV anymore, and he still occasionally does episodes in his basement with the neighbors. It's also a bit strange to see him doing "Worst Persons" without Toccata and Fugue playing in the background, as you would think the song would be public domain by now. Maybe he doesn't have any friends who own a Casio. In Monday's "Worsts," Olbermann awarded the Bronze to ESPN for hiring Bobby Valentine (and for referring to Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington as the "Head Coach"), and the Gold to the woman who sent the racist Obama monkey email (a worthy recipient indeed), but in between was a strange submission for the Silver. National Review's Jack Fowler earned the honor, not for asking his readers to support the publication in a fundraising … [Read more...]

This happens to people - especially people who have cameras pointed at them - all the time. It doesn't make them ignorant, or a fool. It means they stumbled over their words. It's OK. Here's what's not OK: pretending that you did exactly what you meant to do. Remember what Miss South Carolina did when she had a similar moment a few years back? She owned it. She laughed it off, got a do-over and earned a ton of admiration. Palin took a different tack. She … [Read more...]

Fox News has announced summer plans for their Five PM hour, soon to be left vacant by Glenn Beck's departure after today. The cable news network will feature a new replacement show through the summer that is explained as an ensemble news program called The Five. The show will feature a number of rotating Fox News personalities familiar to their audience including Juan Williams, Monica Crowley, Greg Gutfeld , Dana Perino and Bob Beckel (among others.) Yesterday we reported that, in the very near term, Fox News plans to run a week's worth of Glenn Beck reruns after airing a John Stossel special tomorrow. Today we learn that the ensemble show will premiere on July 11th. FOX NEWS CHANNEL TO DEBUT 5PMENSEMBLE OPINION PROGRAM ON JULY 11 "The Five" to Replace Glenn Beck Through Summer FOX News Channel (FNC) will launch a new weekday program on July 11th at 5 PM/ET, announced Bill Shine, Executive Vice President of Programming for the network. Entitled The Five, the program will serve as a … [Read more...]

On July 2nd, we told you how Fox News Watch spent two segments challenging Media Matters' tax-exempt status, and July 5th saw not one, but two posts on Fox and Friends' coverage of the group, including an attempt at psychoanalyzing its founder, David Brock. (Diagnosis: Low self-esteem.) This morning, Fox and Friends aired yet another segment devoted to Media Matters, with host Steve Doocy asking the Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott to weigh in on the group's tax status. The segment included a call to action of sorts, with Tapscott telling Doocy that Fox News is "doing a public service by encouraging hopefully thousands and thousands of people to file a complaint with the IRS." Have a look, via Fox News: We asked Mediaite columnist (and our resident authority on All Things Liberal) Tommy Christopher to offer his take on the "feud" brewing between the network and Media Matters. Here's what he told us: First of all, Doocy and Tapscott are misstating the IRS regulation surrounding 501 … [Read more...]

At CNN, "outspoken" is out, and reporting is in. The network unveiled a new lineup Wednesday that will debut in the fall, moving Anderson Cooper to 8 p.m., bumping Eliot Spitzer and bringing in Erin Burnett. "The overall lineup is meant to underscore CNN's commitment to quality journalism," said CNN executive vice president Ken Jautz in an interview with Mediaite. In each hour of the new lineup, Jautz says, CNN will offer "first rate reporting" and a "wide range of opinions." Moving Cooper to 8 p.m. (with AC 360 re-airing in its current slot at 10 p.m.) is a statement, Jautz says, of what the network stands for. "Makes sense to put your flagship program at the marquis hour." AC 360 has had notable ratings success in recent months, with an emphasis on international reporting. It's a break from the stategy set in place last year under then-boss Jon Klein, who hired Spitzer and co-host Kathleen Parker for the 8 p.m. hour. At the time, Parker/Spitzer was billed as "a lively roundup of all … [Read more...]