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The Portnoy Hit Piece Fails to Land

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Sep 25, 2023
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09.25.23

Anti-Social Media – WASHINGTON POST

After days of deeply revealing details of Emily Heil of the Washington Post seeking to derail the Dave Portnoy Pizze Fest he staged this past weekend, we got a peek at her work. It was late on Friday when the piece was published (right around the time they attempted to reschedule Dave for an actual interview with the subject of the article), and this thing is an embarrassment for WaPo. 

Throughout the piece, they dredge up old controversies involving Portnoy – which have already been addressed by him and the media – and then quote extensively from a "mathematician" we are told is the conscience of the food industry while having a microscopic fraction of Portnoy's followers. Then throughout, we see telling phrases that tip the hand of the intentions of this piece.

Heil and her co-writer, Tim Carmen, had to ruefully report that nobody they spoke with felt pressured enough by the reporters to pull their support of the festival due to their claims about Portnoy.

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News Avoidance Syndrome – NBC NEWS

In a piece framed as introspection on the coverage of celebrities in the 2000s, NBC News looks back at that era with Russell Brand in mind, and comes to an unsatisfying conclusion that the media played a role in popularizing misogyny. Already a factor in entertainment, it is suggested that 9/11 fostered a broadening of this mentality:

What ensued was less an era of legitimate scrutiny and more a “nihilistic celebration of destruction” in the media, one where the feeling was: “The world has burned, and people wanted to see individual women burn within that.”

While it appears to be a reckoning of sorts for the press, it is certainly not. Look at the reactions to the Brand controversy: He is enduring immediate reprisals and professional punishment without even going through due process. The media, meanwhile, is not called to task to begin losing advertisers or suffer anything approaching a professional form of accountability. 

Pre-Written Field Reports – CNN

  • Interesting that when the premise gets completely blown up, there is nothing left to say.

During a lengthy live interview with Rep. Matt Gaetz, the rising face at CNN, Abby Phillip, was going to conclude with a broadside concerning Gaetz voting against the defense spending initiative, and she was about to lead into a strong point to really nail the Florida politician. Except…

Matt stopped Phillip in her tracks by correcting her that he, in fact, voted in favor of that bill on two occasions. This left the hostess stumbling, and with nothing more she could work with, decided to curtail the interview right there, with no further discussion on the topic.

Presentation Paradox – WASHINGTON POST

A new presidential poll came out, and there were some staggering numbers to be seen. Joe Biden is trailing Donald Trump by 10%, and the spread is even greater with independent voters.

The Washington Post looked over these numbers and wanted to infuse a dose of reality before anyone gets too excitable over this result:

A finding that shows Trump leading Biden by a wide margin does not match other recent polling. The sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat. The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier.

The best part of this analysis: WaPo is disavowing its own polling data.

Then, as if to display just how tortured they are at the newspaper, the analysis closes with an admission that the poll is actually aligned with many other results:

Biden’s overall approval stands at 37 percent, about where it was in May but lower than in February when it was 42 percent. The Post-ABC poll finds 56 percent of Americans disapproving of Biden, a figure on par with other recent polls.

DNC PR Firm – CNN

  • The network that claims to be all about the truth sure gets angry when presented with the facts.

Over the weekend, Jim Acosta entertained Republican Representative Ralph Norman, and the discussion turned to the border. As Norman began to detail how Biden has effectively flung open the border, Acosta was visibly agitated and went into turbo-charged spin mode, in order to protect the sanctity of Joe Biden's honor.

Gilded Reframe – POLITICO

  • Would you possibly call him "Nazi Adjacent"?!

As Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued his checks-collecting tour, he made a stop at the Canadian House of Commons, and a deeply embarrassing development was seen. Following Zelenskyy's address, the assembly, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, rose to applaud who they had been told was a 92-year-old Canadian-Ukraine war hero. It turned out that the man had served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, which operated under the authority of the Nazis.

Politico, in reporting on the episode, described the man as a "Nazi-linked veteran."

Just for some additional comedy, Canada's conservative leader demanded Trudeau apologize. "This is an appalling error in judgment on the part of Justin Trudeau, whose personal protocol office is responsible for arranging and vetting all guests and programming for state visits of this kind passing the blame to others as he always does."

Trudeau promptly passed the blame onto others:

A statement from the prime minister’s office said it was not given any advance notice about the recognition or invitation from the speaker’s office, which acts independently from the prime minister.

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