There are lots of people on TV, but there is no one like Sean Hannity.
On the one hand, there is probably no media figure who has ever had greater access to a presidential nominee. Hannity has interviewed Trump many dozens of times since he launched his campaign, usually once or twice a week, often for the full hour.
On the other hand, there is no media figure who is so unapologetically in the tank for a single candidate. ThinkProgress documented in April that over Hannity’s first 40 interviews with Trump, he managed to not make a single piece of news.
Some typical questions:
Do you think maybe you communicate that enough to people, that you — that this is a — that your campaign is about people?
Is there any state you don’t have property in?
Do [the Chinese] buy Trump steaks, too?
Hannity gave Trump far more air time on his television show than other Republican candidates.
But last night, Hannity took things to another level. “I’m not the corrupt press,” Hannity told Trump, “I’m actually the conservative here.”
“I don’t hold back that I’ll be voting for Donald Trump in November,” he added, smiling broadly.
Later in the broadcast, without any sense of irony, Hannity announced that journalism was over. “I said journalism is dead in 2008. It’s dead,” he told Herman Cain.
At issue was the media’s scrutiny of Trump’s highly publicized donation of $6 million to veterans’ charities. Trump ended up donating $5.6 million, but much of the money was only contributed after the Washington Post called the groups in May and discovered they had not received what they had been promised.
Trump told Hannity that most of the money was donated “almost immediately,” which is not true.
The media’s failure, in the eyes of Hannity and Trump, was scrutinizing Trump’s pledge. It was that scrutiny, however, that prompted Trump’s pledge to be (partially) fulfilled.