The producer who worked alongside Ronan Farrow at NBC News on his Harvey Weinstein investigation quit in protest earlier this month.

Rich McHugh tendered his resignation on Friday, Aug. 17, a year to the day after the Weinstein story left with Farrow. Since then, Farrow has won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles that revealed allegations of sexual harassment and assault—and questions have lingered about why the network gave up on the story that helped launch the #MeToo movement.

NBC News has long insisted the Weinstein exposé wasn’t ready to run on air or online, contrary to Farrow’s claims that it was. Farrow’s story, which ultimately ran in The New Yorker, was part of a series that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, earned him the prestigious George Polk Award for National Reporting, and garnered near-universal praise from his colleagues.

The Daily Beast has uncovered new details of how the process went awry, including alleged threats from NBC, back-biting inside the network about who was truly responsible, and a previously unreported ultimatum by Weinstein’s attorneys.

According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, NBC News general counsel Susan Weiner made a series of phone calls to Farrow, threatening to smear him if he continued to report on Weinstein.

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THE ANATOMY OF ANOTHER CNN STORY FAIL
by Kevin Ryan

• July 26: CNN made following bombshell claim:

“Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.

“Cohen’s claim would contradict repeated denials by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., their lawyers and other administration officials who have said that the President knew nothing about the Trump Tower meeting until he was approached about it by The New York Times in July 2017.” https://www.cnn.com/…/michael-cohen-donald-trump…/index.html

• July 27-28: The news sparked a rush by other media outlets to confirm it. One by one — from NBC News to CBS News to the Washington Post and New York Post — they did. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/the-real-reason-cnns-mich…/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/michael-cohens-latest-big…/

• August 22: On CNN, host Anderson Cooper asked Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis about the story. Davis replied that Cohen does NOT have any knowledge about whether Trump knew about the meeting beforehand. “I think the reporting of the story got mixed up in the course of a criminal investigation. We were not the source of the story.”
https://youtu.be/uvZsXiQ8uko

• August 23: The New York Post reveals that LANNY DAVIS was the source they used to CONFIRM the initial CNN story which Davis was now denying. https://nypost.com/…/cohen-told-congress-he-doesnt-know-if…/

• August 26: The Washington Post reveals that Davis was their source for confirming the CNN story as well. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/09d7f26e-a876-11e8-97ce-cc…

• August 26: In a tweet, CNN says it stands by its original story. “We stand by our story, and are confident in our reporting of it.” https://mobile.twitter.com/brianstelt…/…/1033882163295469568

• August 27: In an interview for BuzzFeed, Lanny Davis now admits HE was the source for the original CNN story, and had lied when he said on Anderson Cooper’s show that he wasn’t. “I made a mistake,” Davis said.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/…/lanny-davis-cnn-trump-tower-…

• August 28: CNN finally acknowledges the growing controversy over their article, in a piece entitled “Attorney for Michael Cohen keeps changing his story on Trump Tower meeting”. In it, CNN says that Lanny Davis now admits to being a source for their original article. Yet CNN’s mea culpa leaves out the fact that their original article stated “Contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment”, which, in hindsight, was an obvious fabrication by the network.
https://www.cnn.com/…/lanny-davis-trump-tower-mi…/index.html

SO TO RECAP: On July 26, CNN wrote a “bombshell” article claiming that anonymous sources told them Michael Cohen revealed Donald Trump had advance knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting with Russians to discuss dirt on Hillary. CNN said they reached out to Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis, but that he declined to comment, making it seem like Davis wasn’t the source. Then after the Washington Post, New York Post, and many others claimed they confirmed the CNN story, Davis said the story was wrong, saying the sources were wrong.

Turns out, DAVIS was the source for the story and for all the confirmations of it.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell told Fox Business host Liz MacDonald on Wednesday that CNN’s much-criticized coverage of the infamous Trump Tower meeting, where Don Jr. met with a Russian national, is crossing out of "bias news" and into "fake news."

“Bias is a story that has a slant to it. A false story is a story that you got wrong,” explained Bozell. “A fake story is a story that you know is false and you’re deliberately putting it forward, and this is fake news. You got a situation where either Michael Cohen was lying under oath, or he wasn’t saying, his spokesman wasn't saying, telling the truth when he said that Trump knew about this meeting. Well, now you have got Michael Cohen's own spokesman, his lawyer, coming forward and saying publicly, no it is not true that this story is not true. My client did not say this, he does not know this, and when CNN stands by this report, this blockbuster report.”

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FORD CANCELS PLAN TO SELL CHINESE-MADE CAR IN U.S., CITING TARIFFS
By Kevin Ryan

Ford Motor has abruptly killed a plan to sell its Chinese-made Focus Active in the United States because of the prospect of higher U.S. tariffs, the automaker announced. The Trump administration has imposed duties on Chinese-made vehicles of up to 25% and is considered further trade barriers. Given the prospect of high tariffs, the Focus Active’s costs “would be substantially higher.”

And with a starting price of around $20,000, there is less profit margin to absorb additional import duties.

Last year Ford moved production of the Focus from the U.S. to China, and announced plans to export the car from China to the U.S. starting in 2019. The suburban Detroit plant that made the Focus was converted to produce the Ford Ranger pickup and Ford Bronco SUV.

Sales of small cars have dropped sharply in the U.S. and companies are seeking to cut the costs of making them. Ford hoped the move to China would save the company $1 billion.

About 95% of the vehicles Ford sells in the U.S. are assembled in the U.S., Canada or Mexico.

THE ENTIRE "STAGNANT MIDDLE CLASS INCOMES" NARRATIVE IS BASED ON A MISREADING OF THE DATA
by Kevin Ryan

It’s probably the single most oft-mentioned claim from politicians in America today: “Middle class families have stagnated! Their incomes, adjusted for inflation, have barely moved in the last 30+ years!” As evidence, they show income quintile charts which seem to indicate that a middle class family in 2016 is only making 14% more than it made in 1986 (after adjusting for inflation). Much of populist and liberal agenda is based on this narrative. Senator Elizabeth Warren this week became the latest to allude to the wage stagnation narrative, claiming in an interview that capitalism isn’t working for the middle class. It’s become such a common assertion that few question it.

And it’s completely false.

First of all, income quintiles are NOT a measure of upward mobility. Instead, they simply show what each of America’s income brackets is earning at a given point in time. For example, in 2016, a household in the top 20% of earners (the top income quintile) averaged $213,941, households in the middle income quintile earned an average of $59,149, etc.

Where the confusion comes in is when people compare today’s middle income quintile to the middle income quintile from 30 years ago, which averaged $51,979 (adjusted for inflation), and say “Middle class families are only making 14% more today than they were 30 years ago! Middle class wages have stagnated! Capitalism is not working for middle class families!!”

That’s a false interpretation of the data for one simple reason: families do NOT stay in the same quintile over time. A young worker in his or her 20s will make significantly more later in life after promotions, raises, finding better paying jobs, etc. How much more? To find out, all you have to do is look at the median income data broken out by age group.

Year: 1986
Age: Up to 24
Median income adjusted for inflation: $32,018
Income quintile: 2nd lowest

Year: 1996
Age: 25-34
Median income adjusted for inflation: $54,709
Income quintile: Middle

Year: 2006
Age: 35-44
Median income adjusted for inflation: $71,907
Income quintile: 2nd highest

Year: 2016
Age: 45-54
Median income adjusted for inflation: $77,213
Income quintile: 2nd highest

In other words, the median new household 30 years ago has seen its income grow by 141% after inflation by the time they reach their prime earning years (age 45-54), a hell of a lot more than the 14% that politicians would have you believe. And it has risen from the 2nd poorest income bracket to the second richest.

What's more, the income growth of the median family has actually INCREASED in recent decades, not decreased as the false narratives suggest. The median household established in 1967 saw its income grow by 119% after inflation by the time it reached its peak earning years in 1997, significantly less than the 141% growth between 1986 and 2016.

And that compares favorably to nearly every other country in the world. The U.S. economy has grown two to three times faster than competitors such as Germany, France, and Japan, while providing families with median disposable incomes that are 15% to 30% higher than in those countries.

Yet because of the false “stagnating incomes” narrative, there are people who actually think our market economy doesn’t work or is even hurting the middle class. The reality, according to the publicly available census data, is precisely the opposite: most families in America experience significant upward mobility, and that upward mobility is actually increasing over time, not decreasing. I’d strongly encourage you to share this information, especially with those who are spreading the false narrative.