| | | | | Happy Father's Day! I'm sending this out while Sunny is sleeping... Jamie wrote about our first four weeks of parenthood for Refinery29 if you want to check it out... | | "Alex Jones isn't going away" | | ...That was Megyn Kelly, in the intro to her story with Alex Jones, justifying the existence of the story. Her interview with the hateful conspiracy theorist made this a tough week for NBC News, but the execs are feeling pretty good about the finished product. Most of the early reviews of Kelly's "Sunday Night" newsmag are emphasizing her probing questions and Jones' offensive answers. All of the editing and re-editing evidently made a difference.
But Jones is touting this as a win for him -- he's using the controversy to foment even more hatred of the media. Scroll down for complete coverage... | | | Brian Lowry writes: After a bruising week, Kelly and NBC faced one primary challenge: Delivering a piece that was tough and contextual enough to justify giving the Infowars host wider exposure. Kelly's report cleared that bar, with an added commentary from Tom Brokaw that seemed to reflect NBC's desire for an added element of cover that the brand of "hate speech" Jones represents was a legitimate topic. Read Lowry's full review here... | | Jones claims he knows "Trump watches" Infowars | | | There are good reasons why Jones hasn't been featured on national TV in several years. But Kelly's story helped a general audience understand who he is and why he matters. Kelly leaned on Jones' connections to President Trump, showing Trump's 2015 appearance on Infowars and asking, "Do you think he's watching?" Jones: "I know Trump watches, sees the clips and things." He refused to say how often he speaks with the president, if at all... | | -- AP's Hillel Italie: "Jones hemmed and hawed when pressed repeatedly... Jones never gave a direct answer..."
-- Text message from one of Kelly's time slot rivals: "Megyn did a strong job... pegging its importance to his relationship with the president..."
-- Dan Abrams tweets: Watching the interview, "I'm even more convinced that her piece wasn't just ok to do, but important journalism."
-- A dissenting view from J-prof Michael Socolow writing for the Boston Globe: "We learned nothing new... No actual news value. Therefore: not worth it." | | Advertisers avoided the show | | | The commercial breaks on "Sunday Night" had lots of promos and PSAs... and fewer $$$ commercials than "typically accompany a first-run program," Variety's Brian Steinberg reports. NBC sources confirm that some sponsors avoided Kelly's Jones story, but the network thinks it'll be temporary... | | Was the interview worth it? | | Oliver Darcy emails: The question now is: Was the interview worth it? It's hard to tell in the immediate aftermath, but it seems Jones still may have come out on top. Since news of this interview surfaced, he has owned the narrative and continually embarrassed both Kelly and NBC, while using the media exposure to raise his own profile. Meanwhile, Kelly was forced to endure a slew of negative news stories and it's hard to believe that had no effect on her reputation.
This whole episode reminds me of when a false news story goes viral on the Internet. While the truth may later come out in the end, the correction almost never goes as viral as the initial false report. In this case, it seems unlikely the positive reviews Kelly secured tonight will be shared as widely as the unfavorable stories which ricocheted on the Internet all week. So in the end, did she really emerge as the winner? I'm not so sure... | | | More from Oliver Darcy: Jones live-streamed his reaction to Kelly's story on YouTube... he seemed to declare victory, even popping a bottle of champagne at one point... but he assailed NBC... said Kelly was "caught red-handed..." accused her of being "totally duplicitous..." and asked "why is the MSM so hysterical?" Roger Stone called into the show and told Jones, "You've clearly gotten under the skin of the globalists." Jones threatened to release his recording of the interview, so people could see how it was edited by NBC. He also repeatedly aired Brian's "Reliable Sources" segment from earlier in the day and insulted Brian... | | Sekulow's cringe-worthy Sunday show circuit | | Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow appeared on 4 of the 5 big political shows on Sunday morning and repeatedly claimed the president is not under investigation, even though the president tweeted that "I'm being investigated." Sekulow said his client was just reacting to what he read in the WashPost. As you can see in the above screen grab, Jake Tapper was skeptical. So skeptical, in fact, that BuzzFeed made a story out of his facial expressions...
Fox's Chris Wallace was also praised for his Sekulow interview. Jonathan Swan has details here... | | | Tapes? No tapes? Sekulow told CBS's John Dickerson that "I think the president is going to address that in the week ahead..." | | My opening list of questions from Sunday's "Reliable Sources" -- summing up how bewildering this news environment feels:
Is the Washington Post right? Is Trump really under investigation for possible obstruction? What's Robert Mueller finding? Who's he hiring? Is he being fair? Is Trump thinking about firing Mueller? What would happen after that? Why did the president tweet, "I am being investigated?" Is Jay Sekulow telling the truth, saying Trump was just reacting to news coverage? And if so, why is Trump deriding "fake news" if he believes the news? More importantly, who should you believe? Is it true that the president is yelling at TV sets in the White House? Why is he still watching so much TV, anyway? Isn't he busy? And where are the tapes? Wait, are there tapes? Why hasn't he cleared that up? What is the president hiding? Why are White House briefings becoming more limited? Why hasn't Trump given any interviews for five weeks? Why aren't his aides all over TV defending him? Are you as confused as I am? | | Response from a viewer... | | | Donald, a viewer, responds to me via Facebook. "We're all confused, and this is the point of Trump's grand media strategy -- to keep the public confused about what the facts are. We can't be at all sure what the truth is because Trump does his utmost to keep the facts in question..." | | -- Jim Rutenberg's Monday column is about Univision, and how it's serving a community that "has a dearth of reliable information and an excess of misinformation..." (NYT)
-- By WSJ's Suzanne Vranica: a big-picture look at how advertisers are "trying to avoid the web's dark side..." (WSJ)
-- Norah O'Donnell landed new South Korean president Moon Jae-in's first American broadcast interview since his election... it was taped on Sunday... it'll air on Tuesday's "CBS This Morning..." (WashPost)
-- Congrats to Abby Huntsman and her husband Jeff... they announced on Saturday's "Fox & Friends" that they're having a baby girl... (TVNewser) | | Beyoncé's twins are here! | | The news broke late Saturday night/early Sunday morning: Beyoncé and Jay Z have welcomed twins. A source close to the couple confirmed the arrivals to Chloe Melas. Gender? Names? No info yet... the couple hasn't posted any pictures to Instagram...
BTW, Chloe hears that the reports Bey had a maternity ward built in their home for privacy are totally false. Click here to read Chloe and Lisa Respers France's full story... | | Tom Kludt went to Bill O'Reilly's stage show... | | | ...And his story about it is a must-read. "As Bill O'Reilly sees it, the same forces that led to his ouster at Fox News are out to get President Trump. And, in much the same spirit as Trump, O'Reilly is determined to settle the score," Kludt writes. The Saturday night "Spin Stops Here Tour" event was in Westbury, a village on Long Island not far from where O'Reilly grew up. His fans were there by the thousands. O'Reilly dropped hints about his future and talked a bit about Fox... Read more here... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday: Cannes Lions continues through Saturday... schedule here...
-- Monday: The UK begins negotiating its exit from the European Union...
-- Monday: "White House Tech summit" with CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc...
-- Monday: Lester Holt honored at Quinnipiac's annual Fred Friendly luncheon...
-- Tuesday: Deadline for Ofcom's decision about the 21st Century Fox/Sky deal...
-- Tuesday: Special election in Georgia sure to earn lots of cable news coverage...
-- Wednesday: "Transformers" opens nationwide... | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- In Monday's WashPost, Margaret Sullivan writes about the Student Press Law Center, the nonprofit org that helps out student journalists facing legal trouble. "There are probably three times more journalists in America working for school credit than for a paycheck," the group's exec director Frank LoMonte says... (WashPost)
- NBC's Ari Melber and co. with an exclusive...about a story from 44 years ago. An 18-page memo from the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973 shows that investigators knew the Nixon White House "planned an assault on anti-war demonstrators in 1972, including potentially physically attacking Vietnam whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg..."
-- Google released a statement Sunday about fighting online terror, as Facebook did earlier in the week. Their solutions are similar to those put forward by Zuckerberg's company: AI, more content review by humans, a tougher stance against videos that are short of breaking policies against hate speech, and a more active role for YouTube against radicalization... | | | Martha Raddatz on Sunday's "This Week:" "We have become too numb to it all. Massively desensitized to the carnage, as [Senator Chris Murphy] put it. That, perhaps, includes us as journalists, who rush to cover the latest shooting and then move on to the next headline. We've marked the anniversary of some of those most devastating attacks recently... But we should also pause this morning to remember each and every life cut short by violence in our country because, as House Speaker Paul Ryan put it this week, an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: Given the history of celebrity justice, a hung jury was somewhat predictable. But however Bill Cosby's trial turned out, the damage to his legacy has already been done. Just consider the weight of the accusations and his own admissions. Read more... | | "Cosby's power is back?" C'mon | | | That's what Cosby's publicist Andrew Wyatt said after Saturday morning's mistrial announcement. "His power is back." Wyatt said Camille Cosby's "power is back," too. Does anyone think that was an appropriate thing to say? This case is all about a celebrity accused of exploiting his power to sexually assault women... | | | "Reliable Sources" highlights | | | | Matt Schlapp said Trump faces a "massive bias" every day... Alex Conant cited the bias toward "covering conflict, covering crisis..." Kaitlan Collins welcomed Trump's tweets... Sally Kohn and Steve Deace discussed how to disagree without "dehumanizing" the other side... and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said the Russia investigations are a "truth hunt," not a "witch hunt..." | | Questions for Oliver Stone | | During my interview with Oliver Stone, I asked about the critics who say his "Putin Interviews" series was too sympathetic to Vladimir Putin... and I brought up his son's affiliation with Putin's Russia Today network.
"He's been working at RT since six, seven years — five, six years — way before this project was born," Stone acknowledged. "My son, I'm very proud of him. There's no connection there. He's not an agent — a Russian agent or something like that." Stone also credited RT with having "lot of interesting stuff." Mediaite's Justin Baragona has a recap here... | | Lowry's final word on "The Putin Interviews" | | | Brian Lowry emails with a quick reply to Oliver Stone: As someone who has watched all four hours of "The Putin Interviews," his solicitous tone and tiptoeing around the more sensitive questions (which he primarily addressed in hour No. 4) underscored how people who merely dabble in journalism often make a mess of it, especially when they bring a preconceived objective to the process... | | This is who Seth Meyers wants to interview the most | | When he sat down with Seth Meyers recently, Frank Pallotta asked: "Who is your dream political guest?"
Meyers' answer: "I am so fascinated by Sean Spicer's day. I have so much to ask him about it. I desperately want to know how white-knuckle the last 15 minutes is for him before he goes to that podium and that something might happen that he will not, at that point, have any time to have prepared an answer to. People keep saying to me, 'Is it crazy how late news breaks for you?' Sure, but we can always just decide to skip it. He has a job where he can not skip any of the crazy things that happen last minute and I really am fascinated by that." Read/watch more here... | | | For the record, part three | | | | 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. | | | | | |
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