# EP4 WORKSHEET — series_rightwing_threat / The Gateway Pundit
**Author:** WSA-RWT | **Authored:** 2026-09-02 | **Schema:** DELIVERY_PLAYBOOK.md §Part 4 + §Part 5 (rightwing_threat row)
**Role:** PLANNING ONLY. This worksheet modifies nothing. No TTS, no renders, no composites. All disk-state below verified via tool calls 2026-09-02.

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## 1. HEADER

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Episode | EP4 — The Gateway Pundit (manifest ep 4; **scope from zero**) |
| Working title | **"The Gateway Pundit: The Smear That Went to Court"** |
| Thesis | The full anatomy of accountability: a headline named two private election workers, the smear traveled from post to harassment to courtroom — and the outlet's own retraction/settlement record is the episode's verdict. This is the clearest Station-D case in the series. |
| Manifest why | "Election-denial and January 6 propaganda hub; spread baseless fraud claims and smeared election workers." (series_manifest.json:8) |
| Manifest hook URLs | https://mediamatters.org/gateway-pundit (Tier-2 locator) + https://www.justsecurity.org/81831/trumps-lawyers-are-being-held-accountable-for-election-lies/ (Tier-2 accountability documentation) |

**Disk-state receipt (verified 2026-09-02, tool calls):**

| Artifact | State |
|---|---|
| `ep4_gateway_pundit/` | **DOES NOT EXIST** — scope from zero |
| Factbase | **DOES NOT EXIST** (series-wide) |
| Presenter route | no entry (follow EP3's SA-PLAN pattern) |
| Precedent receipts spec'd by series directive | defamation suits re Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss (court filings = Tier-1; verify outcome status before air); Newsmax Dominion-related retraction (April 27 2021 per NPR) is EP5's precedent, not EP4's |

## 2. STATE TODAY

- **Exists:** manifest row + pitch line + two Tier-2 locators. Nothing else.
- **Scope-from-zero checklist:** same as EP3's (factbase block → dir + plan JSON mirroring the 8-section contract → routing-receipt entry → downstream). Order: SA-RES first — this episode above ALL others must not script before court-filing lines land.

## 3. DUAL-LENS READ

### LENS 1 — EDU
- **E1:** court filings are the gold tier — and they exist for this outlet's behavior. Factbase spec: (a) the posts verbatim (outlet-own-words, archived); (b) the complaints/filings naming the posts (PACER/court-record capture); (c) outcome documents — whatever the record actually shows (retraction, settlement, judgment, or pending), captured, never paraphrased ahead of the record. **Hard rule: do not air a suit as a verdict.** If outcomes are pending as of factbase build, the episode says "the case is ongoing — here's what's filed," with the filing quoted.
- **E2 framing mandates:** named private citizens (election workers) get the series' strictest handling: their names appear only with the receipt that clears them (filing/allegation record the outlet smeared against). Never re-perform the smear in narration; SHOW the post, name what it was answered by.
- **E3–E6:** the anatomy arc (post → spread → harm → accountability) is itself the narrative-transport spine (E6); each 90s beat is one station of it.

### LENS 2 — ENT
- **T1:** 0:00–0:03 = the headline verbatim over the court-filing page stamp, question over it. No preamble.
- **T2:** label machine; the verdict-wall (T5) here is a litigation timeline, the series' strongest.
- **T3/T8:** standard presenter slots; the steelman beat (§4) is the emotional center — presenter face-to-face with the "just asking questions" defense.
- **T4:** 90s rhythm follows the anatomy arc; each segment ends gap-turn into the next station.
- **T6:** muffled on the outlet page; crisp+hit with gavel-timed sting on filings. Use sparingly; the document is the star.

## 4. CRAFT LAYER

- **Pretest hook (E1×T1), drafted now:** the directive's model question, with counts ACQUISITION-GATED: *"This headline reached [X] people. How many retractions do you think it got?"* Wrong plausible answer on screen: "They'd retract if it was wrong." Reveal = the actual record (retraction text / litigation outcome as documented). X airs only from a sourced reach line (Tier-3+); without it, the question runs count-free: "How many corrections do you think this smear earned?"
- **Gap ledger:** open = "what happens when a smear targets a person with a name?"; hold = each station names the next (post → who picked it up → what she received → what the courts were asked); close = the record verdict.
- **Amplification-map beat:** post → syndication/social → rally-stage/official mention → harassment of named private citizens. Every node sourced; the harassment-to-officialdom hop documented before it airs.
- **"Who funds/carries it" card:** ACQUISITION-GATED lines only.
- **Math beat (E4):** ACQUISITION-GATED candidates: harassment-call/scale numbers, suit-damages figures, or post-count — compute on air ONLY with two factbase inputs; otherwise qualitative anatomy carries the ep.
- **Anchor conversion (E5):** any dollar/number from filings gets a plain-language companion computed from factbase lines ("[amount] is about [X] years of her salary" — anchor inputs also sourced).
- **E7 technique tags:** **false attribution** (unverified claims presented as investigation), **anecdote-as-data** (surveillance-clip storytelling), **missing base rate**, **strawman** (what the workers actually did vs what was claimed).
- **Steelman staging (E8×T3):** outlet's own defense, staged: "we report what they say" / "just asking questions" press-pass framing (capture their actual wording for the factbase — describe if capture fails). Honored verbatim, then answered with THEIR OWN retraction record: if it was "just reporting," what is the record of what they had to take back?
- **One-ask close (E10):** *before you share a story about a named private person, find whether the claim was ever retracted or settled — comment what you find.* No suppression ask.
- **E9 tease:** EP5 gap: *"Next: a network whose own lawyers had to walk back the very narrative it sold nightly — Newsmax."*

## 5. STEPS

Same chain as EP1–EP3, EP4 deltas:

- **SA-RES:** factbase Gateway Pundit block: archived posts (Tier-1) + court-filing captures (Tier-1) + outcome-status line with as-of date + both Tier-2 locators; **≥4 Tier-1 lines** (posts + filings); outcome status marked PENDING/RESOLVED explicitly.
- **SA-PLAN:** dir + plan + routing entry (EP3 pattern, real ref-video path).
- **SA-SCR:** hard rule enforced by gate: no suit-paraphrased-as-verdict line survives; named-private-citizen mention rules enforced; every claim cites filing line or archived post line.
- **SA-CARD:** litigation-timeline card is the T5 wall; every node carries filing number/court stamp.
- **SA-PUB:** `episode_gateway_pundit.json` + `_broadcast_gateway_pundit.json`.

**QC GATE (2026-09-02):** After SA-QC-FINAL, executor **SA-QC-VIS** runs the multimodal QC gate (C:/DandyDon/smm/QC_GATE.md): frames extracted, the rendered master VIEWED by an independent multimodal reviewer and scored on the 10-dimension rubric (engagement, educational quality, audio quality, visual quality, visual relevance, duration/sync integrity, receipt legibility, presenter discipline, fact-accuracy spot-check, platform-cut QA). PASS thresholds: ≥7.0 overall / no dimension <6 / zero hard-fails. Receipt: `smm/receipts/QC_series_rightwing_threat_EP4_<date>.md` — REQUIRED for ship.

## 6. PRESENTER PLAN

- **Route:** NOT YET PINNED — SA-PLAN registers EP4 in `PRESENTER_ROUTING_RECEIPT.json` (3 PRESENTER segment IDs, `ep4_gateway_pundit/presenter_clips/`, 1080×1080, voice `sasha`).
- **Slot assignment:** slot 1 = headline-to-courtroom hook beside the filed smear; slot 2 = anatomy-arc walk + press-pass steelman face-to-face ("just asking questions"); slot 3 = retraction/court-record beat + one-ask close.
- **Tone constraint (EP4-specific):** the presenter's sternest beat is quoting the court — never outrunning the filings. Restraint = credibility (E6/E8).
- **Share budget:** 3 slots ≤18% of master; locked at SA-SCR.
- **BLOCKED on RWT-B3:** real ref-video path at plan creation.

## 7. BLOCKERS

- **EP4-B1 — factbase absent; court-record acquisition is the long pole:** filings take the most acquisition effort of the five; if filings can't be captured, the episode downgrades to "documented spread + their own retractions" and says so — it does not script from headlines. (Series RWT-B1/RWT-B2.)
- **EP4-B2 — outcome-status drift:** suit outcomes change; factbase lines carry as-of dates; QC re-verifies status at air week; a changed outcome = re-script the verdict segment, not a silent air. (Series RWT-B4 adjacent.)
- **EP4-B3 — defamation-adjacent discipline (binding, manifest note verbatim):** *"This is a media-criticism series, not a call to censor. The goal is to name amplification mechanics and hold the behavior to receipts, not silence opposition."* EP4-specific: the harshest language on air is the court's own language, quoted; named private citizens shielded per §3; no censorship asks anywhere. (Series RWT-B4.)
- **EP4-B4 — ref video:** real path at SA-PLAN. (Series RWT-B3.)

## 8. RECEIPT INDEX

At landing: `ep4_gateway_pundit/` dir with plan JSON (filled) · script_segments.json · routing entry · factbase Gateway Pundit block (posts + filings + outcome-status as-of date) · receipts_archive/ (archived posts + filing captures) · litigation-timeline + amplification-map + funds/carries cards · presenter_clips/ · master + 9:16 + 1:1 · `episode_gateway_pundit.json` + `_broadcast_gateway_pundit.json` + QC receipt w/ verdict line (re-verifying outcome status) · acquisition receipts.
- [ ] QC GATE PASS receipt: smm/receipts/QC_series_rightwing_threat_EP4_<date>.md (10-dimension multimodal review per smm/QC_GATE.md) — REQUIRED for ship

`EDU: FAIL (E1 gate unmet — no filings captured; the hardest E1 episode of the series; suit-as-verdict ban enforced at gate) / ENT: PASS (anatomy arc is a natural T4 spine; litigation-timeline verdict wall authored) / CRAFT: PASS (count-gated pretest drafted; named-citizen shield rules set; 4 consistent E7 tags; press-pass steelman staged) — one line per face.`