Journalist John Solomon leaves the Hill to start own media outlet
by Paul Bedard | September 18, 2019 02:39 PM

Opinions
Sean Hannity and John Solomon slimed James Comey. Will they admit it?

By Erik Wemple
Media critic
August 29

In the words of Fox News host Sean Hannity, it was a “huge massive breaking news” story: James B. Comey, the fired FBI director, would face a grim judgement from the Justice Department’s inspector general in an upcoming report on his famous memos summarizing his encounters with President Trump. “The DOJ’s watchdog, the Inspector General [Michael] Horowitz, is preparing a damning report on Comey’s conduct in his final days as the FBI director that will likely conclude that he leaked classified information and showed a lack of candor. That would be lying,” said Hannity during his July 31 program.

The revelation didn’t come from Hannity’s own sleuthing; it came from John Solomon, an “opinion contributor” at the Hill and part of the “Hannity” crew that supplies Fox News’s prime-time audience with often wobbly and salacious tidbits. That same day, Solomon reported the Comey details under the headline, “James Comey’s next reckoning is imminent — this time for leaking.” The opening paragraph:

{snip}

Perhaps Solomon should declare himself the new Justice Department inspector general.
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Erik Wemple, The Washington Post's media critic, focuses on the cable-news industry. Before joining The Post, he ran a short-lived and much publicized local online news operation, and for eight years served as editor of Washington City Paper. Follow https://twitter.com/ErikWemple

Over the past decade or so, his work has taken on a more conservative cast. His prominence within the conservative media ecosystem has been abetted by Fox News’s Hannity, who has featured him in segments highlighting his columns, particularly those casting doubt about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia.

The attention from Hannity — a fierce supporter of the president — has led other conservative outlets to aggregate Solomon’s work, boosting his influence.

The Columbia Journalism Review, in one of several critiques of Solomon, wrote in 2012 that he “has a history of bending the truth to his story line” and “distorting facts and hyping petty stories.”

He has been a figure of some controversy within his own shop, the Hill, which he joined in 2017 as an “investigative columnist” and the head of its video unit. In late 2018, a group of newsroom staffers complained that his stories about a liberal lawyer’s effort to raise money for women who had considered making sexual misconduct allegations against Trump during the 2016 campaign lacked adequate context.

He also reported, in an October 2017 column, that Russian sources had paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech and waged “an influence campaign” with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the time the Obama administration approved the sale of an energy company, Uranium One, to a Russian company, suggesting but not confirming a quid pro quo.

Similar internal complaints at the Hill trailed another Solomon-authored story that was favorable to Trump. Other news organizations have reached unfavorable verdicts on his columns.