Former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros makes some pretty fantastic, and wrong, claims about TVNewser in her lawsuit against Fox News. This site was mentioned eight times in the 37-page suit. The first mention comes on page 4:
“…in web sites such as TVNewser, BlastingNews.com, and The Cable Gamer, which are widely reported to be financially supported and/or controlled by Fox News;”
As the late, great John McLaughlin would say. WRONG! Fox News has never controlled this site. There was a time in the not-too-distant past that Fox News wasn’t even talking to us. So that would make it hard to control us. As for financial support, to my knowledge they’ve never bought ads in the 9 years I’ve been running TVNewser.
On page 12:
“The suggestion that Tantaros leaked a story to TVNewser was laughable, because it is common knowledge within the industry that TVNewser was created and controlled by Ailes.”
Wrong again. It’s common knowledge that Brian Stelter created TVNewser (first called CableNewser) in 2004, updating the site from his dorm room at Towson University. This 2006 New York Times piece has the backstory. The New York Times first reported on CableNewser two years earlier, in 2004, as the dearly departed Gawker reminds us. Thank God for archives.