MSNBC And Washington Post Reprimand Hugh Hewitt For Brokering Meeting With EPA Chief Scott Pruitt

From the Hollywood Reporter:

MSNBC said on Wednesday that it gave Saturday morning show host Hugh Hewitt a “verbal warning” after learning a day earlier that he helped broker a meeting between EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and lawyers representing a California water district, which the network said is a “violation” of the company’s standards. The revelation came from a batch of emails that were released as part of a Freedom of Information act lawsuit.

“Hugh Hewitt disclosed several times to MSNBC viewers that he has a friendship with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and also that Hewitt’s son works for the agency,” a network spokesman said on Wednesday. “As a result of those relationships, Hewitt stopped discussing EPA-related matters on MSNBC. However, after the network learned Tuesday that Hewitt set up an EPA meeting in the fall, he was given a verbal warning as such activity is a violation of our standards.”

And from Media Matters:



Hewitt’s conflict of interest problem has also extended to The Washington Post, which repeatedly allowed Hewitt to praise the EPA and Pruitt in opinion columns for the paper. In an email to Media Matters, Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt wrote: “I was disturbed to learn this morning that Hugh Hewitt had intervened with EPA administrator Scott Pruitt on behalf of Hewitt’s law firm as he was writing about Pruitt in a column for The Washington Post. Hewitt, who has not written about Pruitt since September, has agreed not to write about him going forward and has assured us that similar incidents won’t occur in the future.”