| | | | | Hey! How'd you like the first half of the year? We're halfway through 2017... I wonder what surprises are in store for the second half of the year... | | | >>> Jim Rutenberg in Saturday's NYT: "It's a cable news-Twitter presidency. So is it any wonder that one of the great, early standoffs of the new administration is not between the president and Congress or the president and a foreign leader, but between the president and the hosts of a morning news show?" | | Weaponizing the National Enquirer? | | Let's stipulate that this news cycle has been exhausting. Furthermore I'd suggest that President Trump's tweets about Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough probably received too much media attention, all things considered. But Thursday's tweets were a window into the president's mind... and Friday's flare-up about the National Enquirer was a window into the way Trumpworld works.
The Enquirer is an important piece of the pro-Trump media universe. It hasn't received enough attention, which is why Jeffrey Toobin's piece in this week's New Yorker was such essential reading. Just judging by the cover stories, it seems like the Trump White House has weaponized the Enquirer.
There have been other stories about the White House working behind the scenes to neuter or silence critical news media voices. But this example -- as alleged by the MSNBC co-hosts -- is particularly shocking.
While some of the details are in dispute, Trump and Scarborough agree that there were calls back and forth when the tabloid was working on a damaging story about Scarborough. So let's dive in... | | If you believe Scarborough, this is essentially a form of blackmail... Scarborough was told that if he apologized to Trump and changed his tone, Trump would make the dreaded story disappear...
If you believe Trumpworld, Scarborough was the one engaging in questionable behavior... calling up Jared Kushner to ask for a favor...
Is the truth somewhere in between? Is there any way to know?
Scarborough tweeted to Trump that he has proof of the White House threats -- "I have texts from your top aides and phone records" -- but hasn't provided any of the evidence. He's off on vacation now... | | "Colluding with favored press outlets..." | | Here's what Norm Eisen, a former Obama White House ethics czar, told me. (First, a disclosure: Eisen is currently involved in a lawsuit against Trump.)
"The president's tacit admission of control over the Enquirer's punishing coverage of his adversaries suggests an abuse of power -- a shocking one," he said. "Other leaders who have undermined democracies over the past century have begun by colluding with favored press outlets to attack those who stood in their path. It seems Mr. Trump is following in their dangerous footsteps -- one more troubling resemblance to he Putins, Orbans and Erdowans of the world, not to mention even less savory exemplars." | | Joe told colleagues about the alleged threats as they were happening... | | | That's according to an NBC News spokesman, who says he was one of the execs Scarborough informed "contemporaneously." This fact bolsters Scarborough's version of events... | | ...So why didn't he tell his viewers sooner? | | | Shouldn't he have shared this disturbing account as soon as possible, rather than sitting on it for months? NBC had no comment about that... | | This is on Page One of Saturday's NYT | | What a lead! Michael Grynbaum writes: "President Trump remained embroiled on Friday in a rumpus with two cable talk-show hosts, a surreal dispute featuring allegations of extortion, dueling tweets and low-rent insults that has little precedent in recent political history."
"By nightfall," he says, "CNN -- which has engaged in its own war of words with Mr. Trump this year -- was airing a discussion of whether the White House's alleged actions with The Enquirer could constitute extortion." I think he's referring to our "OutFront" segment in the 7pm hour... CNN legal analyst Paul Callan's answer about extortion was no... | | A back-scratching relationship | | | That's how I described the Trump-National Enquirer alliance in a package for "OutFront." I dug up this classic Trump quote from the campaign trail: "Why didn't the National Enquirer get the Pulitzer prize for Edwards? And OJ Simpson?" | | | Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails: This November 2016 story from the WSJ resurfaced Friday on Twitter: it recounts how the Enquirer shielded Trump from cheating allegations leveled by 1998 Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal. American Media "agreed to pay $150,000" for her story, the Journal reported, then didn't publish it. This is known as "catch and kill..." In this case, catching a story that could damage Trump, and killing it... How many other examples are there? | | Let's not lose sight of... | | | ...American Media CEO David Pecker's grand ambitions. He controls the Enquirer and has recently added Us Weekly and Mens Journal to his stable. He told Toobin he's interested in buying Time Inc. or at least some of its titles... | | Behind the scenes at "Morning Joe" | | I just saw VF's Emily Jane Fox on the set of "AC360..." I told her I was jealous that she had access to a different set earlier in the day... the set of "Morning Joe." In this piece, she describes how colleagues were high-fiving and fist-bumping Joe and Mika after Friday morning's segment.
-- Key detail: About the "face-lift" Trump alleged and criticized, Mika says it was a procedure under her chin, and she told Melania Trump about it during that now-infamous New Year's Eve meetup. Joe says "the irony of it all is that Donald kept saying, 'That's incredible. You can't even tell. Who did it? Who did it?' He kept asking for the name of the doctor. He literally asked 10 times..." | | Brian Lowry emails: The "Morning Joe" flap is another example of what might be called Trump's cable-news presidency, ginning up controversies that place the focus and attention on programs that -- while successful within their niche -- draw far fewer viewers than their network counterparts. "Morning Joe," for example, is up in the ratings, contrary to Trump's claims, but its second-quarter average of just-short-of-1 million viewers lags far behind "Today," "GMA" and "CBS This Morning."
The same goes for "Fox & Friends" -- Trump's go-to show for recent interviews -- which, even with a ratings surge to 1.6 million viewers, attracted less than half the audience for CBS (3.5 million), which has significantly narrowed the gap but remains the third-place network program... | | "I'm gonna say something that I did not think was possible anymore: I am shocked by something Donald Trump said."
--Stephen Colbert, reacting to Trump's "face-lift" tweet... | | This Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | Set your DVR or alarm clock for 11am ET Sunday... I'll be joined by Carl Bernstein, David Zurawik, Kelly McBride, Ben Ferguson, and Olivia Nuzzi. We'll be talking about the CNN resignations, the National Enquirer, new limits on press access in DC, and more... | | An Phung emails: Qatar has until Monday to meet a list of demands laid out by its Arab neighbors if it wants to end a blockade that started earlier this month. One of those demands include shutting down Al Jazeera and all its affiliate stations. I'll be at the beach for the holiday, but my eyes will be on Doha...
-- Here's a great explainer by Charles Riley on how Al Jaz turned into a "bargaining chip..." | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- Check out Jay Rosen's latest on the subject of W.H. press briefings... He cites one of this week's Reliable newsletters, but that's not why you should check it out ;-)
-- The FT reports that the WSJ's print edition will no longer be available in Europe, as the paper focuses on digital subscriptions outside the US...
-- Something to keep an eye on: The NYT's Reader Center which is sorta-kinda the replacement for the public editor role, is now accepting email submissions for Q's to Dean Baquet about changes in editing. Email: readercenter@nytimes.com...
-- ThinkProgress is the latest publisher to leave Medium... it's returning to WordPress... | | Nixon didn't have this, but Trump does: | | At the end of a week of media attacks by @realDonaldTrump, Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker offer this reality check: "For Trump and his legions of loyalists, the media has become a shared enemy."
This graf stands out: "Roger Stone, a former Trump adviser and longtime confidant, likened Trump's attacks on the media to the strategy employed by former president Richard M. Nixon to discredit organizations such as The Post that were breaking stories on the Watergate investigation. 'The difference is Nixon had no Internet-based alternative media [that] would aggressively cover his side of the argument,' Stone said..." | | No press at Trump's fundraiser... but the audio leaked | | | President Trump didn't allow press into his RNC fundraiser on Wednesday night. Barely 24 hours later, though, an audio recording of his complete remarks was published by The Intercept. The exact quotes matched up with what sources had told journalists about the event. At one point Trump asked the donors if he should sue CNN, and he called CNNers "horrible human beings..." | | Three off-camera briefings this week | | Here's the June scoreboard courtesy Mark Knoller:
-- On-camera: 7
-- Off-camera: 12
-- No briefing: 3 | | Media stocks at 2017's halfway mark... | | | As I mentioned up top, we're at the midway point of the year... so here's a look at media stocks via THR: "In the first half of 2017, the S&P 500 is up 8.2%, but five of the seven media conglomerates are underperforming that benchmark. In fact, of the 50 media companies tracked by The Hollywood Reporter, 30 have either fallen or have advanced less than the broader markets..." | | "Reliable Sources" podcast | | No, "social media is not destroying America" | | From both ends of the polarized political spectrum, "there's a tendency to blame social media" for a degradation of the public discourse, "when social media really is just reflecting larger trends in society," author Emily Parker says.
Parker just authored a column for Slate titled "Social Media Is Not Destroying America." She's the guest on this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast. Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman has a full write-up of the conversation... And you can listen to the pod here... | | How "echo chambers" can be beneficial | | On the pod, Parker said she's particularly concerned that "techno-pessimism" may discourage activists from using social media to organize. "Echo chambers," often seen as a negative, can be beneficial, she says: "Echo chambers are just a large group of people who express a similar view -- that can be a useful tool for political mobilization..."
>> Shameless plug: Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes! | | By Howard Cohen:
-- After being fired on Thursday by MSNBC, Greta van Susteren tweeted, "not my choice, but their right :)" She's been tweeting up a storm...
-- Dana Klinghoffer, a veteran of the sharp-elbowed Fox News PR department, is joining NBC and reuniting with Megyn Kelly... per TVNewser, she'll be handling the PR rollout for Kelly's new 9am show...
-- An update on DirecTV Now: After launching in November, it is ready to double its local broadcast footprint...
-- Speaking of cablelike streaming services: Charter is testing one for $20 a month... no sports channels included... | | Curt Schilling profile in Esquire | | An Phung emails: Breitbart radio host and former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling dropped hints about his political ambitions and blasted his former employer ESPN in this Esquire profile by Tim Bella. One graf stood out to me as it sheds light on where he stands in the conservative pundit ecosystem:
"Schilling could be in a position to fill an opening for conservative media's new power pundit. Glenn Beck has become an independent, going so far as to compare Trump to Hitler. Tomi Lahren, the 24-year-old once seen as Beck's rising star, is without a network after he fired her for questioning opposition to abortion. Milo Yiannopoulos lost a $250,000 book deal with Simon & Schuster and resigned from Breitbart after he was caught on tape defending pedophilia. Fox News icon Bill O'Reilly was forced out of Fox News for allegedly sexually harassing colleagues." Read more... | | Alec Baldwin as Trump as George Washington | | | Megan Thomas emails: The promo for Spike TV's upcoming "One Night Only: Alec Baldwin" special is welcome comic relief. An excerpt: "Hello everyone, it's me, George Washington. The guy who made America great the first time..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Chloe Melas:
-- On Friday Jay-Z dropped his first album in four years -- "4:44" -- here's everything you need to know about it...
-- If you wanted to see Adele this weekend, you're out of luck. The singer has canceled her final two shows of her Hello tour, citing vocal issues...
-- The family of the man killed in the car crash involving Venus Williams has now filed a wrongful death suit against the tennis pro. I was on HLN's "Michaela" show along with the attorney representing the family... here's the segment... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Email us... we're at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every email. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
