| | | | Oliver Darcy here, in on this Friday evening for Brian Stelter, who's out with Jamie celebrating their wedding anniversary.
Welcome to the special CPAC edition of the newsletter! (Scroll down for non-CPAC related content.) I'm coming to you tonight from the Gaylord Resort Hotel in National Harbor where I am sitting on my balcony overlooking the atrium in which conference attendees are gathered at bars following the second day of the annual conference. I'll be here for tomorrow's sessions as well, so please do say hi if you happen to see me wandering the halls... | | Donald Trump, the 'ringmaster' of CPAC | | Over the last couple of days, conservative luminaries have poured through CPAC. Figures like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Dana Loesch, Ben Shapiro, and countless others have riled up crowds. But no matter their star power, no one got the crowd going quite like Donald Trump, who delivered a more than hour-long freewheeling speech to the CPAC audience on Friday morning.
>> This of course is particularly interesting because it was only a couple of years ago, in 2016, when Trump was at odds with CPAC. If you recall, he abruptly ditched the conference at the last minute as he was running for president. But two years later, he's the main attraction.
>> My colleague Greg Krieg summed this up perfectly in his piece: "On Friday morning, a little less than two years since his infamous no-show, Trump arrived as promised. But the organization and movement he first encountered here in Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC, years ago, has changed. It's still a circus, but Trump is now the unquestioned ringmaster." | | How the kids on the right feel about the 'fake news media' | | | Tom Kludt emails: I spent several hours this week roaming around the halls of the convention center, talking to the legions of young conservatives who populate the conference. The idea: find out what they think about the press. Do they share Trump's hostility to the news media? For that matter, how do they get their news? And, of course, what do they think about the company that employs me? Watch Kludt's must-see video here... | | Ajit Pai receives award at CPAC | | More from Tom: You might not think to put Ajit Pai in the same company as David Clarke, the controversial former Milwaukee sheriff turned Trump firebrand, who has been a fixture at CPAC this week. But the two are now fellow members of the same fraternity: recipients of the "Charlton Heston Courage Under Fire Award." The NRA, which sponsors the award, announced at the conference on Friday that Pai is the latest to receive the award. (Clarke won it in 2015; Mike Pence took it home last year.) The prize: a Kentucky long gun, naturally.
After that, Pai sat on a panel with a couple other FCC commissioners. Speaking on the heels of the agency's successful effort to repeal net neutrality, Pai said the FCC is "is at its best when it unleashes the entrepreneurial spirit of markets." And perhaps feeling emboldened, Pai talked a big game. "I don't play small ball," he said. "I decided I wanted to make a fundamental change to the way the agency operates." | | Facebook removes shooting VR game it teased | | I imagine Facebook thought a shooting virtual reality game would be a hit with the CPAC crowd. But previewing the violent "Bullet Train" game in the immediate aftermath of the Parkland shooting was a mistake. Attendees started tweeting about it -- and the company, amid scrutiny, pulled the game.
>> In a statement, Facebook's VP of VR Hugo Barra said, "There is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at public events. A few of the action games can include violence. In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the first place." | | Speaking of Facebook at CPAC... | | | The conversations that took place at the Facebook booth were quite interesting. The first time I walked by the Facebook table, I heard a man pressing a representative about "how liberal the corporate culture" at the company is. The man was citing Breitbart to make his claim. I walked by on Friday afternoon and heard another CPAC attendee questioning a different representative about whether Facebook had a bias against conservatives. One of the staffers anchoring the booth said they were receiving many questions like this. | | Gorka and Pirro not taking questions from CNN | | I ran into both Fox's Sebastian Gorka and Jeanine Pirro at CPAC -- and neither of them were too excited to be greeted by a CNN reporter. When I noticed Pirro entering the CPAC venue Friday afternoon, I introduced myself and asked her if she thinks some of her rhetoric on her show has gone too far. She kept walking and sneered about the idea of talking to CNN. (That said, she did tell me she wishes she were on Fox News every night as opposed to just once a week.)
Gorka was a lot more hostile to members of the media. He told me I was blocked on Twitter because "this is America" and he can do as he pleases, before walking off. That was apparently a cordial encounter compared to others. The Daily Beast's Asawin Suebsaeng and Maxwell Tani have the definitive piece on Gorka at CPAC, which takes a look at how he's interacted with members of the press... | | Trump campaign aide pleads guilty in Mueller probe | | | A big headline today: Trump campaign aide Rick Gates pleaded guilty to two charges in Robert Mueller's ongoing probe into Russian election meddling. You can read his plea deal here and CNN's Katelyn Polantz, Evan Perez and Gloria Borger have all the details in this story... | | Daily Beast regrets the errors | | Brian Stelter emails: "Even good sources can sometimes lead you in the wrong direction," The Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff tweeted Friday.
The Beast had to correct a story that originally said, the correction notes, that "Gates would not cooperate with Mueller and would drop his lawyer." The report on Thursday night sent other news organizations scrambling and trying to confirm it. On Friday, when Gates did officially announce that he will cooperate, The Daily Beast published a correction and said it "regrets those errors..." | | | Stelter emails: Glenn Beck and Dan Rather will join me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," along with Doug Heye, Sarah Westwood, John Avlon, and Palm Beach Post reporter Lulu Ramadan, who has had to cover three mass shootings in the area since graduating from college three years ago... | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- NBCSports and Refinery29 have come together to form a "yearlong social editorial and marketing partnership focused on telling stories about female athletes and other women in sports..." (Digiday) -- The BBC News Labs and the BBC Visual Journalism team are making it easier for reporters to build in-article chat bots... (Nieman Lab) -- Game on: "Can Ghostbusters copy Pokemon Go's success with its own AR mobile game...?" (TechCrunch) | | InfoWars' main YouTube channel 2 strikes away from being banned | | Could "The Alex Jones Channel" from InfoWars be banned from YouTube? If the far-right conspiracy outlet receives two more strikes on its account, it will be. A source told CNN's Paul Murphy that the channel received one strike for posting a video that portrayed the survivors of the Parkland school shooting as actors. Read Murphy's full story here...
More from Murphy's story: "CNN has identified three YouTube videos from InfoWars that cite such hoaxes and asked if they also violated YouTube's policies. The YouTube spokesperson said the videos sent in by CNN were flagged to the policy team for review on Thursday evening." | | Gothamist, DCist and LAist are coming back from their sudden deaths | | | From Hadas Gold's story: "Four months after their billionaire owner shut them down, beloved local news sites Gothamist, DCist and LAist will soon be back online. Three public radio stations are behind the resurrection. WNYC in New York, KPCC in Southern California and WAMU in Washington D.C. announced on Friday that they are acquiring key assets of the sites. The acquisition is being funded mainly through funds from two anonymous donors, the stations said in a news release." Read Gold's full story here... | | Six takeaways from NBC's Olympics performance | | | Brian Lowry emails: "The Olympics provide a pretty good biennial check of the lingering strength of broadcast TV's business model, and its ability to reach a mass audience. There are a few other key TV takeaways from NBC's performance with the Winter Games, which demonstrate that the pipes still work but also reinforce ways in which the business is evolving." Read Lowry's full story here... | | This week's "Reliable" pod is about "Conspiracy" | | | Stelter emails: "Conspiracy" is a new book by Ryan Holiday about Nick Denton, Peter Thiel, and Hulk Hogan. The book describes how Thiel hatched a plan years ago to secretly destroy Gawker through seemingly unrelated lawsuits like the Hogan case. This was, Holiday said, a real-life "conspiracy." In fact, that's what Thiel calls it too, according to the book. I interviewed Holiday for this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast... We had a fascinating conversation... Check it out via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn... Or read Julia Waldow's recap here... | | | Julia Waldow writes: "A 26-year-old who goes by the pseudonym 'Mr. A' in the book gave Thiel the idea" to take down Gawker via lawsuits. Holiday reveals the role of "Mr. A" for the first time, but does not identify the person. BuzzFeed says it knows who "Mr. A" is... | | | By Daniella Emanuel: -- NPR interviews student journalists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on their coverage of the Parkland shooting... (NPR)
-- From Poynter: "Journalism has a catch-22 problem with visuals..." (Poynter)
-- An interview with the reporter of the popular Brendan Fraser profile, which GQ told CJR was its "highest single-day trafficked article ever..." (CJR)
-- Donald Trump Jr. offers praise for the Indian media... (ABC News)
-- After Kylie Jenner tweeted that she doesn't use Snapchat anymore, the company lost $1.3 billion in market value... (CNNMoney) | | Sheriff's deputies did not enter building as Parkland shooting unfolded | | | More details continue to emerge about the Parkland shooting, and today's story by CNN's Jake Tapper offers another stunning twist. Sources told Tapper that three Broward County Sheriff's deputies were outside the school and had not entered when Coral Springs officers arrived at the scene. The sources told Tapper that some Coral Springs police officers were stunned and upset that the Sheriff's deputies had not gone into the building. | | FBI was warned shooter was 'going to explode' | | | A woman phoned the FBI and alerted the law enforcement agency in January that the Parkland shooter was "going to explode." The tipster added that she feared him "getting into a school and just shooting the place up." This new info is according to a call transcript reviewed by CNN and other outlets. Read our full story here... | | | Stelter writes: After a week on the defensive, the NRA is trying to shift blame to the media, making journalists play defense instead. As you know by now, "the media loves mass shootings" is the new NRA talking point. I took a closer look at that sickening claim for this new column... | | Camerota to Loesch: "You're wrong" | | Stelter emails: NRA national spokeswoman Dana Loesch stood by her comments during an interview with CNN's Alisyn Camerota on Friday. "You're wrong on every single level," Camerota said, calling the NRA's attacks against the media "malicious." But Loesch insinuated that her smear was fair because some news commentators have vilified the NRA members on TV.
At one point, Camerota said to her, "You know that you're using heated rhetoric. You're using inflammatory rhetoric. How is that part of the solution?" Loesch responded: "Inflammatory rhetoric? Again, you've allowed millions of law-abiding Americans' characters to be impugned and indicted as child murderers. That's inflammatory." Read/watch more here... | | Reflections on the CNN town hall | | | Stelter emails: Following up on Wednesday's town hall: Variety's Brian Steinberg has this behind-the-scenes account of how the town hall was organized "in a matter of days." Jake Tapper told him it was "the toughest thing I've ever done at CNN." | | CNN says an effort to "discredit" the town hall included "doctored emails" | | More from Stelter: Conservative critics have been assailing CNN, saying the town hall was stacked against them. Then there's the accusation -- denied by CNN -- that a student's question was written for him. This claim has been cited as evidence of bias, but on Friday CNN provided two sets of emails showing that the student's family distorted the account. Erik Wemple has a full breakdown in WaPo here...
HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED: Colton Haab's family sent HuffPost and Fox News their emails with CNN producer Carrie Stevenson about the question Colton might ask at the town hall. Amid this controversy, HuffPost and Fox asked CNN to verify that the emails were authentic. And then it was discovered that some key words were taken out of one of Stevenson's emails to alter the meaning.
"This is what Colton and I discussed on the phone that he submitted," Stevenson wrote to Haab's father. But the emails the Haab family provided to HuffPost and Fox were missing the words "that he submitted." The doctored email makes it sound like Stevenson dictated a question to him, which is not the case. Colton submitted his question. Later, his family decided not to participate in the town hall.
A CNN spokesman said, "It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event. However, when presented with doctored email exchanges, we felt the need to set the record straight."
BOTTOM LINE: "No, nothing is scripted. But people submit questions," Tapper tweeted on Friday. That's the reality of TV production -- if you don't receive submissions ahead of time, then you might call on three people in a row who all want to ask the same question, keeping others from exploring topics important to them... | | Will Parkland change how cartoonists portray outrage of mass shootings? | | | Stelter emails: For this Poynter piece, David Beard talked with three editorial cartoonists... Ann Telnaes, Signe Wilkinson and Rob Rogers... about how they try to portray outrage after mass shootings. "I've done so many gun cartoons in my 25-year career I can't remember them all," Telnaes says... | | By Frank Pallotta:
-- With the Oscars a little more than a week away, Vanity Fair put together a really interesting story about who gets into the Academy's "In Memoriam." (Vanity Fair)
-- White House Correspondents' Dinner host Michelle Wolf previews what she'll say at the dinner, even if Trump shows up. (Variety)
-- The Hollywood Reporter put together a remarkable Q+A that brought together the four African-American men who have been nominated for Best Director in the Oscars' 90 year history: John Singleton, Lee Daniels, Barry Jenkins and Jordan Peele. (THR) | | 'Black Panther' looks for another big weekend | | | Pallotta emails: Much was made about the massive opening for "Black Panther" last weekend, but now all eyes will be on how much it'll make this weekend. The film is still buzzy and has racked up more than $500 million globally. Other Marvel films like 2012's "The Avengers" have seen drops around 50%-60%. My guess is that "Black Panther" holds up pretty well and possibly surprises people once again. | | FOR YOUR WEEKEND VIEWING... | | | Megan Thomas emails: Check out CNN's Oscar-themed series, Creators, featuring interviews with Greta Gerwig, Jordan Peele, Steven Spielberg, Jessica Chastain, George Clooney, Hugh Jackman, Kumail Nanjiani, Patty Jenkins and Aaron Sorkin. Creators is a conversation about the changing entertainment industry, creativity and inspiration... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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