| | | | | Exec summary: There's a new NYT report about President Trump and David Pecker... Amal Clooney is representing the Reuters reporters held in Myanmar... CBS is readying a Viacom merger proposal... Goop is raising $50 million... "Ready Player One" is in theaters... | | Everybody's talking about "Roseanne" | | | Two days after the blockbuster premiere, the "Roseanne" season two renewal announcement is "imminent," an ABC insider says. It's a no-brainer, of course... Per Deadline, the cast deals for season two are already in place... The Q is how many episodes the cast will agree to make... | | President Trump is wrapping himself in the "Roseanne" ratings news by calling Roseanne Barr to celebrate and touting the show's success. "Over 18 million people! And it was about us!" Trump said at a speech/rally on Thursday.
The show's red state appeal is a factor for sure -- but it's not the only factor. "The Trump of it all is exaggerated," the insider said to me Thursday night. This source ticked off all the other reasons why the reboot clicked: "Wickedly funny. Beloved characters. Emotional." All about family. "Masterful execution by all star writers and producers." And don't forget about this: "A huge ABC promotional push."
The view from Burbank: The show isn't "political," it's a "family show" with "social commentary." As ABC execs told the NYT on Thursday, there's not as much Trump talk in the seven remaining episodes. But many societal issues come up: Unemployment, health care, poverty, opioid abuse, single motherhood.
--> I asked the insider if there's any downside in having Trump talking about the series. Could he turn off some potential viewers? ABC sees all upside: It's "more attention..." | | | "This is 100% in Trump's sweet spot," the NYT's James Poniewozik tweeted Thursday: "1. Obsessed with ratings as metric. 2. Bashes Hollywood but craves its validation. 3. Divides the world into things that are 'pro TRUMP' and 'against TRUMP;' I doubt he will ever watch Roseanne, but in his mind, a 'pro TRUMP' thing won..." | | | Disney CEO Bob Iger tweeted a bunch of brand names on Thursday -- "Roseanne," "Black Panther," "Modern Family," "Coco," "Black-ish," "Zootopia," "Moana," "Fresh Off The Boat," "Avengers," "Star Wars," "A Wrinkle In Time" -- and said they're "all reflections of the wide variety of people, backgrounds and opinions of the world we live in." His point: That's what Disney aspires to be... | | | Ben Sherwood and Channing Dungey are quoted in this Friday NYT story by John Koblin and Michael Grynbaum. The story positions "Roseanne" as part of a post-election strategy by ABC. "People gather round and they see themselves in this family," Sherwood says. "It speaks to a large number of people in the country who don't see themselves on television very often..." | | | CNN commentator/former RNC comms director Doug Heye emails: "Obviously the Roseanne numbers are absolutely huge, but I think it's only a surprise to, and I kind of hate the term, 'coastal elites,' who don't know, don't get and don't want to get, conservatives. How many times have we seen a super strong opening for a Christian movie that the Hollywood promotional industrial complex never talked about?" | | Alternative history: What if Netflix had landed "Roseanne?" | | ABC was always seen as the logical home for the "Roseanne" reboot. But other parties, including Netflix, were bidders for the project last year. So think about this: If "Roseanne" had premiered on Netflix this week, would we all be talking about it? Would Trump be touting it on the stump?
Netflix has many advantages over traditional TV, but this week is a reminder about broadcast TV's power... | | | Brian Lowry emails: Before the networks get too far ahead of themselves in trying to replicate "Roseanne," as Michael Schneider suggested they might, a cautionary note: this might be one of those relatively unique properties/situations, and reading too much into deciphering it -- More revivals! Serve the heartland! -- will likely lead to a lot of failed sitcoms... | | -- NEW: A must-read NYT investigation about National Enquirer owner David Pecker using his presidential connections to woo Saudi business... (NYT)
-- WSJ employees are alleging "censorship," saying a senior editor tried to pull a story for political reasons... Maxwell Strachan has the details here... (HuffPost)
-- Savannah Guthrie has taped an interview with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov... Portions will air on Friday's "Today" show... | | | By my count, seven advertisers have distanced themselves from Laura Ingraham as a direct result of her dust-up with MSD student activist David Hogg. Fox is not commenting... But Ingraham's Twitter mockery of Hogg, followed by his call for an ad boycott, clearly left a mark. Ingraham apologized on Thursday, but Hogg said he'll only accept the apology if she denounces the way Fox "has treated my friends and I in this fight." This has stirred even more criticism of Hogg in right-wing circles... | | Echoes of the O'Reilly ad boycott? | | | Tom Kludt emails: It's almost fitting that Sunday will mark the one year anniversary of the NYT bombshell on Bill O'Reilly's secret settlements, a story that led to an advertiser boycott that ultimately ended O'Reilly's career at Fox. His shadow looms over the controversy surrounding Ingraham – and, to me, it seemed clear that she was trying to avoid the same pratfalls that did in O'Reilly, who has been unapologetic in the face of serious allegations from multiple women. Read Kludt's full story here... | | | What I said on "AC360" Thursday night: We all have to remember that Hogg and his peers are still high schoolers. It's easy to forget that when you're staring a computer screen, launching Twitter grenades. Yes, IMHO, the students sometimes go too far, with harsh rhetoric that hurts their cause. Gun rights proponents also sometimes go too far in their responses to the students. The attacks and conspiracy theories only reinforce that these students have a lot of political power right now... | | | Nate Silver tweeted Thursday: "The thing about the Parkland students isn't that they're always spot-on -- they've had better and worse moments as communicators. But they're at least as effective at politics as most professional pundits who have done it for years. Naturally, that's very threatening to the pundits..." | | This week's "Reliable" pod | | | Are people "fact immune" or merely "fact resistant?" What impact does fact-checking really have? That's what I talked about with PolitiFact editor Angie Holan and Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact Checking Network, on this week's "Reliable Sources" podcast. The peg: April 2 is International Fact Checking Day! Listen to the episode via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or TuneIn... | | -- "GateHouse Media has bought The Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Daily News for $49.3 million..." (Sun-Sentinel)
-- "A hot and heavy rumor that A24 will be acquired by Apple is being shot down and called untrue by insiders..." (Deadline)
-- A Maryland court has "once again" ordered a new trial for "Serial" podcast subject Adnan Syed. But it's a long and winding road... (CNN)
-- "Prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has agreed to represent two Reuters journalists who have been jailed in Myanmar and accused of exposing state secrets..." (CNN) | | "One of the Justice Department's own witnesses in its lawsuit to stop AT&T's $85 billion purchase of Time Warner may have done some damage to its case on Thursday," Hadas Gold and Jessica Schneider report. The witness, Comcast's Greg Rigdon, "testified the merger would likely not have an effect on negotiations with distributors to carry Time Warner content." This "seemed to undercut one of the Justice Department's main arguments."
>> So: Why did the DOJ call a Comcast exec to testify in the first place?!
>> Here's the full story about all of Thursday's developments... | | | Court is not in session on Friday... | | "CBS Is Planning First Proposal for Viacom Deal Within Days" | | That's the headline from Bloomberg's Nabila Ahmed and Lucas Shaw... They say the CBS independent board committee is about to make an "initial merger proposal" to Viacom's board, "likely to include an opening suggestion on valuation as well as leadership plans for the combined entity."
>> Key detail: CBS is planning to propose that Les Moonves "lead the combined company" and ask that Shari Redstone "leave management decisions to him and his team..."
>> Timing: "The two sides hope to announce an agreement before they each report quarterly financial results in May," but we'll see... | | PitchBook's scoop: "Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle website, has raised a $50 million Series C at an estimated valuation of $250 million." The company says it will use the $$ to "expand internationally."
--> This smart point from Digiday's Brian Morrissey caught my eye: "Many people hate on Goop, but that's what makes it a strong media brand. Kinda like TheSkimm: not for everybody, very distinctive..." | | Lots of backlash to this Axios post... | | The new tech editor of Axios, Scott Rosenberg, wrote: "Facebook and Google execs privately complain about the barrage of critical coverage they face, charging that media companies have a financial incentive to attack them and that media execs are settling scores. They're right." Here's the full piece.
The rebuttals were swift. The WashPost's Tony Romm called it "sloppy and unfair," saying "it's media criticism; it's an attempt to cast doubt so that readers choose Axios over the competition." And NBC's Ben Collins offered this counterpoint to Axios: FB was "treated with kid gloves for years, in part because the tech journalism ecosystem relied entirely on access, and because FB's firehose drove traffic. It's now covered appropriately..." | | | --> More: "The fact that Facebook and Google have devastated the news business is not a reason to view stories that portray their power as a threat to the public good with skepticism; it is a reason to view their power as a threat to the public good," NYMag's Eric Levitz writes... | | | With Trump vs. Amazon in the news, and questions swirling about the president's motivations, consider this: Sources tell the NYT that when Trump "brings up his disdain" for Amazon, it's "often set off by his anger at negative stories in The Washington Post." (Jeff Bezos owns the Post and runs Amazon...) | | Cable newsers cut away from Trump's speech | | "The three top cable news networks all cut away" from President Trump's speech in Ohio "before it ended, prompting complaints from the White House," The Hill's John Bowden notes...
--> The Toronto Star's Trump-checker Daniel Dale says most of the speech "was false, strange, outlandish or confusing..." | | | Before the speech, POTUS had a bit of a photo op with Hope Hicks, shaking her hand and kissing her on the cheek. Katie Rogers and Maggie Haberman have a story in Friday's NYT about Hicks' departure from the W.H. -- noting a "palpable worry among those in the West Wing about who the president will now confide in..." | | Does Trump need a comms director? | | | The reflexive answer is YES. But several of Trump's outside advisers "have told him over the past week he requires neither a chief of staff nor a communications director, at least in the traditional definition of those jobs, according to a person familiar with the conversations," CNN's Kevin Liptak reported Thursday... | | Interim comms director Kellyanne Conway? | | | So will it be Mercedes Schlapp or Tony Sayegh for comms director? Or neither? "It's widely believed inside the White House that presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway will assume the job in an interim capacity and Trump has told her he wants her to serve in the role permanently," Liptak says. "But he's also expressed openness to changing how that job will look going forward. It's universally believed in the West Wing that if a new communications director is named, he or she will perform a drastically different role than Hicks..." | | Just a few of the day's headlines... | | -- CNN: "Source: Mueller pushed for Gates' help on collusion"
-- Reuters: "Mueller probing Russia contacts at Republican convention: sources"
-- NBC: "Trump tells aides not to talk publicly about Russia policy moves" | | | For the record, part three | | | -- How should food writers cover a famous chef who's about to stand trial for assault and unlawful restraint? That's an issue in Texas about chef Paul Qui... (Texas Monthly)
-- The Atlantic has hired its first exec producer of podcasts: Katherine Wells, who previously worked for the outlet, then went to Gimlet Media, and is now coming home...
-- Via Lisa Respers France: Sarah Jessica Parker has endorsed her former co-star Cynthia Nixon... (CNN)
-- Correction: Yesterday I said Reuters' Jeff Mason had the jump on the VA change. Turns out his colleague Steve Holland had the scoop. | | | MHz, the main distributor of Russia Today programming in DC, will stop carrying the network on April 1. "The decision also affects other international networks such as France 24, China's CGTN and Germany's Deutsche Welle," Hadas Gold reports. While "RT is placing part of the blame on the US Justice Department," MHz networks says that's not true... Read the rest of Gold's story here... | | | Oliver Darcy emails: NBC News is reviving the @BreakingNews Twitter handle and Facebook page. The peacock company purchased Breaking News -- a company that consisted of a small team posting breaking news to Twitter, a mobile app, and website -- in 2012. But it shuttered the service in 2017 and redirected the domain's traffic to the NBC News website. On Thursday afternoon, to the surprise of many, a statement was posted to the @BreakingNews Twitter feed announcing its return: "Going forward, @NBCNews social media editors will highlight top breaking news reporting from NBC News and other news outlets on this account..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Music exec Charlie Walk, the president of the Republic Group, is departing from the label after an investigation into sexual harassment allegations made against him...(NYT)
-- Another wave of layoffs at Snap: "The parent company of the messaging app Snapchat has handed out pink slips to about 100 employees, mostly in its sales division..." (THR)
-- Former Fox exec Hernan Lopez's podcast startup called Wondery has raised $5 million from investors, bringing its overall funding to $8 million...(Variety)
-- The Onion is unionizing. And no, it's not a joke... (The A.V. Club) | | Where all those Pope stories came from | | Oliver Darcy emails: If you were online on Thursday morning, you may have noticed a flurry of stories that said the Pope had denied the existence of hell -- something which would have contradicted centuries of Catholicism.
The stories -- which were based on an interview the Pope gave to an Italian journalist -- rose up the pipeline quick. One even briefly became the banner on the Drudge Report where a headline asked: "POPE DECLARES NO HELL?" But according to the Vatican, the Pope never said the words he was quoted as saying: "What is reported by the author in today's article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted."
Indeed, according to the Catholic News Agency, the Italian journalist who published the story conceded years ago that he doesn't precisely quote his subjects. "I try to understand the person I am interviewing, and after that I write his answers with my own words," he reportedly said in 2013. Read more at the Catholic News Agency... | | "Is journalism a form of activism?" | | Daniella Emanuel emails: Following up on the debate sparked by last week's episode of "Reliable Sources," Longreads' Danielle Tcholakian asked, "Is journalism a form of activism?" For her piece, she interviewed Politico's Jack Shafer, the LAT's Matt Pearce, the Post's Margaret Sullivan and others...
--> This topic also came up on CJR's podcast The Kicker... | | Ready for "Ready Player One" | | | The film is arriving in theaters now... Frank Pallotta talked with "Ready Player One" star Ben Mendelsohn about what it was like to watch Steven Spielberg make a film in front of his eyes... Here's the video... | | Brian Lowry emails: Steven Spielberg's futuristic "Ready Player One" provides a fun if somewhat hollow romp through pop culture past -- along with a message about pulling our heads out of our devices and living in reality...
Read Lowry's full column here >>> | | | Wednesday's must-watch season two trailer: "The Handmaid's Tale." Thursday's: "Westworld." Enjoy! | | | For the record, part four | | | -- Chloe Melas emails: Sean Penn criticizes the #MeToo movement in his new book...
-- Also from Chloe: Emily Blunt discusses the backlash she faced over a political joke about Trump...
-- By Lisa Respers France: The "Sharknado" franchise is set to end with movie No. 6. | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
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