Thread by @DrewHolden360

🧵THREAD🧵

The downfall of Michael Avenatti was obvious many miles away. Well, to everyone except the mainstream media.

With the news of Avenatti’s sentencing, I thought it was time to go down memory lane for some of the best Avenatti takes. ⤵️

We need to start this with some of the all-time greats.

Perhaps my favorite comes from @ChrisCillizza.

Now I say perhaps because these two takes from @JoyAnnReid should be etched into stone for the rest of human history.

But maybe the all-time best comes from - who else - @JRubinBlogger, who politely asked Avenatti to consider running for Congress before running for President (“I love ya, but…”)

But don’t be fooled. This wasn’t just the fangirling daydreams of a few chatty media types.

We had countless stories just like this one from @NBCNews that helped build Avenatti into a folk icon.

They have…not aged perfectly.

There were a lot of takes about how brilliant Avenatti was, so well positioned to strike at Trump, so likely to be his undoing.

This from @latimes captures the sentiment well. “Trump meets his match”

I’m…not confident this should be the takeaway, @JuliaDavisNews.

For @USATODAY, Avenatti had “cornered” the President and his team (this was around impeachment - Avenatti repeatedly said Trump wouldn’t serve out his term)

Some of the framing was…a little much.

Here, @frankrichny for @NYMag says that, despite the criticism, Avenatti is “the one media whore I can’t get enough of”

There were loving profiles in places like @nytimes.

(That also includes glowing actual coverage about Avenatti and, as we’ll get to soon, his future ambitions).

But it wasn’t just the Times who profiled him. Here’s @NPR which, as a reminder, gets a cut of your tax dollars, doing the same.

And of course the media hung on every twist and turn of the Avenatti saga.

Who can forget the fawning coverage of his presidential ambitions?

I’m not sure the idea that “Michael Avenatti’s Past Won’t Stop Him” - running for President or otherwise - has held up @TIME.

Who can forget this classic chyron from @brianstelter @ReliableSources

But @CNN pushed Avenatti hard even beyond just Stelter.

Although I will say, having Avenatti on to talk about “the news media’s credulity” is a little too on the nose, @brianstelter

Take a look: @ChrisCuomo @Acosta

This from @Slate presented without comment.

But the worst outlet had to be @MSNBC. Avenatti was a regular fixture on the outlet. They all but played comms director for him, even covering his Twitter spats with President Trump.

@maddow helped push some serious propaganda. And @AriMelber I…I don’t know what to tell you.

A few predictions & other commentary on the network haven’t exactly aged perfectly.

@JoeNBC, might you have preferred your original skepticism?

And @JonathanTurley, do you still stand by the idea that “the Michael I know would not make any allegations that he couldn’t back up”?

Some of the coverage was paparazzi-esque.

Avenatti was a media creation. And they squeezed every ounce out of him that they could - even in weird ways. @washingtonpost @Eugene_Scott @VanityFair

Again, the coverage was weird. But I think I will - in this case and in all others - dispute the suggestion that “CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin is America” @washingtonpost @AlexHortonTX

As @FreeBeacon wrote about, just @CNN and @MSNBC gave Avenatti nearly *$200 million* in free airtime in a two month window: freebeacon.com/politics/cnn-m…

A lot of reporters were obviously star struck with Avenatti - who will be spending 30 months behind bars for attempted extortion.

That includes @NicolleDWallace (I don’t think the teaching gig will happen), @chucktodd (maybe pushback would’ve been warranted?) & @atrupar

Some of the blue check takes were really…something.

@SteveSchmidtSES (“clairvoyant”)
@ananavarro (not sure this comparison held up!)
@funder
@kurteichenwald (yikes man)

There should be an enormous lesson here: the media is incredibly vulnerable to a certain variety of camera-savvy huckster who tells them what they want to hear.

The media was the mark, and boy did they get taken by Michael Avenatti.

The question now becomes: will anyone learn anything?

Alas, my hunch is no. No one has faced consequences from promoting and fawning over the fraud of Avenatti. Avenatti was good for business. And we’ll see more like him in no time.

Avenatti is the apotheosis of a character that’s been all-too-common in the Trump era: a thinly veiled fraud whom the media push because they say mean things about a Republican.

If the media hopes to build any trust with the American people, they need to stop creating Avenattis.

With the pandemic in the rearview mirror, it can be easy to forget the destruction that it caused.

Food banks have been hit hard. In your charity, if you liked the thread, a donation to Capital Area Food Bank would go a long way. capitalareafoodbank.org