| | | | American troubles interrupt a British fantasy | | | "Good evening from Windsor tonight," David Muir said on ABC Friday evening. With "the world waiting to see a young American woman marry Prince Harry, there are many Americans here, and many back home, who thought it might offer a break from the headlines of our time. But tonight, yet another horrific school shooting back home -- the images playing out even on TV's here across the U.K. today -- this time, it was Santa Fe High School in Texas..." | | Oliver Darcy emails: It almost feels too familiar to say that today's shooting feels too familiar. But on Friday morning when news broke that a shooting had occurred in yet another school, that's all I could think about. This feels all too familiar. Things happened as they usually do: The news first broke on Twitter, and cable news networks raced to confirm it. Then networks scrambled to rearrange their programming. And soon after, speculation about the shooter's motivation entered the public discourse. My colleague Dylan Byers tweeted, "There's a glitch in the system. every week on cable news feels like a different spin on the same plot. breathless Trump coverage, cultural controversy, school shooting." He's right...
>> Related: NYT's James Poniewozik wrote about the repetitive images from these crime scenes. His title: "This Is School in America Now." | | Another "choose your own reality" situation | | Darcy adds: The Free Beacon's Alex Griswold pointed out in a Twitter thread that the alleged shooter's Facebook pictures showing both the Iron Cross and the sickle and hammer allowed individuals on both sides of the political spectrum to "push their narrative."
>> Per CNN's reporting: He "has a social media footprint that included an image of a custom T-shirt emblazoned with the words, 'BORN TO KILL' posted on Facebook and several images of a black duster jacket with Nazi, communist, fascist and religious symbols..."
>> WashPost's Drew Harwell: "Fake Facebook accounts and online lies are multiplying in the hours after the Santa Fe school shooting." He quotes an expert saying "it seemed this time like they were more ready for this, like someone just couldn't wait to do it..." | | Limiting "notoriety" for the killer | | | Brian Lowry emails: This seems like another good time to mention the No Notoriety movement, the campaign founded to encourage media not to provide mass killers the name recognition that many crave, under the slogan, "No Name. No Photo. No Notoriety." The group was founded by Tom and Caren Teves, whose son died in the 2012 theater shooting in Aurora... | | Muir was already in London when the shooting news broke, so he anchored from there. Weekend anchor Tom Llamas reported from the scene.
NBC's Lester Holt and CBS's Jeff Glor were stateside, not set to participate in wedding coverage, so they both flew to Texas in time for 6:30.
CNN's Anderson Cooper was also in London already, so instead of anchoring a pre-wedding special from Windsor Castle, he anchored from the London bureau while Chris Cuomo sub-anchored from Texas. CNN's Erica Hill will anchor from the scene over the weekend, too... But news media attention will turn to the U.K. for a six hour stretch on Saturday... | | Wall to wall royal wedding coverage | | | "Royal Wedding: Media tries to catch bouquet with blanket coverage." That's how our own Brian Lowry succinctly put it in his piece Friday morning describing the onslaught of coverage set for the early hours of Saturday morning. Lowry explained, "Drawn to a feel-good story with both Disney princess underpinnings and a rare American connection, the sheer volume of coverage is extraordinary, both in the run-up to the event and the big day itself, demonstrating that in the modern media age, anything worth doing is worthy of overkill..." | | | CBS will be first of the broadcast networks to begin coverage, with Gayle King and Kevin Frazier starting at 4am ET. Tina Brown will join them. NBC begins at 4:30am with Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Megyn Kelly, Kathie Lee Gifford, Al Roker, and Sheinelle Jones. And ABC begins special programming at 5am with Robin Roberts and David Muir... | | CNN's coverage officially starts at 4am, but the network will be live overnight/through the early morning from the U.K. At 4, Anderson Cooper and Alisyn Camerota start the special event coverage, joined at various times by Max Foster, Richard Quest, Don Lemon, Clarissa Ward, Joe Zee, and many more...
MSNBC's coverage also starts at 4am, with Joy Reid in NYC and Stephanie Ruhle and Katy Tur on the ground. Fox News starts 5 with Ainsley Earhardt... At 6, Shepard Smith and Sandra Smith join her...
>> And of course the BBC will have nonstop coverage... TVNewser has details here... | | All times are U.S. Eastern time:
4am: Arrivals begin
6:20am: The royal family will head for the chapel
7am: The ceremony will begin
8am: The newlyweds will greet well-wishers | | | Megan Thomas emails: Some recommended wedding-prep read from The Atlantic's Caroline Kitchener on the "enduring appeal of the fairy-tale wedding." A/k/a why we all watch... | | This Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | Sunday's show is still taking shape, but I'll be joined by Ezra Klein, Olivia Nuzzi, Sabrina Siddiqui, John Avlon and more... Lemme know what's on your mind for the show (email me here)... See you Sunday at 11am ET! | | -- Coming on Sunday... Per Dylan Byers' PACIFIC newsletter... "Alphabet and Google executives are readying themselves for a CBS '60 Minutes' report featuring critics who say the company has stifled competition. CBS also interviewed European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, who fined Google $2.7 billion last year for antitrust abuse..."
-- Jason Schwartz has been on a roll lately. His latest: "Murdoch embraces liberal approach to curb Facebook, Google..." (Politico)
-- If you missed Chris Cuomo's 40 minute interview with Rudy Giuliani, I recommend this recap... (CNN) | | News publishers push back on Facebook | | | The News Media Alliance, representing dozens of newsrooms and publishers, is trying to get Facebook to tweak its new rules around political ads. The concern: Some of the ads bought by news outlets to promote their stories will be subject to the new rules. Donie O'Sullivan has been looking into this... Here's what he found out from Facebook... | | Tantaros suit against Fox has been thrown out | | | Some Friday evening legal news via CNNMoney's Aaron Smith: A federal judge just threw out Andrea Tantaros' lawsuit against Fox. She had accused her former network "of illegal electronic surveillance and online harassment." The judge said she "failed to plausibly allege facts tying any of the defendants to the conduct she claims caused her injury..." | | Top Fox News exec quietly remains working | | | Oliver Darcy emails: Fox News might say Dianne Brandi, the network's EVP for business & legal affairs, is on an indefinite voluntary leave, but she has quietly been at work for the company. Multiple people familiar with the matter told me that Brandi, who has been named in harassment lawsuits over allegations she helped foster a hostile work environment, has remained working on things like contracts, and that it's left some staffers "puzzled" as to why Fox insists she's on leave. "It seems like it's still business as usual for Dianne," one source told me. A network spokesperson conceded that Brandi has done some work, saying she provides the network with "transition services as needed." Read my full story here... | | Bret Baier: It "pains" me when Fox is compared to state-TV | | One more from Darcy: Susan Glasser spoke with Fox's Bret Baier for her latest piece in The New Yorker, and Baier was quite open about something that bothers him in the Trump era. The "Special Report" host said it "pains" him when Fox News is called state-run television.
"I have not gotten an interview with the President, and it's 534 days since I did one with candidate Trump, not like anybody's counting," Baier said. But as Glasser writes, "it is, of course, not lost on Baier that many of his Fox colleagues are Trump's chief promoters, rewarded with Presidential call-ins and White House dinner invites." Read Glasser's full piece here...
>> Of note via The Beast's Andrew Kirell: "I get what @BretBaier is trying to say, but, uh… he does know that 11 of 15 Pres. Trump's TV interviews have been with Fox News, right?" | | -- NPR's David Folkenflik profiles "Trump skeptic, genial workhorse" Neil Cavuto... (NPR)
-- YouTuber Casey Neistat says he had to call the cops after someone trespassed into his studio and refused to leave... (NY Mag)
-- ICYMI: Ashley Feinberg has assembled a "comprehensive list" of "everything [Donald Trump Jr.] doesn't know" about the Trump Tower meeting... (HuffPost) | | No new developments today, but... | | "Wall Street is watching the legal tug-of-war between CBS Corp. and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone with a mix of amazement and concern about the potential for long-term damage to CBS' fortunes," Variety's Cynthia Littleton writes.
She says Mario Gabelli, "whose Gamco Investors holds 8.5% of the voting power in CBS, would like to see CBS and Viacom brought together for the sake of giving both companies greater scale around the world." Gabelli: "Hopefully they can figure out a way to come to some agreement..." | | Brian Lowry on this week's "Reliable" pod | | | Double the Brians on this week's podcast! I asked Brian Lowry all my TV upfront week questions... We talked about this year's conservative approach from the broadcasters and what it means... Plus, the surplus of reboots... Lowry called it a "programming solution to a marketing problem." And at the end, we got into Moonves v. Redstone. Check out the 20-minute chat via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn... Or read Julia Waldow's recap here... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Sunday's season finale of "The Circus" on Showtime includes Mark McKinnon's visit with CNN's Don Lemon... Here's a first look at the segment... (YouTube)
-- Erik Wemple's latest: '"Thank you,' now get out of here! The difficult job of a Trump press wrangler..." (WashPost) | | WashPost's scoop about Trump trying to punish Amazon | | Damian Paletta and Josh Dawsey's Friday scoop deserves a lot of attention. It is striking that the WashPost broke this story, given the Jeff Bezos connection between the Post and Amazon. The W.H. did not deny the story -- it just declined to comment.
Here it is: "President Trump has personally pushed U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms to ship packages." Brennan has resisted. "She has told the president that the Amazon relationship is beneficial for the Postal Service and gave him a set of slides that showed the variety of companies, in addition to Amazon, that also partner for deliveries. Despite these presentations, Trump has continued to level criticism at Amazon."
>> The Post's Paul Farhi offered this alternative headline via Twitter: "President demands increase in postal rates because he doesn't like newspaper owned by guy whose company depends on Postal Service."
>> Former Postie/538's Perry Bacon tweeted: "The American president intentionally tries to weaken the company owned by the man who also owns one of America's most important newspapers. To quote Brendan Nyhan, what would we say if this happened in another country?" | | Trump's meeting with conservative journos | | | I've been surprised Trump doesn't hold these sorts of sessions more often. NYT's Michael Grynbaum with the scoop: "Trump met today at White House with journalists from about a dozen conservative outlets, including Breitbart. POTUS said nice things about Kevin McCarthy & less-nice things about Jeff Sessions, per an attendee... Meeting was considered off-the-record, I'm told. Trump, in friendly mood, also said he wished Paul Ryan had run for re-election before stepping down, per attendee..." | | Things that make you go "hmm..." | | Oliver Darcy writes: The director of communications at the FCC is apparently shocked by the suggestion that Fox Business and the Washington Examiner would be categorized as right-leaning outlets. In a trove of documents I obtained in regards to a FOIA request on another matter, FCC spokesman Brian Hart was asked in an email by a reporter if chairman Ajit Pai prefers speaking with outlets that carry a conservative bent. Included in the list of those outlets was the Washington Examiner and Fox Business. Hart replied in a May 2017 email, "I've never heard anyone try to describe Fox Business as bent, nor the Washington Examiner news department. I've also never seen anyone try to lump Reason or pure Libertarian outlets with the right/conservatives." Umm...
>> I reached out to Hart to see if he'd elaborate. Let's just say he sent me a long email back, but unfortunately didn't want to share his thoughts on the record... | | Just some of what happened this week | | | The list via Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur: | | | "Jennifer Aniston will play America's first female president in Netflix's 'First Ladies,' with One Mississippi's Tig Notaro starring as her wife," THR's Mia Galuppo reports. "The political comedy centers on Beverly and Kasey Nicholson, America's first female President and her wife, the First Lady, in a story that promises to show that behind every great woman is another great woman..." | | Cummings leaving "Roseanne" | | "Roseanne" co-showrunner Whitney Cummings is leaving the sitcom. Variety's Joe Otterson reports that fellow E.P. Bruce Helford broke the news during a conference call with reporters on Friday.
Cummings confirmed: "Working on Roseanne was a surreal, incredible experience. Due to work commitments and my tour schedule, I'm gonna have to watch the Conners from the sidelines next season. It was an honor to work with such an incredibly talented group of actors, writers and crew. Harvey Levin, you can stop calling my cell phone now." | | Lowry says "Fahrenheit 451" fails to ignite | | Brian Lowry emails: Despite the promising pairing of two magic Michaels -- B. Jordan and Shannon -- HBO's Emmy-bait movie, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," fails to ignite.
Read Lowry's full review here... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Alec and Hilaria Baldwin have welcomed their fourth child...
-- 98 Degrees just announced they're launching a holiday concert tour. The Backstreet Boys are back alright with new music. Where you at *NSYNC?!?
-- Janet Jackson will headline Sunday's Billboard Music Awards. It's her first TV performance in years... | | | Hope you have a great weekend! | | | HEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS LETTER? Email your feedback and thoughts to brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thank you! | | | | | | |
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