The Hill is trash.

[tenderfoot]

"Jimmy Finkelstein, the owner of The Hill, has flown under the radar. But he's played a key role in the Ukraine scandal"



New York (CNN Business)James "Jimmy" Finkelstein, the owner of The Hill newspaper, is not a widely known media executive, but he is one of the era's most consequential.

Finkelstein resides at the nexus of President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and John Solomon, the now-former executive at The Hill and current Fox News contributor who pushed conspiracy theories about Ukraine into the public conversation.

While Solomon has received significant media attention for his work at The Hill, Finkelstein has stayed out of the headlines, despite having himself played a crucial role in the saga.

Beyond his relationship with Solomon, Trump, and Giuliani, Finkelstein was Solomon's direct supervisor at The Hill and created the conditions which permitted Solomon to publish his conspiratorial stories without the traditional oversight implemented at news outlets. And he has kept a watchful eye on the newspaper's coverage to ensure it is not too critical of the President.

<snip>

Finkelstein has been friends with Trump for decades. In fact, according to a former employee at The Hill, he "boasts that he's a close friend" of the President. "Getting a phone call from Trump would fill him with joy," the former employee told CNN Business.

Trump himself has also privately acknowledged his relationship with Finkelstein. During an Oval Office interview with The Hill, according to a person with direct knowledge of the incident, Trump asked one of the outlet's staffers to send along his greetings to Finkelstein. "Tell Jimmy I said hello," Trump told the staffer.

Finkelstein's wife, Pamela Gross, who worked at CNN but left in 2017, is close with Melania Trump. Gross threw a baby shower for Melania Trump, according to a person familiar with the event.

Finkelstein and Gross are also both close with Giuliani, who currently serves as Trump's personal attorney. Finkelstein often hosts social gatherings at his Hamptons home and, according to a person familiar with the matter, Giuliani and his girlfriend spent multiple weekends at the residence this past summer.

<snip>

None of it would have been possible without Finkelstein, who hired Solomon in July 2017 as an executive vice president at The Hill and initially charged him with leading the newspaper's video division.

"Jimmy is the one who hired John Solomon," a former employee told CNN. "The editors didn't want him there."

A person close to Finkelstein noted that as owner, Finkelstein personally hires members of The Hill's senior management.
Almost immediately after Solomon's hiring, staffers at The Hill newspaper grew worried about his work.

"I remember almost immediately thinking, 'Why is he writing?'" the former veteran employee told CNN, noting that Solomon already had earned a reputation for conspiratorial work when he reported on things like the "deep state" for Circa, a now-defunct conservative news website.

Eventually, when his stories started getting more attention, employees inside The Hill's news division protested to newsroom leaders.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/18/media/jimmy-finkelstein-the-hill-ukraine/

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Told you all the Hill was a

compromised POS.

[pecosbob]

4. I have been hammered here at DU repeatedly for pointing out this very thing

At the very least IMO they continually normalize Republican criminality and push the both sides justification. Recently they seem to be most interested in telling Democratic voters who to vote for in the primaries. You're not going to see a lot of full throated support for a candidate like Warren coming out of The Hill for example. I trust them about as much as the NYT Editorial Department...that it to say, not.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Amazing how Comcast Media

does their level best to make this POS a legit news source.

[tblue37]

2. And now, also *trashed*. nt

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. The Hill should be razed and a nice park put in its place

[hatrack]

5. I KNEW I'd seen him somewhere before . . .

?quality=90&strip=all&w=300&h=300&crop=1


/revision/latest?cb=20190701120745

[crickets]

6. Good thing they are finally getting called out. K&R nt

[gratuitous]

8. And it was Devin Nunes who put the bee on them

Nincompoop.

Suddenly The Hill is taking a belated look at what John Solomon got paid to write for them, and it turns out that maybe it wasn't . . . euh, you know . . . quite the objective piece of hard-hitting journalism they thought it was once upon a time.