| | | | | Exec summary: Happy Father's Day Weekend! I'll be celebrating by hosting "Reliable" and then taking Sunny to her first swim class... But first, there's lots of news... American Media's newsstand power is increasing, Apple's deal with Oprah Winfrey is making waves, Jordan Klepper's show is cancelled, and much more... | | Listening to the scrum of reporters questioning President Trump on Friday morning, I could hear the frustration. The president was peddling misinformation, and the press corps knew it. At one point, when he repeated the lie that the Democrats are making him separate families at the border, a reporter responded, "That's your own policy. Why do you keep lying about it, sir?" Later, another lie about it, and another reporter said "that's not true, sir. That's not true." Trump charged ahead and jabbed at the press: "Tell the Democrats, your friends, to call me."
Trump spoke for the better part of an hour -- first to Steve Doocy on "Fox & Friends," then to a pack of reporters. Access to the most powerful man on earth is usually valuable, but Trump cheapens it. "He lied. He lied again and again," CNN's Brooke Baldwin said Friday afternoon. She corrected several of the most flagrant falsehoods in this 3-minute segment.
Simply put: This is getting worse. Trumpworld's deception is getting worse. It's prompting more and more introspection within newsrooms. And it's sparking more and more criticism from members of the public, particularly from liberals who say we're doing damage by airing and repeating Trump's bull... | | Several things are going on:
-- Trump is angry that journalists aren't telling the same story he's telling re: the G7 meeting and the Singapore summit...
-- So Trump and Rudy G. are trying to control the national narrative about the summit, immigration, the Mueller probe, etc...
-- Journalists are calling out nonsensical claims left and right, though still letting Trump set the agenda to a troubling degree...
-- Calling out the lies, in turn, inflames Trump and his core supporters even more...
-- The White House and its media allies are intensifying their attacks against the media, with some Fox stars day-dreaming about yanking credentials...
-- Meanwhile, the headlines are all about Paul Manafort going to jail and Michael Cohen thinking about flipping. With Trump looking threatened, he lies some more, so the vicious circle rolls on... | | Are journalists "helping" spread lies? | | Enter George Lakoff. The renowned linguist and vocal Trump critic says the salesman-in-chief exploits journalistic training:
"One of the things that journalists are trained to do is to repeat and quote what public figures say. But when the public figures are distorting, lying, and trying to reframe things in an utterly false way, what the journalists are doing is helping them." Even when fact-checking, we're repeating the BS...
Lakoff wrote the book "Don't Think of an Elephant." The point is the same now: "The point is that denying a frame activates the frame." This isn't new, but it's relevant to this week's issues... | | Time for a "truth sandwich" | | Lakoff was my guest on this week's "Reliable" podcast, available via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or TuneIn.
His advice: "Start with the truth that he's trying to hide. You make that clear, and then you point out that the president is trying to hide this by lying. You might, in a few words or in a few seconds, say a little bit about what the lie is. And go back to the TRUTH."
A truth sandwich! Lakoff laughed when I called it that. "You've got it. A truth sandwich. Perfect way to image it."
Julia Waldow has posted the best parts of the podcast transcript here, so you can either listen OR read... | | | Scroll down for the rest of the day's Trump news... | | Out: Time Warner
In: WarnerMedia | | | The AT&T-Time Warner deal closed on Thursday night, and Friday was all about the transition. New CEO John Stankey thanked retiring CEO Jeff Bewkes for his service and announced a new name for the assets: WarnerMedia. It's a nod to the company's roots while shedding the Time part of the name. To be honest, the rebrand isn't a big deal, since WarnerMedia is just one of four AT&T divisions, not a consumer-facing brand. Still, you can read about the rationale for the change in my story here... | | Three other headlines from Stankey's intro note to employees:
-- HBO boss Richard Plepler and Warner Bros. boss Kevin Tsujihara remain in place...
-- The third member of that trio, Turner chief John Martin, has "chosen to depart," Stankey said. So three of the execs who previously reported to Martin -- David Levy, Gerhard Zeiler and Jeff Zucker -- will now report directly to Stankey...
-- The three main divisions "will see little change," but "many of the redundant corporate support functions between our companies at the HQ/holding company level will be eliminated in the coming months..." | | Owning CNN comes with a "special" responsibility | | Stankey sent a message by giving his first interview to CNN... specifically Hadas Gold and me... and we typed up the highlights here. Four of the takeaways:
-- Priorities include mobile innovation, increased investments at HBO, and other strategies to compete with Netflix et al...
-- He recognizes that CNN has a "special social responsibility" to democracy, and he will lead the company accordingly. He criticized Trump's anti-CNN rhetoric...
-- When we asked about CNN's independence, Stankey brought up the role of the news media more broadly, saying "the only way democracy functions well is with a very well-informed and educated electorate." He said he sees his role as "taking what you do and getting it in front of more people" to better inform the electorate...
-- Oh, and his favorite show? He didn't single out just one, but he said he's been watching a lot of CNN, and he's hooked on HBO's "Westworld..." | | -- "Rupert Murdoch and the 21st Century Fox board will consider on Wednesday how to proceed with Comcast's $65 billion bid..." (Bloomberg)
-- A John Carreyrou byline for the ages: His story notes that Friday's criminal charges against Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh Balwani are "the culmination of a 2½-year investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in S.F., sparked by articles in The Wall Street Journal" -- Carreyrou's articles -- "that raised questions about the company's technology and practices..." (WSJ) | | Netflix signed the Obamas so Apple signed... Oprah? It's obviously not that simple, but we're seeing more and more marquee hires by the streaming services.
"Apple has signed Oprah Winfrey to a multiyear deal for new original programs," Dylan Byers reported here. Of course, we don't know how Apple is going to distribute all these new shows yet... Recode's Peter Kafka delved into that... | | Brian Lowry emails: Oprah Winfrey is a force of nature, and it's not like she can't juggle multiple commitments at once. But with the mogul/star already having a presence on CBS via "60 Minutes," if I'm Discovery Networks, her partner on OWN, I wouldn't be particularly thrilled about her further splitting the "Oprah" brand by making this Apple deal...
--> The counterargument: Oprah's exclusivity with OWN hasn't changed... It's still her pay cable home through 2025... And the Apple deal shows how much juice she has... | | Enquirer owner buys In Touch, Closer, Life & Style | | America Media Inc., owned by Trump pal David Pecker, now controls most of the supermarket checkout line.
It is "acquiring gossip titles In Touch, Life & Style and Closer from rival Bauer Media USA," the WSJ's Lukas Alpert reports. So now it has Ok!, Star and the National Enquirer... plus it'll have these new titles... AMI "will own virtually all the tabloid weeklies sold on supermarket magazine racks excluding Meredith Corp.'s People magazine, which has the largest circulation of those publications..." | | This Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | I'll speak with Brian Karem about his outburst at Thursday's W.H. press briefing... Plus, Olivia Nuzzi, Doug Heye, and director Rob Reiner... and Reeves Wiedeman, author of the must-read new NYMag story about Vice... Join us Sunday at 11am ET on CNN! | | By "Reliable Sources" summer intern Emily Kohlman (welcome Emily!):
-- The murder of journalist Shujaat Bukhari, a prominent editor in Kashmir, sheds light on India's impunity in the murders of journalists, which leaves the country's press corps vulnerable to attacks… (CNN)
-- Check out Robert O'Harrow Jr.'s investigative piece about a 24-year-old political appointee's wild ride in Trump's WH… (WashPost)
-- People worry about fake news, but have trouble thinking of times they've actually seen it, according to findings from The Reuters Digital News Report for 2018… (Nieman Lab) | | | THE REST OF THE DAY'S TRUMP NEWS... | | A surprise visit to "Fox & Friends" | | | This was a first. Don't take it from me, take it from CBS W.H. expert Mark Knoller: "Presidents have walked down the northwest driveway before, but never surrounded by question-shouting press, never doing a live TV interview from the standup area, and then back on the driveway for a 19-minute Q&A session with waiting press..." | | It was like Trump's Twitter feed, but on live TV | | I wrote all about the spectacle here. Doocy's son/Fox reporter Peter Doocy guiding Trump to the live shot spot was a nice touch.
WHAT HAPPENED: When Trump was watching and live-tweeting "Fox & Friends," he saw that Doocy was broadcasting live from the W.H., so at 7:50 he tweeted that he might come outside for a chat. Forty minutes later, the interview started...
DOOCY SURPRISED: He told the AP's David Bauder that he really wasn't expecting this. "I was cramming for a test," he said. "I had 30-some minutes to come up with as many interesting questions about things in the news as I could..."
CILLIZZA'S REACTION: "Friday morning was a crash course in why Trump's lawyers don't want him to talk to Mueller..." | | Trump's shout out to Drudge | | | Oliver Darcy emails: Trump heaped praise Friday on Matt Drudge, the conservative media heavyweight, founder of the Drudge Report, and major Trump booster. Trump, speaking to "Fox & Friends" host Steve Doocy on the White House lawn, said Drudge is a "great gentleman" who "really has the ability to capture stories that people want to see." He then cited Drudge to tout record low unemployment... | | The interview was "bananas" | | | That's Chris Cillizza's word. He made a list of the 49 wildest quotes. There was LOTS to fact-check, both from the Fox interview and the scrum afterward... But Trump successfully drove the day's news cycle by saying so much... | | Something to think about... | | J-prof Dan Gillmor's newest essay is directed to his "friends and colleagues in journalism." He is urging them to "stop publishing" and airing lies.
"You need to face something squarely: You're confronted with radical hacking of your own systems of operation. This requires radical rethinking of those systems," he says... | | Manafort in jail... but there are no pictures | | CNN's Katelyn Polantz tweeted that it's a "feature/flaw of the federal court system: NO PERP WALKS."
So we learned that Paul Manafort was sent to jail, but we didn't see it. Polantz says "the public likely won't see Manafort out in the sunshine again -- or at least until the end of his September trial, if he continues to fight the charges..."
--> More: Jeffrey Toobin was in court, and he says it was "incredibly dramatic..." Watch his account here... | | | For the record, part three | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Big scoop by the AP: A company run by former officials from Cambridge Analytica has "quietly been working for President Donald Trump's 2020 re-election effort," Jeff Horwitz writes... (AP)
-- Bloomberg Opinion's Tara Lachapelle: "Go ahead, give the media merger wheel another spin..." (Bloomberg)
-- Alabama Media Group's "Reckon" brand is using Facebook Watch to direct the national gaze to its local stories... (Nieman Lab)
-- Moira Donegan, the journalist behind the "Sh***y Media Men" list, is shopping a book, Page Six reports... (Page Six) | | White House v. Scarborough | | "The White House fired back at MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Friday after the 'Morning Joe' host compared the Trump administration policy of separating migrant families at the southern border to Nazis practices," Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin reports.
The W.H. called his comments "appalling" and "shameful" and "inflammatory" and "unacceptable." Of course, others would apply all those words to Trump's policy... | | | Rob Rogers, freshly fired from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, drew a new cartoon for this weekend's NYT. "The paper may have taken an eraser to my cartoons. But I plan to be at my drawing table every day of this presidency," he writes... | | -- David Klein emails: CJR's Mathew Ingram reexamines the issue of advocates (like ACLU staffers) doubling as journalists. "The line between advocacy groups and media organizations has been blurring for some time..." (CJR)
-- One more from David: A new study suggests that declines in local news coverage have led to a decline in fiscal responsibility among local governments... (Forbes)
-- Daniella Emanuel emails: The award for cutest story of the day goes to: The raccoon that climbed the building housing Minnesota Public Radio has led to fan art and merchandise, including a tote bag that will be given to those who either become an MPR member or provide a $60 donation to the company... (MPRnews)
-- Great piece by Alex Sherman: "How Netflix sent the biggest media companies into a frenzy, and why Netflix thinks some are getting it wrong..." (CNBC) | | Comedy Central cancels "The Opposition" | | After "The Colbert Report" ended, Comedy Central tried "The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore," then cancelled it, then tried "The Opposition with Jordan Klepper..." and now Klepper's show is ending too.
WHAT WENT WRONG: Klepper played an Alex Jones-y alt-right-ish character that embraced every possible conspiracy theory. Execs loved the idea at first, but Klepper struggled to retain Trevor Noah's audience. The idea was simply too niche for Comedy Central. After all, Colbert was parodying Bill O'Reilly, who's well known to the general public... But Klepper was mocking people like Jones who are not nearly as well known...
WHY IT MATTERS: The cancellation was a shame, because the show really WAS insightful while it lasted... It did some genuine reporting through a comedic lens... | | Klepper will have a weekly show | | "The Opposition" will end on June 28. Development on his new weekly show "will start right after, with pre-production slated to begin in the fall and a premiere eyed for early 2019 in the 10 PM-11 PM time period," Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reports.
Klepper is ditching his character... He'll be himself, "out in the field, traveling the country and speaking to people..." | | And what about the 11:30 time slot? | | | Per Deadline, "there will be no immediate replacement, with The Daily Show as the only late-night strip show on Comedy Central for the near future." CC president Kent Alterman says "we will be looking at other possibilities, we will dive into that quickly..." | | From "Solo" to "Incredibles 2" | | "After a rare box-office setback with 'Solo: A Star Wars Story,' Disney is banking on a superhero family to save the day," Frank Pallotta writes.
This weekend's big release, "Incredibles 2," raked in "an impressive $18.5 million on its opening night on Thursday, and it is forecast for a $140 million opening this weekend -- which would be a record for an animated movie." I've already told Jamie that I really want to see it. Maybe for Father's Day?! Anyway, here's Frank's full story! | | "Deep State:" Not what you think it is... | | | Brian Lowry emails: "Deep State" is a pretty traditional British spy thriller, with Mark Strong as an assassin coaxed out of retirement. But the new drama -- which premieres this weekend on Epix in the U.S., having already made its debut in other territories -- is creating some confusion in social-media circles thanks to its title, which has people assuming it's some sort of pro-Trump propaganda, a dynamic the show's co-creator called "weird..." | | Megan Thomas emails: Giuliana Rancic is returning as co-host of E! News, six months after Catt Sadler departed the network over pay disparity. Rancic was previously host of E! News from 2005-2010.
"Returning to host E! News is every bit as thrilling to me today as it was 16 years ago when I joined the show and embarked on this wonderful career," said Rancic, who first became a correspondent in 2002. "Co-hosting alongside one of my best friends, Jason Kennedy, with one of the most talented teams in entertainment journalism, makes this move even more special. I can't wait to reconnect with the E! News audience and go on this journey together once again..." | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Gisele Bündchen has apologized for comments she made about today's young models...
-- Ellen DeGeneres is heading out on tour -- sort of. Here's what I mean...
-- "Dancing With the Stars" pros Val Chmerkovskiy and Jenna Johnson have gotten engaged... | | Megan Thomas emails: The Hollywood Reporter's annual list of 40(ish) Most Powerful People in Comedy includes all the usual suspects (Kevin Hart, Tina Fey, Judd Apatow, etc etc)... and some pretty funny lines.
I especially loved Vulture's take on Amy Poehler's responses... | | Feedback welcome!
Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts to brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thank you! | | | | | | |
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