| | | | What do you call a Friday news dump in the middle of a huge hurricane? On Friday night, President Trump signed a directive banning transgender military recruits AND pardoned sheriff Joe Arpaio. At the same time, one of Trump's staunchest TV defenders, Sebastian Gorka, announced his resignation from the White House in a blunt and critical letter. Gorka gave the scoop to The Federalist. The W.H. responded by saying he didn't resign, but confirming that "he no longer works at the White House..." In other words, forced out...
I'm on the "AC360" set right now... John Berman is anchoring til 10pm, then Don Lemon til 2am... | | Why would the President of the United States WANT to make so much news when the government is supposed to be laser-focused on disaster response? I tried to make this point on CNN: All eyes in the W.H. should be on Texas right now...
-- Vice's DC bureau chief Shawna Thomas tweeted: "In all of the newsy emails I have gotten tonight from the WH, none of them has been an early disaster declaration for the state of Texas."
-- Check out this banner from MSNBC... | | Reactions to Arpaio and Gorka | | >> Douglas Brinkley on CNN: Trump "went to Camp David and did a blitzkrieg today..."
>> John Schindler's theory: "Trump pardoned Arpaio in the middle of a hurricane - solid distraction from Gorka's tantrum-y departure."
>> Jonathan Wald tweeted: "You'd think a Cat 4 hurricane would be the ideal Friday night cover for a dubious pardon -- but it actually only amplifies it. Just watch."
>> Bill Kristol weighed in: "One reason Trump may have pardoned Arpaio now: Gets people used to exercise of pardon power, prepares for pardons of Flynn, Manafort, etc.?"
>> Kurt Bardella asked: "So how long until" Breitbart announces the "return of Gorka?"
>> Meanwhile, in Texas... Corpus Christi Caller-Times reporter Kirsten Crow tweeted at 7:21pm: "CT news staff officially evacuating newsroom, taking shelter in a room further back in the building with no windows." | | By the time you read this newsletter, Hurricane Harvey may have officially made landfall somewhere between Corpus Christi and Port Lavaca. But the landfall is just the very beginning. Journalists have done a good job getting the word out about the potentially catastrophic flooding that's coming.
On "AC360," CNN's Chad Myers read this tweet from former American Meteorological Society prez J. Marshall Shepherd: "Cat 4 #Harvey and just saw model estimating even higher rain totals... This keeps getting worse when I think it cannot." | | Generators... sleeping bags... trucks full of food and supplies | | | News organizations are wisely making plans to cover Hurricane Harvey not just for the coming hours or days, but for weeks. Some national news outlets have trucked in food and other essentials with the expectation that staffers may need supplies while covering widespread flooding. Staffers at some local newsrooms have set up air mattresses and brought their pets to work because they know they're going to be away from home for a while. Here's my full story... | | -- ABC is planning a special report at 2am ET anchored by Juju Chang... and then six hours of special storm coverage on Saturday morning, from 5 a.m. until 11 a.m. ET, led by its weekend "GMA" team...
-- CNN, Fox News and MSNBC will be live all night/early morning...
-- MSNBC says it plans to stay live until 11pm Saturday...
-- The Weather Channel's special report continues "until further notice..." | | "All-hands-on-deck situation" at local papers | | "This is an all-hands-on-deck situation," San Antonio Express-News managing editor Jamie Stockwell wrote to staffers at midday on Friday, telling them "our readers are depending on us for live coverage through the weekend." The E-N is moving up its print deadlines in an effort to get papers to as many subscribers as possible.
Much closer to the coast, the Victoria Advocate, covering Victoria, Texas, is not printing a paper because its carriers have evacuated along with many other residents. But designers are still laying out the pages of a paper and publishing the "e-edition" on the web, EIC Chris Cobler told me... | | Liz Spayd is consulting for Facebook | | | Friday's scoop from Kara Swisher and Kurt Wagner: "Facebook has recently hired former New York Times public editor Liz Spayd on a consulting basis to help manage the company's efforts around giving users more 'transparency' into how the massive social network makes decisions. A Facebook spokesperson said that her job would be to help expand early moves to chronicle what it does related to everything from terrorism to fake news to privacy. Her charge is basically to move the company out of its comfort zone in disclosing how it works internally. Translation: To get Facebook to share more about itself." As they point out, Spayd is an "interesting" hire... Read more here... | | Podcast with James Fallows | | | My guest this week was The Atlantic's James Fallows. We talked about Trump, media, and craft beer. Hear and read all of it right here... | | -- Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman emails: The Atlantic is starting a membership program, promising access to exclusive content, starting in early September... (Poynter)
-- Gallup's latest: "Republicans', Democrats' Views of Media Accuracy Diverge"
-- HBO is re-airing Vice's acclaimed Charlottesville documentary Sunday at 11:30pm... | | "These are threatening days for the press" | | Tom Kludt emails: If anyone needed a reminder of just how chilly things are for journalists, this week provided three. On Tuesday, former staffers and fans of the site mourned the one year "death day" of Gawker.com, which shut down last year following the legal assault waged by Peter Thiel (and his proxy Hulk Hogan). Later that night, President Trump delivered a characteristically withering anti-media screed. And all this occurred while lawyers for Sarah Palin and the New York Times continued to file briefs in the former vice presidential candidate's defamation suit against the paper.
Take it all together, journalists may find themselves in a more precarious position than any time before. It's why Floyd Abrams told me last week: "These are threatening days for the press." Read Tom's full report here... | | | If the Times fails to get Palin's suit tossed, it would be the latest setback in the courtroom for a news organization. This summer alone has seen Disney cough up a record settlement in the "pink slime" suit, while HBO was dealt a blow when a judge remanded a coal company's case against John Oliver to a West Virginia state court. Much like ABC/Disney, I can't imagine HBO relishes a jury trial. "On the litigation side," Abrams added, "I can't think of a time when so many genuinely threatening, and in some cases genuinely destructive, cases have been brought." | | Palin v. NYT: the outlook | | | Judge Jed Rakoff has promised to rule on the Times' motion to dismiss Palin's suit by the end of the month. But there are reasons to doubt that the Times will succeed on the motion -- potentially setting the stage for a trial or (more likely) a settlement. The biggest reason: last week's testimony from editorial page editor James Bennet, who admitted to overlooking several pieces of counter evidence before suggesting that 2011 Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner was incited by an ad from Palin's PAC... | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Eric Bolling has now been suspended at Fox News for three full weeks. THR found that sales of his new pro-Trump book "have suffered" since he's been off the air... (THR)
-- Huh: BuzzFeed uncovered that the International Business Times' Australia edition is really being produced by writers in the Philippines... (BuzzFeed)
-- Is the term "platform" really fitting for technology companies? Tarleton Gillespie says the word "downplays the idea that these services are not flat," while overlooking the diversity of audiences on places like Twitter and Facebook... (NiemanLab)
-- Facebook is revamping its "On This Day" feature to include seasonal and monthly memories and milestones... (TechCrunch) | | | Megan Thomas emails: There's a lot of rapid-response fodder on the internet over Taylor Swift's new single. This breakdown by The Atlantic's Spencer Kornhaber is, well, ouch: "Who killed Taylor Swift? Her new single, 'Look What You Made Me Do,' has her bragging of coming back from the dead, and the sound of her song does, in fact, feel like the work of a hell creature possessing someone once capable of charm..." | | | -- "Taylor"-made for TV: ABC dropped a promo for the "TGIT" premieres of "Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal," and "How To Get Away With Murder" using T-Swift's new track... (THR) | | | -- The music video for the single was teased on Friday's "GMA," but its true premiere will take place on Sunday night's "VMAs" on MTV... | | Fox Sports hires Michael Vick as studio analyst | | | CNNMoney's Ahiza Garcia reports: Fox Sports has hired former NFL quarterback Michael Vick, according to a source familiar with the matter. Vick will join Fox Sports' coverage as a studio analyst. The official announcement will come on Sunday during the network's NFL preseason game coverage... | | More "Black Mirror" coming | | | At the Edinburgh International TV Festival on Friday, Netflix revealed new details about the fourth season of "Black Mirror," including a sneak peek video... No word about an exact release date yet... Just sometime "later this year..." | | | GAME OF THRONES SEASON FINALE ON SUNDAY... | | Attack of the nitpickers! | | Brian Lowry emails: As "Game of Thrones" heads into this weekend's season finale, the HBO hit, with its quickened pace, has joined a well-established tradition in the sci-fi/fantasy realm, becoming a target for nitpicking by fans...
The NYT's James Poniewozik, meanwhile, has penned a sort-of compare-and-contrast between "Thrones," with its accelerated storytelling, and Showtime's "Twin Peaks," which has been ambling along (irritatingly, from my point of view) at something less than a crawl... | | Frank Pallotta emails: The season finale of HBO's "Game of Thrones" is this Sunday night, so there will be a whole lotta spoilers come Monday morning. Spoilers have become a large part of pop culture thanks to the immediacy of social media, but what are the rules about sharing?
TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz says you should wait a week before spilling secrets on social media. As for weekly episodic television, he says wait 48 hours before tweeting. And a full season drop on Netflix? Four days. But how are spoilers changing our culture? "What we're losing in that is that why things happen is ultimately more satisfying than what happens," Seitz told me... | | "Thrones" traffic-grab game is on... | | | Megan Thomas emails: I've lost count of the number of clicky "Game of Thrones" stories I've seen in advance of Sunday's finale, but kudos to EW's James Hibberd for linking Taylor Swift's new song and "Game of Thrones" character Ayra Stark... | | | Howard Cohen emails: Facebook's newest augmented reality effect for Facebook Camera gives users the chance to become Game of Thrones' Night King... Mashable has details here... | | Lowry reviews "Disjointed" | | | More from Lowry: "The Big Bang Theory" mega-producer Chuck Lorre clearly felt somewhat liberated producing the pot comedy "Disjointed" for ad-free Netflix. But the show pretty much just runs on fumes and isn't even worth sampling, much less inhaling... Check out Lowry's take here... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Patty Jenkins says it's no wonder James Cameron doesn't get it. The "Wonder Woman" director fired back at Cameron after he said her hit film was a "step back" for women...
-- True story: Shania Twain says nude photos of Brad Pitt inspired her hit "That Don't Impress Me Much..." | | | Email reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every message. The feedback helps us craft the next day's newsletter! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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