| | | | | Exec summary: Good evening from Tavern on the Green... Scroll down to see why I'm here. Plus: Amazon has 100 million Prime members around the world... Facebook has a test in Ireland... Playboy has a party to plan... and ABC has the No. 1 show of the season... | | CEOs testifying in antitrust trial | | A big day in the antitrust trial: "Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes made the case for his company to be acquired by AT&T as he took the stand on Wednesday," Tom Kludt and Hadas Gold write. "Bewkes depicted Time Warner as a company that is quickly losing ground to tech giants."
Bewkes called the government's theory of the case "ridiculous." Reminder: CNN is part of Time Warner and will become part of AT&T if the deal is allowed to go forward. The deal closing deadline is looming... | | This is really a pivotal juncture of the trial... AT&T exec John Stankey also took the stand on Wednesday... "The market we're competing in is the market for the consumer's time and attention," he said...
--> Stankey continue testifying on Thursday, and then AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is expected to take the stand. Get caught up via Kludt and Gold's story here... | | The state of play via Bloomberg | | | AT&T and TWX "may have gained an edge" as "the companies have exposed weaknesses" in the DOJ case, "according to lawyers and economists following the battle," Bloomberg wrote... | | Tom Kludt emails: Let me preface this by acknowledging that none of us covering this trial know what Judge Richard Leon is thinking about the case. But with that obvious caveat out of the way, I'll lay down my marker: based on what I've seen in the courtroom, I think AT&T has to be regarded as the overwhelming favorite to prevail here.
Going into the trial, I was much more bullish on the DOJ's chances than many of my colleagues. But AT&T's lawyers have thoroughly outclassed their governmental counterparts. And to the degree that Leon has tipped his hand -- and, yes, we should be wary about reading too much into the judge's mannerisms and comments -- he has seemed far more skeptical of the DOJ than AT&T... | | Trump repeated the words "no collusion" five times at Wednesday's joint presser... He also called Robert Mueller's probe a "hoax" in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary... And he was widely scrutinized for referencing "breeding" in sanctuary cities. That's a racist term...
Meanwhile, Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti says he's considering filing a defamation claim over a Trump tweet... And a former Trump lawyer says he warned POTUS that Michael Cohen could turn against him... | | These are Trump's shelters from the storm | | | My latest piece for CNNMoney: Trump advisor Sean Hannity is important, but he's just one part of a sprawling pro-Trump media world. To really understand the Trump presidency, you have to understand this world... It includes dozens of radio hosts, scores of websites, and even extremists like Alex Jones. Taken together, these are Trump's shelters from the storm. | | These commentators and outlets defend and protect the president in a variety of ways while simultaneously attacking other media outlets... Providing an alternative universe of information to Trump's base.
"The ability of Hannity and the rest of pro-Trump media to build on a counter-narrative to anything that's bad for Trump is invaluable for the president, both because it gives the GOP rank-and-file something to pay attention to that isn't Robert Mueller and because it helps muddy the waters around the Russia investigation," Right Richter editor Will Sommer told me. "Counter-narratives like the one Hannity has helped build around the Russia investigation -- in part by acting like the real crime is the leaking, or the surveillance, or Fusion GPS, or Uranium One -- also gives Trump loyalists a reason to avoid focusing their scrutiny on Trump himself."
Read the rest here... | | -- 🔌: I'll see you on CNN's "New Day" at 6:30 and 8:30am ET Thursday...
-- Per ABC, "the two young black men who were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks this week will be on 'GMA'" Thursday morning... (Twitter)
-- NBC's Savannah Guthrie has the first TV interview with Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney about Dr. Larry Nassar's abuse... Clips are airing on "Today" this week, ahead of a special edition of "Dateline" this Sunday night...
-- Harper's editor James Marcus says he was fired over the magazine's March cover story, a controversial essay by Katie Roiphe... (NYT) | | Comey's Thursday schedule | | | Comey will sit down with Jake Tapper on CNN's "The Lead" at 4pm... Then he'll head over to The Town Hall for a ticketed taping of The New Yorker Radio Hour with David Remnick... And he'll end the day on "The Rachel Maddow Show" at 9pm... | | Lowry's notes on Comey TV | | | Brian Lowry emails: Taking in the James Comey media tour this week, it's been interesting to see how our movie-and-TV-informed image of the FBI -- eager to cast the former director in those terms by likening him to screen depictions of lawmen -- has clashed with the more complicated aspects of his story. It's also notable that Comey has actually fared better after his initial George Stephanopoulos interview, as he moves into lighter venues and refines his message, in advance of his stops on cable news. Read Lowry's column here... | | Colbert got a Comey boost | | Frank Pallotta emails: Stephen Colbert's Comey interview gave the "Late Show" a big win on Tuesday night. The show nabbed a 3.5 overnight rating, which was its highest overnight rating this season and third highest ever for the show. Most impressively, the show's rating beat the combined total of its rival, the two Jimmys, and won the 18-49 demo...
--> Brian Lowry adds: Colbert really appeared to be at his best -- as MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell put it, managing to be "informative, challenging, thorough, entertaining" all at once...
--> ICYMI: Colbert published the COMPLETE interview on YouTube 👍 | | | Per WashPost PR, "Comey's book has debuted at #1 on The Washington Post's Bestselling Nonfiction List this week." The runner-up? Madeleine Albright's new book "Fascism." The NYT list will come out next week... | | | Brian Lowry emails: Sports analogies are overused in politics, but I couldn't help thinking in those terms reading Jonathan Chait's analysis of Comey's actions regarding the Clinton email investigation, and how he essentially made a questionable call by trying to anticipate the potential blowback he might face from conservative media. As Chait put it, "the Republican Party has spent decades building up a partisan news environment capable of turning nonevents into imagined first-tier scandals." If you buy that argument, then the mere threat of landing in the crosshairs of the Limbaugh-Hannity-Fox News commentariat helped dictate Comey's approach... | | Remembering Richard Blystone | | CNN's Nic Robertson pays tribute to Richard Blystone, "the poet laureate of network news:"
"Richard passed away earlier this week, aged 81. A giant of his generation, he was humble, witty and serious. Warm with his colleagues, tough on tyrants." Blystone covered the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and numerous other subjects for the AP. Then he became one of CNN's very first overseas correspondents. Blystone "had an unrivaled talent for cutting to the truth in poignant prose that his mellifluous tones could lift and lay over his audience with the lightest of touches." Read Robertson's appreciation here... | | A test for Facebook in Ireland | | "Next month's historic vote on legalizing abortion in Ireland" will be a big test for Facebook, CNNMoney's Ivana Kottasová reports. "The company is stepping up efforts to tackle fake news ahead of the May 25 referendum. It will roll out a new tool in Ireland to give users more information about political advertisements and sponsored posts in their news feeds."
--> About that ad tool: "Facebook was planning to roll it out globally later this year in time for the US midterm elections," but the company "decided to move up the launch date in Ireland because of the referendum..." | | -- Charlie Warzel's latest: "New sentiment analysis data provided to BuzzFeed News" shows that "in the aftermath of the 2016 election, media coverage of Facebook turned negative almost overnight. And it has largely stayed that way..." (BuzzFeed)
-- "In one month, Facebook doubled the countries using its fact-checking tool — all outside the West," Daniel Funke reports... (Poynter) | | -- Julia Waldow flagged this: Marissa Mayer gave David Gelles her first interview since leaving Yahoo. Interesting tidbit: She says she's now renting her old Google office... (NYT)
-- I missed this yesterday: Ken Auletta's look at the "rise, reign, and fall of WPP's Martin Sorrell..." Auletta's book about the ad biz is coming out in June... (The New Yorker)
-- "The reward has been doubled in the cold case that inspired 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'..." (CNN) | | The Tribeca Film Festival opened on Wednesday evening with a premiere screening of "Love, Gilda," an incredible CNN Films documentary about comedienne Gilda Radner. (That's why I'm filing this letter from the post-premiere party at Tavern on the Green!)
Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro welcomed the audience and introduced director Lisa D'Apolito, who said Radner "was able to find the humor in everything:" "Even in the darkest of times, she could find the funny in it. I wish that I could be like her. She's amazing." Then Tina Fey introduced the film. Other sightings: Gilda's brother Michael Radner, Amy Entelis, Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust, Lorne Michaels, Laraine Newman, Chevy Chase, Keegan-Michael Key, Jennifer Westfeldt, Gilbert Gottfried, Josh Braun, John Berman, Brooke Baldwin, Kate Bolduan, Ed O'Keefe, Ken Sunshine, Michael Glantz, Robin Garfield, Ray Liotta and more... | | At the party, I addressed De Niro as "Mr. Mueller." I told him he should be a recurring character on "SNL..." But he kept a poker face...
Earlier, in an interview with the WashPost, he said his film festival has a more activist spirit now... "Things you should take for granted with this administration can't be taken for granted," he said. "It's important to have a festival where people understand what the facts are..." | | Peter Kafka's latest for Recode --> "Verizon is moving around top managers at Oath, its Yahoo-AOL tie-up that's supposed to compete against Google and Facebook for digital ad dollars. Out: The executive who oversaw all of Oath's media properties, including HuffPost, Yahoo News and TechCrunch."
That's Simon Khalaf. "Oath CEO Tim Armstrong says Khalaf won't be replaced." But Armstrong is hiring a president and COO, K. Guru Gowrappan... | | Tuesday night: The WashPost reported that Mike Pompeo secretly met with Kim Jong Un over Easter weekend. The W.H. declined to comment.
Wednesday morning: Trump tweeted that it happened "last week..." And aides had to clarify that it actually happened over Easter weekend.
Wednesday afternoon: The AP's Jonathan Lemire on MSNBC: "I do find it greatly amusing that the White House would not officially comment and then the President, himself, officially confirms it on Twitter." Amusing is a nice word for it! I can think of a few others... | | NYT is standing by this story | | NYT's Tuesday night headline: "Mattis Wanted Congressional Approval Before Striking Syria. He Was Overruled."
Defense Secretary James Mattis denied it after the story came out. So did the White House. "Reports that Secretary Mattis urged the President to seek congressional approval before last week's strikes in Syria are categorically false," Sarah Sanders said Wednesday afternoon.
But the NYT isn't wavering. "We stand by our story and our reporting," a spokeswoman told me... | | | "I do not think tearing down the media is good for our nation... Tearing down the Justice Department or the FBI is not a good thing for our nation," Senator Bob Corker told the WashPost's Philip Rucker in a new interview... | | "Ex-Playboy Model, Freed From Contract, Can Discuss Alleged Trump Affair" | | | That's the headline on Jim Rutenberg's scoop. He broke the news that American Media Inc. has agreed to let Karen McDougal "out of a contract that had kept her from talking freely about an alleged affair with Donald J. Trump..." | | Playboy is throwing a party after the WHCD | | | CNN's Kate Bennett writes: Playboy Magazine is "throwing its first-ever WHCD bash" after the dinner on April 28. The mag says it's always been a "passionate defender of the First Amendment and a free press..." So Cooper Hefner and co. will have a table at the dinner... And then host the party "at a downtown Washington nightclub..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- CJR's Jonathan Peters interviewed Rob Balin, the media lawyer who is the reason why we know Sean Hannity is Michael Cohen's client: "When it seemed the judge would keep the client's identity under seal, Balin stood up in the second row of the gallery, apologized for interrupting, introduced himself, and informed the court of a 'public access issue.' Then, with the court's permission, he approached the podium and argued that the client's identity should be disclosed publicly..." (CJR)
-- Sports streaming startup FuboTV has raised $75 million in funding from investors that include AMC Networks and 21st Century Fox... (Deadline)
-- Yara Shahidi from "Black-ish" is teaming up with NowThis for a political engagement campaign to get young people to vote in the midterms... (Variety) | | The meaning of Amazon's new studio lot | | | NYT's Brooks Barnes tweeted: "The arrival of Amazon Studios on the lot where 'Gone With the Wind' was filmed demonstrates the degree to which Big Tech has woven itself into the fabric of Hollywood. You can no longer separate the two." Check out his full story about Amazon and Culver Studios in Thursday's NYT... | | 100 million Prime members around the world | | | Amazon finally revealed the #! It's noted in Barnes' story: "Amazon revealed Wednesday that more than 100 million people globally had a Prime membership, which includes access to its streaming service, and the company is expected to spend $5 billion on movies and television programming this year, according to the J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth. Its 44 original series include 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and 'The Man in the High Castle.'' Amazon has at least 10 movies in various stages of production, including 'Life Itself,' a highly anticipated romance set for release on Sept. 2." | | Saying goodbye to "Scandal" | | | I haven't been keeping up with "Scandal" this season -- Jamie and I are about ten episodes behind -- but I'm still sad to see the series go. We're hoping to catch up in the next couple of weeks... So no spoilers please! | | "Scandal" fans, you'll like this | | Megan Thomas emails: For those prepping for the series finale of "Scandal," this story from Vulture's Rachel Handler made me laugh: "I Ate and Drank Like Olivia Pope For a Week, and I didn't die."
What's on the menu? "She does not eat like a grown-up. Olivia's diet consists of the following five food items: gargantuan bowls of popcorn (consumed nightly), goblets that perpetually runneth over with blood-red wine (same), a tense steak eaten once a week with her father, the occasional Gettysburger (a fake fast-food chain that loves America), and a tall glass of bourbon, if a lot of people have died at her hand recently. That's it." | | "Roseanne" week four ratings | | "Roseanne" was "steady in its fourth week in the Tuesday overnight ratings for another win in both key measures for the night," Variety's Joe Otterson reports. Total viewer #: 13 million, down a hair from 13.8 million viewers last week.
"Freshman ABC comedy 'Alex Inc.' aired immediately after 'Roseanne' instead of its normal Wednesday time slot, no doubt to give the new show the ratings bump that 'Roseanne' has given to ABC's Tuesday lineup. The move paid off, with 'Alex Inc.' up over 30% in both measures from last week with a 1.2 and 4.9 million viewers..." Still, most "Roseanne" viewers turned the channel right away... | | ABC has the season's #1 show | | | Per Deadline's Nellie Andreeva: "As of now, based on most current ratings that include delayed viewing, 'Roseanne' is the #1 program on broadcast TV in total viewers (23.3 million) and adults 18-49 (6.7), well ahead of 'Sunday Night Football,' 'The Big Bang Theory' and Super Bowl-boosted 'This Is Us.' The last time ABC claimed the season's #1 show was 18 years ago in total viewers ('Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' in 1999-2000) and 24 years ago in Adults 18-49 ('Home Improvement' in 1993-94)." | | Lowry reviews "I Feel Pretty" | | | Brian Lowry emails: Amy Schumer shows off a more vulnerable side in "I Feel Pretty," a romantic comedy whose trailer triggered some criticism about body-shaming issues. Unlike her two previous vehicles ("Snatched," "Trainwreck"), this one qualifies for a softer PG-13 rating... Read more... | | Steven Spielberg is doing a superhero movie | | | Steven Spielberg "will tackle his first superhero with an adaptation of 'Blackhawk,' DC and Warner Bros. Pictures have announced," Sandra Gonzalez writes. "The film is in development with Spielberg, Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures, which was behind Spielberg's 'Ready Player One.' Spielberg is 'hoping' to direct, according to DC and Warner Bros. David Koepp, who wrote 'Jurassic Park' and several other Spielberg-directed films, is doing the screenplay for the Blackhawk movie..." | | Tina Fey hosting "SNL" season finale | | The show confirmed its May lineup on Wednesday:
May 5: Donald Glover / Childish Gambino
May 12: Amy Schumer / Kacey Musgraves
May 19: Tina Fey / Nicki Minaj | | This year's Tony Awards hosts are... | | | Via The Tony Awards PR: Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban "will host together the 72nd Annual Tony Awards live from Radio City Music Hall in NYC, Sunday, June 10" on CBS... | | New trailer for "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" | | | For the record, part four | | | -- By Lisa Respers France: Pink and her kids are on the cover of People mag's "Beautiful" issue...
-- By Sandra Gonzalez: Khloé Kardashian says she's "learned so much" about motherhood from her sisters...
-- More from Sandra: Jim Carrey and Jeff Bridges' reunion shows that nothing has changed since "Dumb and Dumber..."
-- One more from Sandra: MTV is bringing back "YO! MTV Raps..." | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
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