Sean Hannity has a secret Twitter account that only his Fox News staff knows about

Fox News host Sean Hannity is no stranger to Twitter, where he frequently picks fights with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, promotes his show, and occasionally stokes conspiracy theories. But there is also a different Sean Hannity Twitter account somewhere on the internet — one only the staff at Fox News has access to, as The New York Times Magazine reports:

Until a few years ago, the staff of Hannity, the top nightly cable show in the United States, shared news by text or email, but today, much of the collaborative work is handled via a Twitter account accessible to only the staff. "If I like something, I'll click Like, and if other producers like something, they'll click Like," [Hannity's senior executive producer Porter] Berry told me. The result is a "pool of ideas" — "50, 60, 70 stories," in addition to articles Hannity himself has flagged for inclusion. "You've got to pull it all together," Berry added. "Build that argument." [The New York Times Magazine]

While the strategy can lead to "masterful" segments on air, it can also be misleading. After the Las Vegas shooting, for example, Hannity paraphrased a portion of a tweet by @TheResistANNce that read: "Pray that only trumptards died." But in a subsequent investigation, The Washington Post found no evidence to prove @TheResistANNce was actually a real person. "A number of discrepancies concerning the creation date of the Twitter account, and the particulars of how the tweet had attracted notice, indicated that it was almost certainly the work of a troll," the Times notes.

Still, "this likelihood went unmentioned on Hannity." Read more about Sean Hannity at The New York Times Magazine.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.