Of all the things that destroyed onetime “porn lawyer” and now-convicted felon Michael Avenatti, the final factor may have been cable news. Avenatti, who rose to prominence as an anti-Trump lawyer, was once a ubiquitous presence on cable news, before being sentenced to 30 months in prison for a $25 million extortion scheme against Nike. (He still faces trials in California and Manhattan on additional charges that he stole millions more from his other clients, including pornstar Stormy Daniels.) The judge who handed down his sentence cited Avenatti’s belief that his fame put him above the law. “Mr. Avenatti had become drunk on the power of his platform, or what he perceived the power of his platform to be,” said Judge Paul Gardephe of the Southern District of New York in his ruling.
The media’s love affair was a mutual intoxication: Avenatti made 254 appearances on cable or network news between March 2018 and April 2019. No fewer than 147 of those came between March 7 and May 15, 2018 — roughly two interviews a day. That includes 179 interviews in three months between March and June 2018, according to the Media Research Center: 121 on CNN, 108 on MSNBC, and 24 on the Big Three networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS). Often the interviewer spent much of the air time gushing over Avenatti, as when Joy Reid gushed, “He’s good.” In all, the media gave Michael Avenatti the equivalent of $175 million in free media (more specifically: $174,631,598.07), according to an analysis from The Washington Free Beacon.
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