| | | | | Exec summary: All eyes on Facebook... Sean Spicer apologizes to Mike Allen... Jimmy Kimmel continues his "crusade..." Fox News adds an 11pm program... PBS has a new public editor... "Battle of the Sexes" in theaters Friday... | | Mark Zuckerberg has a 9-point plan to deal with election interference. Will Congress trust Facebook to follow through? Will the American public? Those are the big questions now...
There was curiosity and a whole lot of skepticism on Thursday after Zuckerberg went on FB Live to unveil the company's plan. Headline #1: Facebook will share the content and related information of the more than 3,000 ads it sold to Russian-linked accounts with the House and Senate intelligence committees. Robert Mueller already has this info. Here's the full story from Dylan Byers and Heather Kelly...
-- Why I have some sympathy for Zuck: "Technically speaking," he's "been on paternity leave" for the past month, as Bloomberg notes here... He's officially back at work now... | | Zuckerberg says he's going to "make political advertising more transparent" -- how? | | Headline #2: FB might be making a radical change to its ad biz. Key word: Might. Right now it's hard to tell how significant it'll really be. "We're going to make political advertising more transparent," Zuckerberg said. How? By disclosing "which page paid for an ad." And by allowing users to see what ads those buyers are showing to other groups of people.
As recently as a few months ago, Facebook execs called this kind of information "confidential." Now Zuckerberg says these changes will be rolled out "over the coming months." But how will Facebook determine what's a "political ad" and what's not? Questions about classification are going to be tricky, and a spokesman told me the company has no further information to share. Here's my analysis... | | Meanwhile, there's a new push to regulate online political ads... | | Dylan Byers' scoop: Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner are formally calling for new legislation to enhance the transparency of online political ads. They're looking for co-sponsors now. They want to require all major digital platforms to keep a public record of groups or individuals that make ad buys of more than $10,000...
-- Dylan emails: This is what Facebook was expecting: Regulation that imposes the same requirements on digital advertising that already exist for television and radio. If that's the end result of all this controversy, Facebook can deal with that... | | | The NYT's Kevin Roose nails it: "If I were a Facebook executive, I might feel a Frankensteinian sense of unease these days." In its "quest for global dominance," has FB "created something it can't fully control?" | | 🎧 Jason Kint on this week's "Reliable" pod | | | This was the perfect week to have Digital Context Next CEO Jason Kint on the "Reliable Sources" podcast. You can listen to it now via iTunes or other podcast services. Kint said Facebook is just "walking up to the starting line," trying to regain some control over an out-of-control discussion... We also talked about Google, the "digital duopoly," Apple's new iOS, Amazon, and more... | | | Speaking of the "digital duopoly," eMarketer came out with fresh data on Thursday... GOOG and FB are "exceeding expectations," the company says... The duo are "expected to rake in a combined 63.1% of US digital ad investment in 2017, up from eMarketer's previous prediction that the duo's total would reach 60.4% in 2017..." | | Friday night: a Trump rally | | | President Trump will be campaigning for Luther Strange in Alabama on Friday night. The event has all the trappings of a classic Trump rally. Will he reprise the anti-media attacks that defined his rally in Phoenix last month? Or will he focus on promoting Strange's candidacy? We'll find out... The rally starts around 7pm... | | What was Hannity's scheduling conflict? | | At the time I'm writing this, the Media Research Center is holding its 30th anniversary gala in DC. Sean Hannity was supposed to accept the William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence at the event. But Buckley's son Christopher Buckley, among others, objected to the plan to honor Hannity, as CNN's Jake Tapper first reported back in July. Quoting from his story: "Sources tell CNN that the MRC leadership discussed ways to allow Hannity to save face by acting as if a scheduling conflict would prevent him from accepting the award." Indeed, that's what Brent Bozell publicly said -- Hannity "told us he couldn't make it" -- and that's what Hannity also claimed when Tapper's story came out. "Hey Fake News Jake, I was offered an award, I was unable to attend, and I respectfully turned it down," Hannity tweeted.
So, two months later, here we are... on the night of the gala... and Hannity is hosting his show like it's any other night. Did he actually have a "scheduling conflict?" I emailed and tweeted him to ask... and I haven't heard back... | | Fox News adding a live newscast at 11pm | | | CNN and MSNBC are already live at 11pm ET, so I've been wondering if Fox would try to match its rivals with a late-night show. Sure enough, "Fox News @ Night," hosted by Shannon Bream, will launch on October 30, the same night as Laura Ingraham's live 10pm talk show... Fox made the announcement on Thursday... | | -- Scoop of the day? Poltico's Rachana Pradhan and Dan Diamond "identified at least 24 charter flights that Tom Price took at taxpayer expense," including one flight the day after its initial story broke... (Politico)
-- An Phung emails: Nate Silver has published the final part of an 11-part series that looks at the news coverage of the 2016 election... (FiveThirtyEight)
-- Variety's Brian Steinberg offers this explainer of Nielsen's new yardstick for "audience buying..." (Variety)
-- About 430 video employees at Vice Media have unionized... (WSJ)
-- A three-year-old news site that peddles "murky facts and slippery spin" has fallen on the radar of Google, Snopes and….Rosanne Barr. Great THR story about "Your News Wire" here... (THR) | | | Yes, Jimmy Kimmel has even more to say about Senator Bill Cassidy and the proposed Graham-Cassidy health care overhaul... I'm told that part of Thursday's monologue is devoted to the latest developments... | | Megan Thomas emails: "Jimmy Kimmel's rise as a reluctant crusader" by the New Yorker's Ian Crouch is an excellent take on the power of Kimmel's message -- and a sad commentary on the disengagement of some members of Congress. "Kimmel has shown -- if the election of Donald Trump were not already proof -- that there is little to separate entertainers from politicians. Kimmel, Kilmeade, and Cassidy were all playing the same game -- just, it turned out, at different levels..."
-- 🔌 Late night TV expert Bill Carter will join me on this Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." | | Sean Spicer apologizes to Mike Allen | | Howard Kurtz tweeted Thursday night: "I reported tonight that Sean Spicer has apologized to Mike Allen for his angry text -- he had lost his cool -- and the apology was accepted." What angry text? This one.
Allen confirmed to me that he accepted the apology. But to be honest "Spicer to Reporter: Don't Text Me or I'll Call the Cops" was only one of several embarrassing headlines for Spicer on Thursday. Some of the others:
-- "Sean Spicer says he didn't 'knowingly' lie to American public"
-- "Spicer's note-taking could give investigators a Trump roadmap"
-- Jack Shafer called Spicer "Washington's first pariah..."
-- Chris Cillizza summed it all up: "Sean Spicer isn't having a very good week..." | | By Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman:
-- CNN's Jim Acosta is the subject of Politico Mag's latest profile. Bonus: Poynter's read on the profile... (Politico, Poynter)
-- The Lenfest Institute announced the winners of its local news innovations grants, totaling $2 million. $1 million went to Philadelphia Media Network, owned by Lenfest, and the other million to 12 other projects... (NiemanLab)
-- A big batch of new hires at The Intercept, including Shaun King joining as a columnist, and CJR's Vanessa Gezari as national security reporter... (The Intercept)
-- Digiday's Lucia Moses reports that Apple News is disappointing publishers in terms of monetization. This as Apple's newest update also causes headaches for publishers looking to generate revenue through ads... (Digiday)
-- In China, Tencent just rolled out a series of ad tools to help U.S. companies reach WeChat users in China and abroad... (Ad Exchanger) | | Celebrating FOIA's 50th birthday | | | Julia Waldow emails: Did you know 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act? Spenser Mestel's piece for Longreads, "My Journey to the Heart of the FOIA Request," is excellent... He says that "even under these dire circumstances, when it seems like the truth has never mattered less," FOIA is still a "valuable weapon..." | | | Congrats to Madhulika Sikka, the new public editor at PBS... she was previously the executive editor at NPR... (PBS) | | | For the record, part three | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Pinterest is fine-tuning its ad strategy. The platform is granting advertisers access to 5,000 interest categories that may aid in the creation of super-targeted ads... "Wedding on a budget" and "vegetarian barbecue" are among some of the topics... (AdWeek)
-- Clear Health Costs, a site that uncovers and publishes the costs of actual patients' medical procedures, has partnered with journalism outlets like NOLA's Times-Picayune to employ crowdsourcing methods and shine light on the healthcare industry... (Nieman Lab)
-- The Knight Foundation has granted $600,000 in new funding to the oral history project StoryCorps... (Knight Foundation)
-- Instagram is adding face filters to live video streaming... (TechCrunch)
-- Lachlan Murdoch has purchased an equestrian property in Aspen for a cool $29 million... (WSJ) | | "Battle of the Sexes" cast knows the equality fight rages on | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: Here are my conversations with the cast of "Battle of the Sexes," out Friday. Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Sarah Silverman and Billie Jean King talked about some of the battles still being fought by women in this country and how they hope the film will be a rallying cry. I asked King if she thought, back then, if the fight for gender equality would be won by now. "One thing about being in your 70's, you have perspective," she said, addressing the 30-year-old reporter in front of her. "You know, at your age, I was like, 'Oh, let's go get this done in a few seconds. Well, not seconds, but 10 years, 20 years....You start to realize that every generation has to start over -- fighting for equality."
She added: "It's really important that your generation and the younger generations take up the battle." Check out the rest here... | | Great news for "America's Got Talent," decent news for "The Good Place" | | | Brian Lowry emails: "America's Got Talent" finished the season with its most-watched finale in seven years, attracting 15.4 million viewers. More than half of that audience tuned out for the season 2 debut of the comedy "The Good Place" (5.8 million), but that's still a sizable boost from where the Kristen Bell-Ted Danson series finished is first run... | | Here's how the new "SNL" season will begin | | Via Frank Pallotta: Here's the host and performer lineup for the first three weeks of the new season, announced Thursday by NBC:
9/30: Ryan Gosling/JAY-Z
10/7: Gal Gadot/Sam Smith
10/14: Kumail Nanjiani/P!nk | | "South Park" creators with a message for the U.S. and North Korea | | | Megan Thomas emails: Afraid the nuclear standoff with North Korea is spinning rapidly into war? So are the creators of "South Park." Wednesday's episode of the show was all about a petty conflict driving friends to the brink and ending with a plea to the president to stop tweeting and "put it down" -- meaning his phone -- delivered, of course, in song. You can watch the episode for free here... It's a good source of comic relief for anyone who is worried about the tension with North Korea... | | Lowry reviews "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" | | | Brian Lowry emails: "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" comes down with a pretty serious case of sequel-itis, looking a little bloated and over-dressed with its addition of stars like Channing Tatum and Halle Berry, but still sporadically fun, and likely to be a bigger box-office draw than the original... Read more... | | Jordan Peele shopping this series... | | | Megan Thomas emails: According to Deadline, Jordan Peele is shopping an inspired-by-real-events TV series about Nazi hunters. "'The Hunt' follows a diverse band of Nazi hunters in 1970s America as they set out on a quest for revenge and justice — tracking and killing hundreds of Nazis who, with the unconscionable help of the U.S. government, escaped justice and embedded themselves in American society..." | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- "America's Got Talent" finale was the Battle of the Preeteens. In the end, Darci Lynne Farmer, a 12-year-old singing ventriloquist, won season 12 over singer Angelica Hale, who's 10...
-- You can keep asking all you want, but singer Demi Lovato is not inclined to answer questions about her sexuality. She'll tell you to watch her upcoming documentary...
-- Here's how Cher stays looking fabulous at 71...
-- Frank Zappa's hologram is going on tour... | | | 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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