With the Jussie Smollett story having disintegrated into tiny pieces, Saturday’s Greg Gutfeld Show had plenty of material and the eponymous host put it to good use, dubbing Smollett, Sandmann, and former CBS correspondent Lara Logan “the three horsemen of the media apocalypse” while having Kat Timpf stage a faux seminar on how journalists make headlines biased.
Gutfeld led off with a simple declaration, observing: “What a bad week for the activist press. Smollett, Sandmann, Lara Logan — the three horsemen of the media apocalypse.”
He then quipped that “[t]hey got every reporter pulling out their hair” “except for” CNN’s Reliable Sources host, default media defense attorney, and bald-headed Brian Stelter because “I think he's already moved on to his back.”
Sandmann was the first one that Gutfeld went into detail praising following the teen’s suit against The Washington Post as part of the media’s Covington smear:
First, there's Nick suing The Washington Post for 250 million bucks. It's a lot of money, but think about how much money they made off smearing him. The paper makes 100 million bucks off digital ad sales alone. That's a lot of money, a hundred million dollars. That's more than I make in a year. [LAUGHTER] How do they make all that money? Conflict — which brings eyeballs, which makes money, so I say Nick Sandmann, get your piece, you earned it. Without you, how would Chris Cuomo afford his daily waxing? [LAUGHTER] At least daily.
Gutfeld then teed up a clip of Logan on a podcast with former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland (click “expand”):
GUTFELD: Now there's Smollett. Like Covington, it began with media-ready conflict spiraling into a hate tornado directed at the usual suspects, which is you. Remember, Covington was a white brat in a red hat. Smollett also tapped that hat. Sadly, it turns out his white racists were Nigerian bodybuilders. Oh ho ho! Check out this pair. Their abs have abs. [LAUGHTER] They've got more muscles than a mollusk convention. If I had access to those washboards, I’d be doing laundry every night of the week. [LAUGHTER] Smollett paid them 3,500 bucks to pull off this stunt, yet he makes 60 grand a show, so forget that he's a hoaxter. He's just a cheap [bleep]. [LAUGHTER] Now these cases along with the Brett Kavanaugh smear, they need to be part of a course. Call it Journalistic Ethics, something to take instead of Intersectional Gender Studies and I know who should teach it.
LOGAN: The media everywhere is mostly liberal, not just in the U.S., but in this country, 85 percent of journalists are registered Democrats. So that's just a fact, right. No one is registering Democrats when they’re rarely a Republican, so the facts are on the side of what you just stated, most journalists are — are left or liberal or Democrat.
GUTFELD: Mmmm talk about speaking truth to power, which is why no one covered it, but us, because when the news embarrasses the news industry, it disappears faster than Taylor Swift's boyfriends. [LAUGHTER] Because once the Emperor's New Clothes are exposed, don't expect the Emperor to tell you about it. The Emperor is busy blaming Fox for eating people's lunches.
Before setting up clips of CNN personalities and the cast of The Real falling for the Smollett hoax, Gutfeld lambasted media types like that for having been “the same culprits....at the scene of every crime” of journalistic malpractice because they’re part of “the activist media, journalists driven by an agenda, and the profit-maker behind this machine is always conflict.”
Later in his monologue and before introducing his panelists, Gutfeld aired an over-the-top skit lampooning the kneejerk liberal media.
An announcer teed up the class (taught by Timpf) with this appeal: “Attention news professionals. Do the traditions of objective reporting bore you? Are you hungry for the profits that come with agenda-driven headlines? Then send your journalist to the Blame, Insinuate, Accuse Seminar.”
With a room of five faux liberal journalists, Timpf read aloud generic news headlines and encourages attendees to concoct a new one that makes it biased. Here were two examples (click “expand”):
TIMPF: Alright, here's another one. “Midwest Man Wins Mega Millions Jackpot.”
SALLY: Oh, “Man Wins Lottery — No Surprise To The 3.2 Billion Women Who Didn't Win The Lottery.”
(....)
TIMPF: Okay. “Multi-Car Accident In Toronto Freeway.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Multi-Car Accident on Toronto Freeway...ONLY IN TRUMP’S AMERICA.”
To see the relevant transcript from FNC’s The Greg Gutfeld Show on February 23, click “expand.”
FNC’s The Greg Gutfeld Show
February 23, 2019
10:01 p.m. EasternGREG GUTFELD: What a bad week for the activist press. Smollett, Sandmann, Lara Logan — the three horsemen of the media apocalypse. They got every reporter pulling out their hair. Well, except for this guy. [PICTURE OF BRIAN STELTER] [LAUGHTER] I think he's already moved on to his back. First, there's Nick suing The Washington Post for 250 million bucks. It's a lot of money, but think about how much money they made off smearing him. The paper makes 100 million bucks off digital ad sales alone. That's a lot of money, a hundred million dollars. That's more than I make in a year. [LAUGHTER] How do they make all that money? Conflict — which brings eyeballs, which makes money, so I say Nick Sandmann, get your piece, you earned it. Without you, how would Chris Cuomo afford his daily waxing? [LAUGHTER] At least daily. Now there's Smollett. Like Covington, it began with media-ready conflict spiraling into a hate tornado directed at the usual suspects, which is you. Remember, Covington was a white brat in a red hat. Smollett also tapped that hat. Sadly, it turns out his white racists were Nigerian bodybuilders. Oh ho ho! Check out this pair. Their abs have abs. [LAUGHTER] They've got more muscles than a mollusk convention. If I had access to those washboards, I’d be doing laundry every night of the week. [LAUGHTER] Smollett paid them 3,500 bucks to pull off this stunt, yet he makes 60 grand a show, so forget that he's a hoaxter. He's just a cheap [bleep]. [LAUGHTER] Now these cases along with the Brett Kavanaugh smear, they need to be part of a course. Call it Journalistic Ethics, something to take instead of Intersectional Gender Studies and I know who should teach it.
LARA LOGAN: The media everywhere is mostly liberal, not just in the U.S., but in this country, 85 percent of journalists are registered Democrats. So that's just a fact, right. No one is registering Democrats when they’re rarely a Republican, so the facts are on the side of what you just stated, most journalists are — are left or liberal or Democrat.
GUTFELD: Mmmm talk about speaking truth to power, which is why no one covered it, but us, because when the news embarrasses the news industry, it disappears faster than Taylor Swift's boyfriends. [LAUGHTER] Because once the Emperor's New Clothes are exposed, don't expect the Emperor to tell you about it. The Emperor is busy blaming Fox for eating people's lunches.
DON LEMON: Sean Hannity is going to eat Jussie Smollett's lunch every single second. Tucker Carlson is going to eat Jussie Smollett's lunch every single second. The President of the United States is going to eat his lunch.
GUTFELD: I'm getting hungry. So that's the concern. We're going to dine on Smollett, no Lemon, we're dining on you. You believed him because you already believe Donald Trump supporters were racist. Smollett served a purpose for you and you served a purpose for him. Smollett saw the media for what it was — suckers — and I kind of admire it, but if you're only lesson is that Smollett was being used by us as fodder while missing the fact that he made you look like a dumbass, then you truly are a lemon. Since 2016, these media fail moments have been piling up and the same culprits are at the scene of every crime. It's the activist media, journalists driven by an agenda, and the profit-maker behind this machine is always conflict.
RYAN YOUNG [on CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, 01/29/19]: The idea that racial slurs, and maybe even some of the homophobic slurs being used toward him. You can see how serious this crime is right now.
BROOKE BALDWIN [on CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, 01/29/19]: Absolutely despicable.
SARA SIDNER [on CNN’s New Day, 01/29/19]: Smollett in real life is black and gay, which may have been the motivation for a possible hate crime against him in Chicago.
JEANNIE MAI [on The Real, 01/31/19]: I'm disgusted by people who wear hats that same MAGA.
LONI LOVE [on The Real, 01/31/19]: I don't believe Jussie is making this up.
TAMERA MOWRY [on The Real, 01/31/19]: I don't like that it's being put out there in the media that this is a “possible” hate crime.
BALDWIN [on CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, 01/29/19]: This is America in 2019.
GUTFELD: Ah, you wish. Celebs also dove in placing the blame where it belonged. Of course, on Pence.
ELLEN PAGE [on CBS’s The Late Show, 01/31/19]: It feels impossible to not feel this way right now with the President and the Vice President Mike Pence who like wishes I couldn't be married. Let's just be clear. Connect the dots. This is what happens. If you we're in a position of power and you hate people and you want to cause suffering to them. You go through the trouble. You spend your career trying to cause suffering. What do you think is going to happen?
GUTFELD: Well, she should know. I tried to sit through her last movie. That's suffering. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] Anyway, I wonder if Colbert will have her back on to discuss how Pence didn't help create a crime that didn't exist. Meanwhile, we all here held our tongues even though the story stank like the bathroom after curry night at the rest home. [LAUGHTER] Trump — I mean, Trump supporters stalking the Chicago streets in subzero temperatures at 2:00 a.m., carrying a noose running into some nobody actor on a show they don't watch and somehow recognizing him? Then beating him up without taking his wallet, phone or sandwich. This seems it's possible. It's me being hired as a babysitter. They didn't even take a sandwich. This seemed as possible as me being hired as a babysitter. [LAUGHTER] They didn't even take his sandwich. It was a Subway and they're delicious. Maybe that Smollett's next gig, Subway spokesman. It's a step up from Jared. [LAUGHTER] By the way, he paid the Nigerians with a check. I mean, who still writes checks? Maybe your aunt on your birthday? Thanks for the card, Aunt Edna and the $10.00, but Smollett was the perfect victim for a media that wanted this so badly to be true. So why are these hoaxes so common? Here's my thinking. All of those folks who went to college in the last decade or so are now employed in the media, and they brought with them the victimhood virus they were infected with on campus. The virus makes you stupid, naive, gullible, did I say stupid? Yes, I did. Anyway, some people are sad Smollett was a hoax. Not me, I'm always thrilled when a hate crime turns out to be false, which means I'm thrilled a lot. It means that we aren't as racist as the media wants us to be and we live in a country where hate crimes have to be made up because the demand for hate crimes exceeds the supply, but if you're still sad, this was a hoax, it is only because it exposes how your activist bias sets you up as a willing stooge. The media owns this story. It's like they took a course on it.
ANNOUNCER: Attention news professionals. Do the traditions of objective reporting bore you? Are you hungry for the profits that come with agenda-driven headlines? Then send your journalist to the Blame, Insinuate, Accuse Seminar.
KATHERINE TIMPF: Now, I'm going to show you some headlines and you're going tell me how you would rewrite them for maximum profit. Okay, here's the first one. “Snowstorm Expected to Blanket North East.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Whites Ski, The Rest Freeze as Snowstorm Reveals Weather Inequality.”
TIMPF: Nice. All right, here's another one. “Midwest Man Wins Mega Millions Jackpot.”
SALLY: Oh, “Man Wins Lottery — No Surprise To The 3.2 Billion Women Who Didn't Win The Lottery.”
TIMPF: Snappy. I love it. Sally, you're a natural. All right. How about this one. “World War II Vet Celebrates 95th Birthday.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Elderly White Lifelong Republican Voter Turns 95 Thanks to Russian Collusion.”
TIMPF: Nailed it. Alright. Next one. “Church Youth Group Holds Bake Sale For Flood Victims.”
SALLY: Oh — “Extremists Use Religion To Poison Victims With Heart-Clogging Toxins.”
TIMPF: Yes. Okay. “Multi-Car Accident In Toronto Freeway.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Multi-Car Accident on Toronto Freeway...ONLY IN TRUMP’S AMERICA.”
TIMPF: “House Fire in Australia Injures Seven.”
SALLY: “House Fire In Australia Injures Seven....ONLY IN TRUMP’S AMERICA.”
TIMPF: “Volcano Erupts In Brazil, Many Injured.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Volcano Erupts in Brazil. Many injured....ONLY IN TRUMP’S AMERICA.”
TIMPF: Yes, you all passed with flying colors. I am so proud of you. Now get out there and do some journalism.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the Blame, Insinuate, Accuse Seminar -- locations everywhere. Call today.
