In May 2018, porn actress Stormy Daniels appeared briefly in a Saturday Night Live sketch that concluded with her issuing a warning to President Trump: “a storm’s a-comin’, baby.”

Her cameo on the weekend comedy show marked the height of the news and entertainment industries' shared obsession with her lawsuit alleging that she both slept with Trump in 2006 and that he later attempted to buy her silence for $130,000.

Five months after the Saturday Night Live appearance, Judge S. James Otero, of the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, dismissed the porn starlet’s defamation lawsuit against the president, who maintains he never cheated on his third wife with Daniels. Later, in December 2018, the same federal judge ordered the actress to pay Trump roughly $293,000 in attorney's fees and other costs. Last week, Otero tossed a second lawsuit Daniels brought against Trump, arguing her hush money case was moot given she and her promoter, celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti, had already openly discussed the details of her fling with Trump.

On Tuesday, Daniels and Avenatti revealed they had parted ways. The split wasn't amicable, according to initial reports.

Trump, meanwhile, has suffered no personal consequence from this episode except to have it reinforced publicly that he is a philandering liar (tell me something I don’t know already). The national press, for its part, has clearly moved on from all of this nonsense, as evidenced by the relatively little news coverage for the dismissal of Daniels’ second lawsuit or her split with Avenatti.

What happened?

Daniels’ lawsuit against Trump was one of the most important news stories of his presidency, rivaled only by allegations that he conspired directly with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.

At least, that's what newsrooms told me.

They told me the Daniels’ story was worthy of our attention when they aired every gritty, dirty detail of her extramarital romp with Trump. They told me the Daniels scandal was very important when they awarded it months of wall-to-wall coverage. Cable newsrooms told me the Daniels affair was of the utmost importance when they allowed Avenatti to become a semi-permanent resident of their green rooms. This is barely an exaggeration.

Between March 7 and May 15, 2018, Avenatti clocked a staggering 147 television interviews on both cable and network television, meaning he averaged an astonishing two television appearances per day, according to a new analysis by the right-leaning Media Research Center.

Of the 147 appearances, 74 of those were on CNN. Fifty-seven appearances were with MSNBC, where host Lawrence O’Donnell joked, “Michael Avenatti is becoming my co-host.” O’Donnell’s conspiracy-mongering colleague Joy Reid added of the attorney, “He’s good.” On May 3, Avenatti appeared on MSNBC seven times, starting at 7 a.m. on “Morning Joe” and ending at 10 p.m. on “The Last Word.” Absurdly enough, in more than a few cable news panel appearances, Avenatti barely even spoke. He just sat there staring while the other guests talked about whatever was in the news cycle that day.

Avenatti and Daniels were treated as folk heroes by the news and entertainment industries. Daniels has been the subject of no small amount of cloying media profiles, each hailing her for her courage and bravery for speaking publicly about the one time she had sex with Trump. Avenatti meanwhile appeared at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards, where he was immediately swarmed by news media. The attorney also attended the always-odious White House Correspondents' Association dinner last year as a guest of the Associated Press.

But that was then. This is now. The Tweedledum and Tweedledee of presidential sex scandals have parted ways, their lawsuits against Trump ending in total failure. Avenatti also did himself no favors when he attempted to cash in on the press’ efforts to torpedo the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Like the "storm" Daniels promised Trump, the news media’s coverage of her story has gone from all talk to basically nothing.

All those news reports, commentary articles, and cable news segments for – for what, exactly? A grotesque months-long news cycle that rarely amounted to more than lurid innuendo, that burnt out eventually with a sad, pathetic whimper? Clearly, the best use of everyone's time and efforts.

The lesson here is the same one we learned from the Michael Wolff Fire and Fury saga: Stop promoting idiots and hucksters.

If you’re in news media, and you readily elevate obvious grifters because they promise they have the “goods” on the president, you’re signaling not just your political bias, but also your own willingness to be made a fool of.