| | | | | Exec summary: Scroll down for Facebook's status update, Taylor Swift's sales record, opening statements in DOJ vs. AT&T, and some highlights from the FT's Future of News summit... | | "He always told me he loved me" | | Karen McDougal's interview with Anderson Cooper was shocking. It's one thing to hear secondhand about a former Playboy model's "alleged affair" with Donald Trump. It's another thing to hear McDougal in her words. She said she loved Trump. She said "he always told me he loved me." She described a sexual relationship that went on for nearly a year, starting in 2006. She said they were together "many dozens of times." She said she felt guilty when it was going on. She even publicly apologized to Melania Trump.
Watch/read for yourself and see if you find her credible. I found her to be a relatable and even sympathetic character at times.
The interview took up most of Thursday night's "AC360." After it aired, CNN's Dana Bash said what I was thinking: "I couldn't take my eyes off it. Such a compelling interview..." | | Learning about "catch and kill" | | McDougal said she hadn't heard of "catch and kill" -- buying a story to bury a story -- when her contract with The National Enquirer's parent company AMI was signed shortly before election day in 2016.
COOPER: "Why do you think they squashed the story?"
MCDOUGAL: "They didn't want to hurt him."
COOPER: "You think it's because of a personal relationship with the guy who runs AMI," David Pecker, "who's friends with Donald Trump?"
MCDOUGAL: "Correct."
Enquirer boss Dylan Howard and AMI had no new comment after the interview aired... | | | H.R. McMaster's ouster was announced just a couple minutes before the 6:30pm nightly newscasts. McMaster's replacement, former U.N. ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton, said on Fox that he "didn't expect an announcement this afternoon." So I can't help but wonder: Did Trump announce this shakeup to distract from CNN's interview with McDougal? | | Bolton is more than "just" a TV pundit. He is a lawyer with decades of experience in foreign policy circles, known for his hawkish views. But he has been a contributor to Fox for about ten years, which means viewers -- including POTUS -- know him well.
As I wrote for CNNMoney, his hiring is just the latest example of the TV-to-White House pipeline. It seems like Trump is hiring the people he enjoys watching on TV...
--> Comedy writer Nick Jack Pappas joked last week: "He always wanted to create Trump TV, so he's turning the White House into it..." | | Next? Bolling angling for a W.H. job | | | Which cable news celebrity will join the administration next? "On Thursday, there was speculation that Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host, might want to work for the president," the NYT's Michael Grynbaum reported. Bolling tweeted that "I'd work for a single US $1" to help Trump... | | The White House's toothless denials | | Thursday's bulletin about John Dowd leaving Trump's legal team was a reminder that W.H. denials are worth very little:
Josh Dawsey tweeted: "When NYT reported recently Trump was going to change his legal team, he denied it on Twitter. When we reported last week he was changing his national security adviser, Sarah Sanders denied. He did both about a week later after the denials."
Maggie Haberman replied: "He denied it both times. It all stems from him. People can focus on staff and I certainly have, but at the end of the day it's the president who runs things this way and makes the choices to deny true stories and attempt to confuse people." | | All of this happened in one day! | | OAN's Trey Yingst summed up the day really well. Quoting him:
Thursday in Washington:
-- Trump lawyer John Dowd resigned
-- Tariffs announced on Chinese imports
-- POTUS reiterated desire to testify before Mueller
-- $1.3 trillion spending bill passed the House
-- $1 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia approved
-- McMaster ousted as NSA, Bolton hired | | | Jake Tapper tweeted Thursday evening: "Remember three months ago when the president and Joe Biden were talking about beating each other up?" | | -- "Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios has reached a deal to acquire cable's Weather Channel in a transaction valued at about $300 million..." (Variety)
-- Caitlin Conant is the new CBS News political director... (CBS)
-- "Modern Family" director Jason Winer "has attached himself to the John Gary penned spec, 'Gawker v. Thiel.'" Yes, a film about the lawsuit that killed Gawker... The producers are "in the process of setting up financing for the project..." (Variety)
-- Flagging this story for my wife Jamie: "Instagram is answering the wish of many of its users: It will once again prioritize newer content..." (CNNMoney) | | Judy Woodruff named sole anchor of the "NewsHour" | | | When Gwen Ifill died in November 2016, the producers of the PBS "NewsHour" thought about hiring a new co-anchor to work alongside Judy Woodruff. But after some deliberations "we thought, rather than try to recreate the magic of the past, we should build for the future," exec producer Sara Just told me. On Thursday Woodruff was named the solo anchor of the program. And two new correspondents were announced, bringing the total to eleven. Amna Nawaz will be a correspondent and fill-in anchor and Nick Schifrin will be foreign affairs and defense correspondent. Here's my full story... | | Previewing this weekend's March For Our Lives | | Ahead of this Saturday's March For Our Lives, several news outlets are rolling out special features and collaborations. Here's one: On Friday Vice is launching a series of essays from school shooting survivors. The series on Vice.com will feature 15 pieces about gun control, media coverage of school shootings, and numerous other subjects...
--> Via MTV PR: "MTV, together with NAACP Youth & College Division and local youth organizations, will send 17 buses of young people from communities affected by gun violence to D.C. on Saturday..."
--> Univision issued a press release on Thursday saying the media company "believes in the mission of March for Our Lives..."
--> TVNewser has a rundown of Saturday's TV coverage plans here...
--> This week's TIME cover: | | -- "A fourth woman who reached a settlement after making harassment allegations against Bill O'Reilly has filed a defamation lawsuit against him," Emily Steel reports... (NYT)
-- GQ's Caity Weaver is joining the NYT's Styles desk... "She will also be a writer-at-large for the magazine..." (NYT)
-- Via The Atlantic PR: Annie Lowrey, Alex Wagner, Ibram X. Kendi, and Kevin D. Williamson are the "first four contributors to its forthcoming section for ideas, opinion, and commentary." And: "Politics editor Yoni Appelbaum will lead the section as its first editor..." | | Here's what happened in court on Thursday, via CNN's Hadas Gold, Tom Kludt and Jessica Schneider:
The government's lead lawyer Craig Conrath "argued that at its core, a union between AT&T and Time Warner would harm consumers because it would cause an increase in prices and would hurt the competitive landscape. He implored Judge Richard Leon to 'stop the merger, stop the harm.'"
AT&T/TWX lead lawyer Dan Petrocelli argued that vertical mergers "rarely pose an antitrust problem, and that the government will not be able to show that this vertical merger will stifle competition or hurt consumers. Petrocelli pointed to the changing media landscape as the primary reason that AT&T needs to acquire Time Warner and its programming. The move is necessary, he said, in order to compete with newer entities like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google..." | | | Hadas Gold emails: After those opening statements, a Cox exec took the stand to explain how she thought the merger would affect the cable company. The next proceedings aren't until Monday... we are still expecting to hear testimony from John Martin, Jeff Bewkes, Randall Stephenson and others representing companies like Google... | | | FB stock fell another 2.7% on Thursday... But there were far fewer headlines about the data debacle... Mark Zuckerberg's interviews were clearly a turning point in this controversy. But it's not over: The House Energy and Commerce Committee is summoning Z to testify... | | | CNBC's Julia Boorstin landed a sit-down with COO Sharyl Sandberg... Of note to PR types, Sandberg said this: "Sometimes, and I would say certainly this past week, we speak too slowly. If I could live this past week again, I would have definitely had Mark and myself out speaking earlier, but we were trying to get to the bottom of this." Here's the interview transcript... | | Sarah Lacy on this week's "Reliable" podcast! | | | I really think you're going to like this week's "Reliable" pod. Pando founder Sarah Lacy is the guest, and Facebook is the topic... Lacy says FB officials are wondering "are we the bad guys?" and experiencing a "crisis of confidence..." We also discuss the eerie similarities between Facebook's very first scandal and the current data debacle. Listen here via Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, or Stitcher... | | By Julia Waldow:
-- NYMag's parent company has acquired the comedy site Splitsider from the Awl Network, with plans to fold the brand into Vulture... (WSJ)
-- Medium is now granting selected partners cash bonuses as a reward for high-quality stories... The amount is set at $100, but could change in the future... (TechCrunch)
-- The Boston Globe and Hearst are among the media publishers experimenting with personalization technology... (Digiday)
-- "In the rush to get our content on other platforms, let's not forget about our own." CNN Digital's S. Mitra Kalita tells David Beard about building up the homepage and finding new users... (Poynter) | | | FT'S FUTURE OF NEWS SUMMIT | | | The FT had an impressive lineup at its Future of News summit on Thursday. A few highlights here... | | Oliver Darcy emails: NYT exec editor Dean Baquet was asked if his newspaper has a liberal bent. Baquet replied that it would be "nuts" for him to deny that his newsroom has liberal lifestyle and culture leanings, noting the paper is based in Manhattan. But he said he was not suggesting the paper has a "liberal bias" and explained that there are structures in place to ensure objectivity...
--> More from the Beast's Maxwell Tani: Baquet "praised the paper's op-ed page, despite multiple firestorms..." | | Zucker says Fox is a "pure propaganda machine" | | Oliver Darcy emails: CNN chief Jeff Zucker ripped into Fox News while speaking with the FT's Matt Garrahan. Zucker said that he believed what has happened to the rival network in the age of Trump has been "somewhat shocking." Zucker said about Fox News, "It is a pure propaganda machine. And I think it does an incredible disservice to the country. There are a handful of good journalists there, but I think they are just lost in what is a complete propaganda machine." Zucker later said Russia's TASS "has nothing" on Fox News...
--> Later in the afternoon, Steve Bannon hit back, saying "you can't name a more propaganda outfit than CNN..." | | -- ABC News prez James Goldston: "The best corollary to fake news is breaking news every day..."
-- Via Gerry Smith: "Steve Bannon says he has no regrets about being a source for 'Fire and Fury.' Says the book 'was authorized' by Hope Hicks and the president. 'I haven't seen anybody refute anything in the book...'"
-- Via Michael Calderone: "Newsmax chief Chris Ruddy says his friend Donald Trump is 'not a fact-based president,' but a great salesman, and that he uses exaggeration as a 'rhetorical device...'" | | | For the record, part three | | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Vanity Fair explores the #NeverAgain campaign's new office space: "In an undisclosed strip-mall location, the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooting—and a few key alumni allies—are building a social-media content studio that just might reform America's crazy gun laws..." (Vanity Fair)
-- ABC News is starting a daily news podcast... (Variety)
-- Weather apps were experiences glitches on Thursday, showing forecasts ranging from -107 to 47 degrees Fahrenheit in the coming week... (Slate) | | NYT and "this brave new world..." | | "Netflix has sealed a deal for a new original documentary series inspired by the NYT Magazine's long-running 'Diagnosis' medical column written by Dr. Lisa Sanders," Deadline's Patrick Hipes reports.
--> NYT assistant managing editor Sam Dolnick tells me: "Netflix has helped make streaming TV one of the most exciting spaces in media and we're thrilled that Diagnosis, a signature Times column, will be among our first expansions into this brave new world..." | | Radhika Jones signals her arrival at Vanity Fair | | Frank Pallotta emails: Radhika Jones' decision to put actress Lena Waithe on the April cover of Vanity Fair is being hailed as a watershed moment for the publication. Jones enlisted award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson to interview Waithe and photographer Annie Leibovitz to capture the actress.
--> "Dear @RadhikaJones, You're changing the game by centering this game-changer on the @VanityFair cover," director Ava DuVernay tweeted on Thursday. "You've done something big here. Something bold. I'm excited by you." | | Lowry reviews "Isle of Dogs" | | | Brian Lowry emails: Director Wes Anderson has a reputation for the quirky that he lives up to -- and then some! -- with his second stop-motion animated film, "Isle of Dogs..." | | Frank's interview in a galaxy far, far away | | (It was actually at SXSW, but that's neither here nor there.)
Frank Pallotta emails: The first part of my interview with "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" director Rian Johnson and Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, is now up. I spoke with the pair about how difficult it is to bring together this billion dollar Disney franchise. (Hint: Not easy!) We'll have more clips and a story next week... | | Lightning didn't strike "American Crime Story" twice | | | NYT's John Koblin tweeted: "AMERICAN CRIME STORY: VERSACE crawls to the finish line. Finale draws 1.2 million viewers, about 1/3 size of OJ. In the demo, finished 15th in cable on Wednesday night..." | | "Reputation" tops 2 million | | "Taylor Swift has sold more than 2 million copies of 'Reputation' -- making it the first album to accomplish that feat since Adele's '25' in 2015, according to Nielsen tracking figures," Chloe Melas reports.
For perspective, "Ed Sheeran's 2017 album, 'Divide,' is the only other album to sell more than a million copies last year..." | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
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