| | | | | Exec summary: There's a lotta news this Friday: Kimberly Guilfoyle's exit from Fox, Shonda Rhimes' first slate of Netflix shows, James Gunn's firing. Plus, we have a brand new podcast with the one, the only, Maggie Haberman. But first... | | If you're reading this on Friday evening, turn on the tube! My next CNN prime time documentary, "The Trump Show: TV's New Reality," premieres at 10pm ET... It will re-air at 2am ET for all you insomniacs...
For the doc, we spoke with a cross-section of the TV industry's top producers and critics, some of whom are proud members of the Trump "resistance." The showrunners described all the ways that Trump has changed prime time. Here are a few... | | Numerous shows have folded Trump into their storylines. Many (most?) of the explicit Trump references are jokes and jabs at his expense. For left-leaning writers' rooms, it's a way to speak out. Take NBC's "Will & Grace," which came out swinging when it premiered last fall, comparing Trump's skin tone to a Cheetos bag.
"Our thinking initially was, well, to avoid it would be like foolish. It would be insane. How do you avoid, literally, the elephant in the room?" co-creator David Kohan said. But "over time we began to temper it..." He said "The digs have to be worth it. You want it to be clever. You don't want it to be cheap. You don't want to be too easy." By now, ALL of the easy jokes have already been told...
>> DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD: For blue America, it's validating and cathartic to hear Hollywood sound off. But the anti-Trump talk breeds resentment and alienation among his base. I think we all perceive that this is getting worse and worse...
| | Dramatizing his actions and policies... | | Staying ahead of the news has become harder: "You can't anticipate, you can't stay ahead of it. Everything is happening so fast," "Madam Secretary" showrunner Barbara Hall said. "Whereas I feel like politics used to move a little more slowly, and so you could create the sort of fictional futuristic world, it's really difficult to do that these days."
"Topping" real life has become harder too: "In a callowly entertaining way, it's hard to imagine that anything you write fictionally is going to be as interesting, as compelling and as crazy as the stuff we're seeing," "Homeland" co-creator Howard Gordon said. But I think shows like "Homeland" and "The Americans" have helped people process what's going on in DC/Moscow/etc.
There's much more to come: Bruce Miller, creator of Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale," pointed out that viewers are "just beginning" to see how TV is reacting to the Trump age, "because we're just starting to see the first crop of things that were thought of and executed, you know, after the election."
| | Trump thinks just like these producers think | | Talking with showrunners, I noticed that they treat Trump as a colleague of sorts, citing his long history with NBC. "Trump is different because he comes from entertainment," "The Good Fight" co-creator Robert King said. "I think this is less a presidency and more a performance," Ilene Chaiken, former showrunner for Fox's "Empire," told me. She argued that Trump "has no knowledge, no grasp of issues; he just is a performer who has an instinct for what people respond to, what gets a rise, what moves the conversation." 
>> BRAND NEW EXAMPLE: On Friday evening, Trump blasted out a tweet about NFL anthem protests. "We know that when DJT stumbles in one area, like the Putin summit, he feels the need to return to issues like this," Peter Wehner tweeted...
| | | Here are more of my takeaways from the project. We also spoke with Norman Lear, Rob Reiner, and many others... So lemme know what you think of the finished product when it airs on CNN... | | Fox solves its Kimberly Guilfoyle problem | | Fox News abruptly parted ways with one of its biggest stars, Kimberly Guilfoyle, on Friday. What happened? Well, I don't think we've heard the full story yet. But Guilfoyle's relationship with Donald Trump Jr. was definitely a factor. They seem like a cute couple -- but the relationship clearly posed a conflict issue with her job -- and she was starting to attend campaign events where Don Jr. was speaking. It was an untenable situation at Fox.
VF's Gabriel Sherman broke the news of her departure via a tweet on Friday morning. CNN's Oliver Darcy quickly confirmed it. Later in the day (maybe after the exit deal was worked out?) Fox announced: "Fox News has parted ways with Kimberly Guilfoyle."
Fox's Howard Kurtz noted that the statement said "nothing about her years of service or her future plans. The trigger obviously her romance with the president's son."
She left without getting to say goodbye on the air... so you know this was not amicable... | | She's going from "The Five" to a pro-Trump group... | | Oliver Darcy emails: Two people familiar with Guilfoyle's plans told me that she will join Don Jr. on the campaign trail for the midterms. I'm also told that she's expected to join the pro-Trump non-profit America First Policies. More here...
Speaking of Fox... and the power of the Fox platform... | | Who has the #1 best-selling book in America this evening? Fox's Jeanine Pirro. Most puffy pro-Trump books have not sold nearly as well as "Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy," Pirro's book for Center Street. It's been doing well on Amazon ever since it came out on Tuesday... But Pirro's visit to "The View" on Thursday lifted "Liars" into the top 10, and the aftermath vaulted it to #1.
If you're blissfully unaware of the blow-up between Pirro and Whoopi Goldberg, check Page Six or People.com... Fox News and Fox Biz talked about the feud throughout the day on Friday, and I bet we'll see more coverage over the weekend...
>> And this will help Pirro's book sales too: She's filling in for Sean Hannity Friday night... | | -- Meaghan Looram is succeeding Michele McNally as the NYT's director of photography... (NYT)
-- Stop me if you've seen this headline before: "White House morale tanks." No doubt it's accurate -- again. The reason this time: "Helsinki fallout..." (Politico)
-- The recently-outed organizers of @SleepingGiants, which pressures advertisers to avoid sites like Breitbart, have given their first interview... To Sapna Maheshwari... (NYT)
-- Don't miss this wonderful profile by my mentor Lisa Napoli: CNN cameraman Dave Rust "has 40 years in the field, and the storage units to prove it..." (CJR) | | Happening this weekend... | | Saturday: NAHJ 2018 continues in Miami...
Saturday and Sunday: OZY Fest in NYC...
Sunday: BuzzFeed debuts a new weekly show on Facebook, "Profile," hosted by Audie Cornish...
| | This Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | Trump confidant/Newsmax boss Chris Ruddy will join me live... Plus Max Boot, Jill Dougherty, David Zurawik, Olivia Nuzzi, and Karen Tumulty... Live at 11am ET on CNN! | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Erik Wemple's latest scoop: Ta-Nehisi Coates is leaving the Atlantic. "He has not signed on with a competing publication..." (WashPost)
-- Hopefully this Facebook Watch show will find an audience: ABC is producing "More in Common," an uplifting show all about uniting people with different backgrounds... (Variety)
-- Production companies are racing to own the life rights of key players in the Thai cave rescue... (THR) | | "The worst week of his presidency" | | Maggie Haberman says it was. "I think this is certainly the worst week of his presidency," she said on CNN's "New Day." Charlottesville "would be the other comparable one."
Something definitely changed this week. I liked the way MSNBC's Benjy Sarlin put it on Twitter. "I don't know if there's direct political fallout to the Putin meeting, but a pretty clear impact by now is that relatively fringe theories about Trump's motives moved to the mainstream and even center-right elite in a way that wasn't true before. Not sure that just goes away."
He's right. There has been open talk all week about Trump's betrayal of the country. "Was it treasonous?" "Has he been compromised?" These uncomfortable ideas are in the public's bloodstream in a big way now...
| | NYT's scoop drove the day | | It hit in the 11am ET hour: "Michael Cohen Secretly Recorded Trump Discussing Payment to Former Playboy Model." And Rudy Giuliani confirmed it!
The payment to Karen McDougal was actually made by American Media Inc. You'll recall that the tabloid publisher said the $$$ was a licensing deal... But in practice it was a case of "catch and kill," burying a story that could have been bad for Trump before election day.
Rudy told CNN that Cohen and Trump were discussing their intention "to reimburse AMI for what they laid out and to do it by check, properly recorded." So to be clear: The two men were talking about paying a magazine publisher for helping them cover up an embarrassing allegation against then-candidate Trump. What a world.
>> Erin Burnett pointed out that the tape shows that Trump's team lied about the McDougal payment... >> MSNBC's Ari Melber to Michael Avenatti: "You made this prediction" about the existence of tapes. "You were proven right." Avenatti responded, "There's not just one tape, there's multiple tapes..." And they'll be "very problematic for Michael Cohen AND the president..." >> The headline on CNN.com right now: "THE TAPES STORY IS JUST GETTING STARTED..."
| | 30 minutes of insight from Haberman | | A few minutes after the Cohen story dropped, Haberman sat down with me for an in-depth interview about the Trump beat, her frustrations with Twitter, and more. Did you know today is the 18-month mark of the Trump presidency? I asked her about what's changed since inauguration day... and what hasn't changed... And we've shared the whole thing on our podcast.
Listen to the episode via Apple Podcasts or TuneIn... Or read Julia Waldow's recap for CNNMoney here! | | -- The value of scoops: Everybody "has a lot of emotions about what's happening right now," but in this environment what's most valuable are new pieces of info. "I try to just really burrow into the just-the-facts piece..."
-- Why the W.H. remains a "leaky" place: "The cast of characters has changed, but I think that working dynamics around Donald Trump are always going to be the same thing. There's always teams fighting against each other."
-- Why the briefings are useful: "I would rather be able to ask an official a question." Even if there's no answer. "I don't understand the people who tell us the press should go stand up and turn our backs or walk out en masse..." | | I hope Twitter is paying close attention to this... | | | Brian Lowry emails: Haberman's first-person piece about backing away from Twitter makes a lot of salient points, both about the platform's merits and its increasingly nasty tone. But there's a third way to employ Twitter without letting it drive you bonkers -- namely, use it as a news feed and be aware of the legitimate feedback you receive, but never engage those who appear angry, abusive or troll-like, and don't seek to provide explanations to people who often have no interest in listening. That doesn't eliminate "the viciousness, toxic partisan anger, intellectual dishonesty, motive-questioning and sexism" that she describes, but it mitigates exposure to it... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "Disney's long, hard fight for 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets was driven by five considerations." Dylan Byers lists them here... (PACIFIC)
-- Emily Kohlman emails: CJR has published a report on the institutional sexism and harassment plaguing the photojournalism industry, amid harassment scandals in recent months… (CJR)
-- More from Emily: Advocates are sounding the alarm about tariffs on Canadian groundwood paper that are increasing the cost of newsprint by as much as 30-35% — causing fresh pain at some papers... (NiemanLab)
-- CBS just announced a spinoff of "Star Trek: Discovery" called "Short Treks..." Each of the four episodes will run "between 10-15 minutes..." (THR) | | Facebook's rhetoric on misinfo... doesn't match reality | | Oliver Darcy emails: Facebook talks tough when it comes to misinformation. The company says it won't remove false information from its platform, but that it does have other measures for dealing with it. But when I looked at the InfoWars FB page, it appeared the fringe website had skirted a number of the disciplinary measures Facebook has put in place to limit misinformation. My story includes several examples...
>> Two InfoWars videos on Facebook strongly suggest Parkland survivors were acting. The company has said it finds claims that survivors of a violent tragedy are acting to be "abhorrent..." and has pledged to remove them... but when I flagged the InfoWars examples to Facebook, the company left them online.
>> Facebook has suggested it will demote pages that repeatedly share bad information. InfoWars' content, however, is thriving. In the past year, the website's videos have been viewed more than 92 million times, and it has received 6.86 million interactions with its content.
>> Facebook has said it affixes false information with fact checks. When asked how many times Facebook has done this with InfoWars, a company spokesperson only provided six examples. The spokesperson did not answer when asked specifically how many times it has fact-checked InfoWars content.
>> Facebook has said it will pull monetization privileges for pages that repeatedly post false info, but a Facebook spokesperson told me the company has not disabled the monetization option for InfoWars.
It all makes you go 🤔 | | Disney fires James Gunn due to "offensive" old tweets | | The Daily Caller and other conservative media megaphones called out director James Gunn for awful tweets in his past. And on Friday, Disney took action, dropping him from "Guardians of the Galaxy 3."
"The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James' Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio's values, and we have severed our business relationship with him," Alan Horn, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, said in a statement obtained by CNN...
>> BACKGROUND: "Gunn has been writing the script for Guardians 3, and the movie was expected to begin shooting in Atlanta in the fall for an expected 2020 release date, though Marvel Studios had never officially announced the date," THR reports...
>> GUNN'S RESPONSE: The tweets were from "nearly a decade ago," but "regardless of how much time has passed, I understand and accept the business decisions taken today..." | | Right-wing media called him a leftist terrorist. He appears to be a pro-gun conservative | | Tom Kludt emails: You may have seen a story bouncing around right-wing media about a "leftist Antifa terrorist" from South Dakota who was arrested this week. His social media footprint, and his own brother, suggest that he's in fact a pro-gun conservative.
Check out Tom's full story here... It's a doozy... | | Shonda's first eight (!!) shows for Netflix | | Shonda Rhimes' first slate of productions for Netflix includes eight series. Read ALL about them here... It is quite a list...
Rhimes also sat down with the NYT's John Koblin to share her plans... The story is a must-read... Especially for the detail about her breakfast with Ted Sarandos early on in Netflix's courting process...
>> PULL QUOTE: "Everybody thinks that there's a 'Shondaland show.' No. There's a Shondaland show that we made for ABC. Now I can't wait to show everybody what a Shondaland show is that we make for the world..." | | Lowry's weekend movie reviews | | | Brian Lowry emails: It's a big weekend for sequels, albeit two very different ones: "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" and "The Equalizer 2" -- billed as Denzel Washington's first sequel role -- headlining the new offerings. I preferred the former, but the latter -- again casting Washington as a taciturn vigilante, adapted from the '80s TV show -- has its moments, if taken strictly on its own terms. Read more... | | Lin-Manuel making an announcement on Sunday... | | Lin-Manuel Miranda is making some news on Sunday... It has to do with the upcoming opening of "Hamilton" in Puerto Rico this January...
NBC's Savannah Guthrie sat down with Miranda to talk about that engagement, and other topics, on Thursday... The interview will air on Monday's "Today" show... | | "Castle Rock" coming next Wednesday | | | Brian Lowry emails: "Castle Rock" boasts a strong pedigree -- a J.J. Abrams-produced Stephen King mashup, set in his favorite fictional town — and comes at a time when Hulu has broken out with "The Handmaid's Tale." But the series itself starts too slowly to scare up much enthusiasm... | | | For the record, part four | | | -- "During a panel for 'The Walking Dead' held at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday, star Andrew Lincoln confirmed speculation he's exiting the massively popular zombie drama," Sandra Gonzalez reports...
-- Lisa Respers France writes about the season's streaming romcoms: It's a summer of love over on Netflix...
-- Chloe Melas's latest: Jinger Duggar has welcomed her first child, a girl...
-- Megan Thomas emails: "Can Wakanda save the Oscars?" This is a worthy read from VF's Rebecca Keegan on "Black Panther's" award season value... | | | Have a great weekend! See you on Sunday morning. And let me know what you think of this newsletter. Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts: brian.stelter@turner.com | | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment