It’s been, to put it mildly, an interesting week. Christian Walker, son of Herschel, has become a 23-year old MAGA-influencer. And The Daily Beast — named after a fictional paper in an Evelyn Waugh novel — has become the go-to place for scoops on Herschel the much-concussed. “Roger Sollenberger got his first scoop about Herschel Walker by accident. ‘Just googling, really,’ the Daily Beast reporter told me. It was June and he was searching for his next story. ‘I didn’t know that I was looking for a kid. I was just following some other track,’ he said, when he stumbled upon some ‘dusty old sites’ that would lead him to his sources (and eventually, the discovery of a son Walker hadn’t publicly acknowledged). ‘I don’t know exactly if you could reverse engineer that,’ said Sollenberger … He set out to become an investigative reporter a couple years ago and was doing it independently until Salon hired him in April 2020. He joined the Daily Beast as a political reporter about a year later. A brief rundown of Sollenberger’s stories about Walker: The first big one, in June, revealed that Walker had a secret son who had ‘apparently been estranged from his biological father since his birth a decade ago,’ information that the Daily Beast said it confirmed through public posts, a court document naming Walker as the child’s father, and a source close to the boy’s family. (Walker’s campaign claimed Walker was not ‘hiding’ the 10-year-old boy and is ‘proud of his children,’ though the Daily Beast noted that Walker had at that point only publicly acknowledged the existence of one son, 22-year-old Christian Walker.) The development seemed to fly in the face of Walker’s public comments about fatherhood and rebukes of absentee fathers in the Black community. A few days later, Sollenberger reported Walker had two other undisclosed children …” (Charlotte Klein/VF)
“Those of us who make our living in even remote proximity to the New York/Washington/politico/media/corporate world of back-scratching (and backstabbing) all expect a certain amount of personal corruption to go unmentioned to the great unwashed. This can involve killing stories as a personal favor (or writing them), or not looking too deeply into matters that might complicate one’s life or one’s job or interfere with a favor one either needs now or might one day. Almost no institution is immune. Trump’s career has, from its infancy in his father’s racist shadow—and the backing of his dirty money—stretched the limits of allowable corruption beyond any previously known borders, and done so in more directions than one can even keep track of. He is (OK, allegedly) a compulsive liar, a poisonous racist, an admirer of Hitler, a rapist, a con man, an idiot, and by the way, a terrible businessman … I could, as always, go on. But by having a genius for both the weakness of institutions, the needs of the people who ran them, and above all, the audacity that total shamelessness can give a person in American public life, he not only somehow got elected president but may have put himself in a position to lead what may be a fatal attack on American democracy. Haberman does not tell this larger story, but she helps you—especially people unfamiliar with the New York tabloid media culture that facilitated Trump’s rise—understand how it could have happened … Like her fellow daily journalist book authors, she is guilty of holding back some of her best stuff from readers of her newspaper. But let’s face it, there’s nothing anyone can report about Trump that would shake the faith of his cult, nor free Republican politicians from the fear that leads them to cower at his every tantrum.” (Eric Alterman/Altercation)
“ Trump and his circles have worked to propel the ‘America First’ style of right-wing populism abroad by giving a MAGA stamp of approval for far-right candidates and building informal alliances with burgeoning right-wing movements. Most recently, he provided a last-minute boost for Bolsonaro with a video endorsement filmed on his private plane while on the way back from a rally in Michigan — a video that Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo said contributed to his father’s better than expected showing in Sunday’s presidential election. Trump’s warned about world war stemming from U.S. policy towards Taiwan, he’s entertained Hungary’s Viktor Orban at his club in New Jersey, and talked longingly about his relationship with Kim Jong-Un as the North Korean leader fired ballistic missiles over Japan. His allies say it’s part of building his own political brand … ‘I think it’s a personal friendship. When I’ve discussed it with President Trump, he has a great affinity for leaders who are willing to stand up against the media elites around the world, who are independent minded and he said these people can put their people first,’ said former Trump adviser Jason Miller, who now runs social media platform GETTR and has promoted the platform abroad, including in Brazil. ‘He’s told me it’s ‘the go alone to get along’ crowd.’” (Politico)
“My favorite Judy Tenuta story: after a show, the comic who opened for her is driving her to their next gig; as they’re passing cornfields at 2 AM he asks, ‘So what did you think of my act’ & she replies, ‘Ask me again when we get a bit closer to town’ I am so, so sad she’s gone … “ (Emo Phillips)
“Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has already brought a number of lawsuits against Associated Newspapers' publications. He is currently suing the Mail on Sunday for libel over an article which stated he had tried to keep secret details of his legal fight to reinstate his police protection, and last year won damages from the same paper over claims he had turned his back on the Royal Marines. His wife Meghan also won a privacy case against the publisher last December for printing a letter she had written to her estranged father. The couple's relations with Britain's tabloid press collapsed following their marriage in 2018, and they have previously said they would have ‘zero engagement’ with four major British papers, including the Daily Mail, accusing them of false and invasive coverage. Media intrusion was a major factor they cited in their decision to step down from royal duties and move to the United States two years ago. Elton John also defended the couple himself after newspapers accused them of hypocrisy for using his private jet for a flight to stay at his home in the south of France while calling for action to tackle climate change.” (Reuters)
“The French author Annie Ernaux, now the winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, isn't a household name in the United States, but her influence is everywhere. Over more than 20 books since 1974, she has created an archive of her life and times that's a forerunner of the more recent autofiction craze that has swept up Sheila Heti, Ben Lerner, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and others. Autofiction was a French invention, after all—who else would pioneer romanticizing your life as a novel? Ernaux has addressed heartbreaking affairs, illegal abortions, and breast cancer. But my personal entry into her oeuvre was The Years, which I would recommend to anyone as a starting point. It's not quite memoir, nor fiction, nor critical essay. Maybe it's a prose poem, a grand description of her generational experience of the second half of the 20th century. In it, Ernaux addresses herself as ‘she’ and her generation as ‘we.’ It's sweeping and yet intimately personal, acknowledging the individuality of every life but also our fundamental collectivity.” (Dirt)
“(Hollywood Fixer Brad) Herman, 64, who will speak — circumspectly — of his late clients (e.g., Johnny Carson, Burt Reynolds, Stan Lee) but remains mostly mum about those still living, including his current roster (A-list performers, athletes and influencers), has collected affectionate monikers. Among the dead, The Late Late Show host Tom Snyder, a longtime client, liked to refer to him as The Wolf, in reference to the skillful cleaner of messes played by Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. Elizabeth Taylor, in a thank-you note sent to Herman after he steered her then-husband Larry Fortensky through a DUI arrest without the press learning of it, labeled him My Sunshine. Celebrated industry attorney Howard Weitzman called him The Secret Weapon. Weitzman’s widow, Margaret, recalls: ‘Brad was always talking to my husband. He’s almost like a priest — one who takes care of business.’ The less enamored might simply call him a fixer. As Herman acknowledges, ‘I do operate in the gray area between an officer of the court and a layperson.’ But he ‘detests’ the word. ‘The implication is that there’s something surreptitious or underhanded. Everything I do has been straight-arrow legal, forever,’ he claims. So, what does he prefer? ‘I’m a facilitator and a crisis manager and a problem solver.’ Shawn Holley, a top entertainment lawyer, is succinct: ‘Brad is one of a kind. There is no one in Hollywood who can do the things he can do.’” (THR)
“President Joe Biden attended a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser on Thursday evening at the New York City home of James and Kathryn Murdoch, according to the White House pool report. James Murdoch, the son of right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has quit the family business. In recent years, he and his wife have donated large sums of money to progressive causes, including millions to Biden's campaign efforts.” (Reliable Sources)
“In an industry teeming with publicity-hungry executives, the late Frank Biondi stood apart. An architect of modern-day Hollywood, he quietly shaped media companies into creative powerhouses. Biondi led HBO in its early years. He helped build Nickelodeon and Comedy Central into iconic brands. He provided critical seed money to a nascent production firm that went on to make ‘When Harry Met Sally’ and ‘Seinfeld.’ He saw value in turning a single show, ‘Law & Order,’ into a multi-series franchise … His youngest daughter, Jane Biondi Munna, long felt that few people recognized his many contributions. For years, she would nudge him: ‘When are you going to write your book?’ ‘He would laugh and say: ‘I’ll do it when Sumner dies,’ Biondi Munna recalled in a recent interview. His response hinted at the complexities, and perhaps a lingering sting, from a roller-coaster Hollywood career. Biondi was famously fired by the combative Sumner Redstone, Viacom’s longtime chairman, in 1996 — just as the company was hitting its stride.” (Meg James/LAT)