| | | | Our eyebrows are permanently raised | | On "The Situation Room" Wednesday evening, when Wolf Blitzer remarked that the newly revealed payments to Michael Cohen are eyebrow-raising, Bianna Golodryga responded, "I think at this point we can say our eyebrows are permanently raised."
Indeed. Notice how these next four stories all line up on the pro-Trump/anti-Trump axis. Presidents always have proponents and detractors. But it's so much more explicit and extreme now. It's affected the way we talk. The terms "pro-Bush" and "pro-Obama" weren't part of the lexicon the way "pro-Trump" is... | | | There are seven (!!) bylines on this CNN story: "Inside Michael Cohen's aggressive pitch promising access to Trump." Here are Politico and the WashPost's deep dives into the same subject... | | Mueller knew about the payments six months ago | | The public is just now learning about AT&T's contract with Cohen, but special counsel Robert Mueller knew about it six months ago. The wireless provider confirmed on Wednesday that it was contacted by Mueller's office late last year. "We cooperated fully, providing all information requested in November and December of 2017," AT&T said in a statement. "A few weeks later, our consulting contract with Cohen expired at the end of the year. Since then, we have received no additional questions from the Special Counsel's office and consider the matter closed."
Closed? Democratic lawmakers disagree. Two key senators, Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey, say they want the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate the payments. Hadas Gold and I have a full story here... And we'll be on "New Day" Thursday at 8:30am with more... | | AT&T said in an email to employees on Wednesday that "companies often hire consultants" for insight into a new administration. True. And AT&T pointed out that the current controversy surrounding Cohen didn't erupt in public until this January, after its relationship with Cohen ended.
But these Q's remain unanswered: How did the company became aware of Cohen's consulting firm? Who approved the contract?
Even if the deal with Cohen was entirely innocent, it doesn't look good. As I said on "AC360," we all know Cohen may be indicted soon. When you play with someone dirty, when you work with someone dirty, some of the dirt gets on your own hands... | | #2: Salem execs pressured radio hosts to cover Trump more positively, emails show | | Oliver Darcy emails: Salem Media Group -- the conservative media company that syndicates some of the country's most recognized talk radio hosts and operates popular commentary sites like RedState, HotAir, and TownHall -- pressured some of its radio talent to cover Trump more favorably during the 2016 election, emails obtained by Hadas Gold and me show. Here are some of the highlights:
-- The emails show Salem execs chastising Ben Shapiro and Elisha Krauss, former co-hosts of KRLA's "The Morning Answer," for their tone toward Trump. "What I have been hearing on TMA... has not been in the spirit of 'supporting the GOP nominee,'" one of the executives wrote...
-- Krauss said that she believes she was fired from her Salem job because she refused to fall in line with Salem's pro-Trump wishes. A Salem exec denied this...
-- The emails also suggest Hugh Hewitt modified his tone on Trump after Salem CEO Ed Atsinger wrote him "a very well stated case" for supporting Trump. According to an email from an exec, soon after receiving the Salem CEO's message about supporting Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, Hewitt wrote a WashPost piece about why he found it necessary to vote for Trump. In a text message, Hewitt said he denied feeling any pressure from Salem...
-- Sources said Michael Medved has come under pressure from Salem for his critical stance on Trump and that there is widespread speculation in the industry that his contract -- up at the end of the year -- won't be renewed...` | | #3: Trump's "take away credentials?" threat | | | With this tweet on Wednesday, Trump basically confirmed that when he calls something "fake," he means "negative" or anti-Trump. Chris Cillizza made this point really well. | | Then Trump asked a question -- "take back credentials?" -- proposing punishment for journalists who aren't, in his mind, pro-Trump enough.
He was venting, of course. He is highly unlikely to act on the threat. "We see no evidence that the White House is making any moves in that direction," WHCA president Margaret Talev said on "AC360." But the threat still matters... Here's my full story... | | Here's what Trump says behind closed doors | | | CNN's Kaitlin Collins with some key context: Trump has mused privately about revoking reporters' press credentials, according to multiple people familiar with his comments. So the tweet was a public version of what he sometimes says to associates. He occasionally names individual reporters, but more often he talks about blocking specific TV networks or other outlets... | | #4: Detainees on the way home | | | The cable news channels will be live overnight as the three Americans released from North Korea arrive at Joint Base Andrews. POTUS will meet them there. It's sure to be a top story on the morning shows... But it's disheartening to see how even this story has been placed on the pro/anti-Trump axis. Trump fans on social media are already lambasting the news media for not covering the homecoming enough, and for not giving Trump enough credit... | | "Aggressive, always-on skepticism: it must be the media's enduring posture with the Trump administration and its allies and its attempts to diminish what's under investigation. For the public and the press, our north star, even in moments of doubt, has to be the knowledge that it's all probably worse than we think it is. That's always how political scandals work. To take Raelyn Johnson's analogy a step further: where there is smoke, there is fire. What about when there are four dozen fires, all burning simultaneously in the same house?"
--Peter Hamby's 🔥 column for VF... It's a must-read... | | Trump is confused about military pay | | If a journalist made this mistake, they'd correct it right away. But...
"Speaking to a crowd of military spouses on Wednesday, President Donald Trump incorrectly claimed that his administration gave servicemembers their first pay raise in 10 years, a moment he was 'proud' to oversee. In fact, troops have seen a pay raise of at least 1 percent every year for more than 30 years," The Military Times reports. So, any correction? No: "White House officials did not respond to questions seeking clarification on the remarks..." | | -- Mike Shields writes about how publishers, "jilted by Facebook," are now "falling in love" with Apple News... (Business Insider)
-- Margaret Brennan's message at the ASU Cronkite School commencement: We "need all of you to be Cronkites..." (ASU)
-- "Fox to buy seven TV stations from Sinclair for about $910 million." Sinclair needed to sell these stations to "seal its purchase of Tribune Media..." (Reuters)
-- WashPost media blogger Erik Wemple was name-checked at Gina Haspel's confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Wemple explains why right here... (WashPost) | | | Hadas Gold reports: "NBC News says no one in its leadership ranks knew about former star anchor Matt Lauer's allegedly inappropriate behavior, according to an internal investigation the network released Wednesday." But the network acknowledged shortcomings... | | ...But there was an "inherent conflict of interest" | | NBC said that two outside law firms worked with the network to verify that the investigation was appropriately conducted. But there's still some skepticism out there. Erik Wemple said the report "reads like a whitewash."
-- And: There's some confusion about Ann Curry -- because she says "I have not participated in any formal investigation by NBC on sexual harassment." How thorough was the review, then? (NBC says it was "thorough, objective and conducted at the corporate level.")
-- Oliver Darcy adds: Press Forward seemed less than pleased with NBC clearing NBC. In a statement, the advocacy group said "there needs to be an independent internal investigation for this to be credible," noting that there "is an inherent conflict of interest when management reviews itself." You can read the org's full statement here… | | Linda Vester's decision to come forward with harassment claims against Tom Brokaw did not trigger a wave of similar accusations from other women. I just think that's worth noting because some observers thought there'd be story after story.
Vester spoke out in an op-ed a few hours after NBC's review was released. "I want NBC to stop fighting #MeToo within its own walls," she wrote. "I ask NBC Universal to retain an outside investigator to look into sexual harassment and any coverup of sexual harassment at NBC News..." | | | MORE NEWS FROM 30 ROCK... | | "Verbal warning" for Hugh Hewitt | | | "MSNBC has admonished weekend host Hugh Hewitt for lobbying EPA head Scott Pruitt to clean up a polluted site near Hewitt's home in California," Tom Kludt reports. "In a statement released Wednesday, a spokesperson for MSNBC said that Hewitt 'was given a verbal warning as such activity is a violation of our standards...'" | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Daniel Funke writes about Facterbot, Facebook's fact-checking bot aimed at helping users identify fake news...(Poynter)
-- Tom Rosenstiel and Jane Elizabeth's guide for journalists to improve news literacy in readers: "If journalists want their audiences to be able to differentiate solidly reported news content from work that is more speculative, thinly sourced, or backed by rumor or innuendo, then they must create their journalism in ways that make it easier for anyone to recognize those qualities..." (American Press Institute)
-- The streaming service Tidal is being accused of "intentionally falsifying streaming numbers for Beyonce's 'Lemonade' and Kanye West's 'Life of Pablo' albums and consequently paying inflated royalties to the artists' labels..." (Variety) | | No more ESPN public editor | | Julia Waldow emails: At the recommendation of ESPN's Editorial Board, the company is folding its public editor position, SVP strong>Kevin Merida announced Wednesday.
(Jim Brady, the last to hold this position, penned his final column on March 23.)
Merida says ESPN agrees with the WashPost and the NYT that the ombudsman role has "outlived its usefulness." Of course, many outside observers disagree... | | From the newsroom that brought you "The Daily," it's... "The Weekly" | | The NYT's weekly TV show, "The Weekly," has landed at FX and Hulu. It will premiere sometime later this year. "The Weekly" will be "a narrative documentary news program that includes one or two of The Times's biggest and most important visual stories each week. Viewers will be with those stories and the reporters as the show brings them to life."
This is FX's "first entry in the ongoing weekly news genre." Episodes will stream on Hulu one day after they premiere on TV. Here's my full story...
--> More: The Ringer's Bryan Curtis says "'The Weekly' is interesting because it represents a collision of ideas: the new romance about newspapers, the old romance about prestige TV, and the eternally unromantic quest to try to get journalism to pay for itself..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: I remember when Tribune tried to create "synergy" by linking stations like KTLA and WGN with their hometown newspapers, the LA Times and Chicago Tribune. Having lived through the experiment, I can say first-hand it was pretty much a procedure that never clicked. But now it's 2018. TV and newspapers are closer to meeting in the middle, which is to say, the digital realm. So CNN publishes stories while the papers post videos. The web, moreover, provides a mechanism to measure the popularity of stories, meaning print journalists now have their own kind of "ratings," the sort to which they once accused their TV brethren of pandering... | | | For the record, part three | | | Three recommended reads from Oliver Darcy:
-- Charlie Sykes has a new piece in The Weekly Standard: "When Everything Is Possible and Nothing is True…" (The Weekly Standard)
-- CNN's Hunter Schwarz wrote about Donald Trump Jr.'s history with claiming that Twitter is censoring tweets. On Wednesday the president's son did so again, but the tweet had not been censored. It was actually just deleted... (CNN COVER/LINE)
-- Krystal Ball accused McClatchy's Alex Roarty of sexism when he reached out to her for comment about whether her PAC was a "get-rich scheme." Roarty reported, "When first contacted, Ball said McClatchy's questions were sexist and added that she was writing her own story about why male reporters were focusing on women's salaries instead of men's…" (McClatchy) | | | Oliver Darcy emails: Bad news for MoviePass members. The company's stock plunged more than 40% on Wednesday, CNBC reported, after its owner Helios & Matheson revealed its cash deficit was approximately $21.7 million a month. MoviePass said it has about $43.4 million in cash on hand. Michael Pachter, managing director for equity research at Wedbush, told CNBC, "They're burning through $20 million a month and have $40 million on hand, so they can last two more months." | | | >> But: Helios & Matheson CEO Ted Farnsworth told Variety that "we have always known, from when MoviePass took off in August, that it was going to be a high cash burn business model." He told Variety that the company has "access in capital markets to over $300 million" and that "we are not changing our guidance on 5 million subscribers by the end of this year..." | | By Frank Pallotta:
-- Annette Bening is joining the Marvel Universe with "Captain Marvel..." (THR)
-- Jon Caramanica breaks down Taylor Swift's first night on the "Reputation" tour... (NYT)
-- A new "Friday Night Lights" film is hitting theaters, but alas it won't be based on the beloved NBC TV series... (Variety) | | About this week's "Roseanne" | | | Brian Lowry emails: The LAT's Lorraine Ali looked at this week's "Roseanne," which dealt with Islamophobia through the title character's at first bigoted but eventually opened eyes. While there were definitely some laughs, I'd echo her appraisal that the show closed with a "simplistic learning moment," which, in my view, was both rushed and ultimately, unearned... | | The show is hovering around 10 million viewers | | | Lowry adds: Ratings-wise, the show held steady with about 10.2 million viewers, per Nielsen, despite the most-watched episode this season of the competition on CBS, "NCIS," which said goodbye to a long-running character played by Pauley Perrette... | | Jordan Peele's next film will be titled... | | | "Practically nothing is known about Jordan Peele's sophomore film, but just the thought was enough to thrill his fans," Lisa Respers France reports. "The writer/director announced on social media Tuesday that his new film is titled "Us" and will be in theaters March 2019..." | | | Email your feedback and thoughts to brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
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