Forward

Exec summary: Covering the rising death roll in California, fact-checking Trump's "fever dream," exposing Facebook's secret lobbying effort... Scroll down for the latest...

CNN V. TRUMP
What's at stake

In federal court on Wednesday, a Justice Department lawyer argued that the Trump White House has the legal right to kick out any reporter at any time for any reason.

The lawyer, James Burnham, who's been tasked with defending President Trump and several W.H. aides from CNN and Jim Acosta's lawsuit, was responding to a hypothetical from Judge Timothy J. Kelly. But his assertion was eye-popping. He said that it would be perfectly legal for the W.H. to revoke a journalist's press pass if it didn't agree with their reporting. "As a matter of law... yes," he said.

Burnham's comment in court made the stakes of CNN v. Trump crystal clear. On one level this case is about Acosta. But this is much bigger. It's about the relationship between the press and the powerful.

Trump didn't have to call on Acosta at last week's press conference. But he did. And here we are a week later -- waiting for the judge's ruling...

Thursday at 3 p.m.

Judge Kelly evidently wanted to sleep on it. He did not issue a ruling from the bench, as CNN's lawyers might have wanted. (Remember, the network wants a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to get Acosta's press pass back.) Instead, Kelly said the court would reconvene Thursday at 3 p.m.

Theory: This delay gives Kelly time to complete a strong written opinion, under the assumption that his opinion will shape the legal battle to come...

Inside the courtroom

CNN's Jessica Schneider covered the hearing from inside the courtroom... Here's what she told me afterward: "It was a packed courtroom with spectators from all over. I sat next to a couple in their 60s who had just moved to DC from Boston and wanted to watch the proceedings live after they heard about it on CNN. And behind me was a freshman from American University studying politics who also wanted in on the latest Trump-related controversy."

Schneider's impressions

More from Schneider: "Judge Kelly has been on the federal bench just more than a year now, after being nominated by President Trump. Kelly's questioning seemed to indicate he could side with the government. Of course, the judge has to be tougher on CNN since its lawyers have the burden of proof in today's hearing for a temporary restraining order, but Kelly interrupted CNN's attorney far more, and seemed in agreement far more with the government's arguments and legal citations."

"What are the standards?"

A key part of CNN outside counsel Theodore Boutrous' argument in court: He called Trump's move to revoke Acosta's hard pass "the definition of arbitrariness and capriciousness."

"What are the standards?" Boutrous asked. "Rudeness is not a standard. If it were, no one could have gone to the press conference."

Boutrous also commented that Trump is "the most aggressive, dare I say RUDE, person in the room" at press conferences... And said the president, not the press corps, sets the tone...

What about Sarah Sanders' original claim?

Boutrous also pointed out that Trump admin's legal brief left out the original accusation that Acosta placed his hands on a W.H. intern at last week's presser. "They've abandoned that" claim, he said.

Later, Burnham acknowledged that "we're not relying on that here." But he called the admin's rationales "pretty consistent throughout."

"The one consistent explanation," Burnham said, "is disorder at the press conference."

Disorder? On Wednesday night I was talking with CNN International anchor John Vause, a native of Australia. He waved off the "disorder" claim. "I have always been amazed at how deferential the U.S. president is treated by the press corps," he said, "especially compared to the rough and tumble in other countries..."

The back and forth

For more on the arguments from both sides, here's our detailed CNN.com story, co-bylined by Marshall Cohen and David Shortell, who were at the courthouse. Boutrous said Acosta's First Amendment rights are being violated every day he's banned. Burnham said CNN had made an "odd First Amendment injury" claim and suggested that Acosta could do his job "just as effectively" watching the president's appearances piped into a studio on CNN. In response, Boutrous said the DOJ had a "fundamental misconception of journalism." Read the rest here...

Notes and quotes

-- WSJ's lede: The DOJ "laid out an expansive view of a president's power to control media access..."

-- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists requested a meeting with the W.H. regarding Acosta and these broader issues, but "in a last minute change," the group was told that Mercedes Schlapp had to reschedule the sit-down...

-- The Trump campaign is fundraising off the suit, Politico's Rebecca Morin notes...

Fox News and other outlets are siding with CNN

Virtually all of the biggest news outlets in the country are supporting CNN. Here's my story with the full list. Most notably, Fox News president Jay Wallace issued a strong statement even though Fox commentators like Sean Hannity had publicly criticized Acosta and CNN. "Fox News supports CNN in its legal effort to regain its White House reporter's press credential," Wallace said... "Secret Service passes for working White House journalists should never be weaponized..."

"We commend CNN..."

The News Media Alliance represents about 2,000 newspapers, and it too came out in support of CNN on Wednesday evening: CEO David Chavern said "we commend CNN for not allowing the Trump administration to intimidate them by threatening the very rights on which our nation was founded, and which ensure the preservation of a strong democratic society..."

Sam Donaldson gets the last word

Let's try to keep the big picture in mind. News outlets choose which reporters cover the White House. Trump is trying to veto CNN's choice.

"If the press is not free to cover the news because its reporter is unjustly denied access, it is not free," former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson said in a declaration supporting CNN that was filed with the court on Tuesday. "And if denying access to a reporter an organization has chosen to represent it -- in effect asserting the president's right to take that choice away from a news organization and make it himself -- is permitted, then the press is not free."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Laura Ingraham is ending her morning radio show and starting a podcast... (TVNewser)

-- Meg James' latest: "Rupert Murdoch, and sons, begin their goodbyes to 21st Century Fox. Wednesday's shareholder meeting marked a coda for the 87-year-old press baron & his entertainment company..." (LAT)

-- Don't miss Paul Bond's deep dive: "Fox News vs. Fox Culture War Grows as Murdoch Empire Shrinks..." (THR)

Avenatti arrested

Stormy Daniels' TV-famous lawyer Michael Avenatti was arrested on Wednesday evening on suspicion of domestic violence, CNN reports. Avenatti posted a $50,000 bail and left police custody in the evening, telling reporters waiting outside the station "I have never struck a woman. I never will strike a woman."

It was TMZ that first broke the news, but the outlet also made a big mistake: It originally reported that his "estranged wife" was the alleged victim, but later backtracked, blaming its sources for the misinformation. The identity of the other person involved is not known.

Banner of the day?

I spotted this on Chris Cuomo's show Wednesday night: "TRUMP FALSELY SUGGESTS YOU NEED I.D. TO BUY CEREAL."

The cereal claim came from Trump's interview with The Daily Caller. Trump made several off-the-wall comments about voter fraud. Speaking of that...

"There is no evidence" is not enough

The past couple of years have trained reporters to rely on the phrase "without evidence." Trump routinely says things that prompt journalists to say there's "no evidence."

But sometimes that phrase just isn't enough. It gives too much gravity to weightless statements. Case in point, Trump's claim that people "get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again."

What?!

"To be very clear," Jake Tapper said on CNN, "and I just want to make sure everybody at home understands, there's no evidence of that story. It's a fever dream. It's like it never happened. There aren't people who are not allowed to vote putting on different shirts and running around in different cars so that they can vote. And yet, this is from the President of the United States."

That's the way this stuff needs to be addressed -- as frontally as possible...

NYT exposes Facebook's secrets

If you haven't read it yet, click here. This is an extraordinary story with five bylines: Sheera Frenkel, Nicholas Confessore, Cecilia Kang, Matthew Rosenberg and Jack Nicas. It's about Facebook's lobbying efforts and other attempts to deflect criticism. "This story has been 6 months in the making," Frenkel tweeted. "It started with a question: What happened inside Facebook over the last 3 years, and what did top executives, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, do in the wake of crisis after crisis battering the company?"

Here are the answers...

"NOVA" chief placed on leave. Why?

"Paula Apsell, the longtime senior executive producer of NOVA and head of the WGBH Science Unit, has been placed on leave," Emily Rooney reports. The station won't comment on the reason why...

Bot alerts FT reporters if they're not quoting enough women

Hadas Gold emails: "The Financial Times is automatically warning its journalists if their articles quote too many men, in an attempt to force writers to look for expert women to include in their pieces," The Guardian reports. The paper developed "a bot that uses pronouns and analysis of first names to determine whether a source is male or a female. Section editors will then be alerted if they are not doing enough to feature women in their stories..."

This is an interesting addition coming from a paper that's been seriously reviewing how to improve its diversity...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

By Daniella Emanuel:

-- Alia Wong and Lenika Cruz have a thought-provoking piece about the media's failure to cover a major storm, Super Typhoon Yutu, that hit U.S. land... The typhoon "devastated the Northern Mariana Islands..." (The Atlantic)

-- Forbes interviewed NBC Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt about her work, and what it's like to be a political reporter in the age of Trump... (Forbes)

-- Steve Bodow, one of the executive producers of "The Daily Show," is departing the show next year... He's been a pivotal part of "Daily" since 2002... (Variety)

-- Facebook is shutting down its "connected-TV ad network" two years after launching it... (Digiday)

The death toll just keeps rising

Every evening, the authorities in Butte County, California -- the location of the Camp Fire -- hold an end of the day news conference. And every evening, they break hearts by sharing an updated death toll. On Wednesday Kory Honea, the county's sheriff and coroner announced that the Camp Fire death toll had climbed to 56. Eight additional victims were found in the Paradise area on Wednesday.

Per CNN's Hollie Silverman, "130 people are unaccounted for... 200 people who were thought to be missing have been accounted for, according to Honea..."

"It will keep getting higher"

I asked the SF Chronicle's Lizzie Johnson to tell me about the nightly briefings. Johnson, nicknamed "the fire girl" for her coverage, said: "It's the same line-up of speakers every evening in this smoky building at the Chico Fairgrounds. The incident metrologist and fire specialist, and then some Cal Fire officials. And then Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea talks about looting and missing people reports. And the last thing he says is the death toll. I'm not sure why that's the last bit he says — but it is the hardest. Everyone waits for it. He always pauses before he updates the number. The room always feels deflated afterwards. No one ever wants it to go up, but it always does, because the wildfire made finding victims extremely difficult. The number just keeps getting higher. And it will keep getting higher."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

By Julia Waldow:

-- Senator Mark Warner's office is objecting to an article by HuffPost reporter Zach Carter, accusing him of letting "personal opinions take the place of actual reporting." Carter responded on Twitter: "Sen. @MarkWarner's press shop is interested in being my new editor!"

-- Vox and Netflix's "Explained" docuseries has been picked up for a second season... (Deadline)

-- And speaking of Netflix: The company's testing a cheaper mobile-only subscription option outside of the U.S.... (TechCrunch)

The Chesapeake News Guild

This is the newest example of a newsroom unionizing effort. Julia Waldow emails: Journalists at the Baltimore Sun, the Capital Gazette, and the Carroll County Times have decided to unionize as the Chesapeake News Guild, citing shrinking staffs, insufficient wages, and not enough resources stemming from decisions made by "distant corporate ownership" at their parent company, Tribune Publishing.

The Capital Gazette, of course, was the site of the shooting in Annapolis five months ago. Gazette reporter Danielle Ohl tells me the publications have been working to unionize for almost a year. "We've seen all of our newsrooms get smaller and smaller," she said. "We've been expected to do more with less. We've shifted responsibilities around and merged beats and stopped covering essential community issues because we just don't have the time or resources -- and it breaks our hearts... We love the work we do and we love our direct editors, but it's clear Tribune does not value the time and energy we put into our communities."

The Chesapeake News Guild has asked Tribune to voluntarily recognize it as part of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. Ohl says the journalists have not yet heard from Tribune and are giving the company 72 hours to respond...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Fox is launching a marketing campaign for its conservative streaming service Fox Nation "with billboards featuring the slogan 'Feeling Left Out?'" (THR)

-- "Amazon Studios has closed an exclusive production deal with Jason Blum's Blumhouse Television for a eight thriller genre features which will all be connected thematically. The deal marks Amazon Studios' first ever global-direct to service deal for feature length programs..." (Deadline)

-- Speaking of Amazon, Jill Disis emails: Amazon's Prime Video just inked a deal to bring two new Viacom International Studios shows exclusively to its streaming service in Latin America... (THR)

CMAs winners

Via Lisa Respers France, here are the winners from CMA Awards 2018...

Chloe Melas wrote about Garth Brooks leading a moment of silence for Thousand Oaks shooting victims...

Carell time!

Megan Thomas emails: Steve Carell will return to SNL" this weekend to host for a third time. This promo of the now "serious actor" Carell, prepping to be funny again, is pretty funny...

What Celine Dion told Chloe

Chloe Melas emails: I sat down with Celine Dion to discuss her latest business venture, a gender neutral children's clothing line. We also discussed how she's doing since the death of her husband of 22 years, René Angélil, from throat cancer in 2016.

Dion said: "I'm doing really great, and I'll tell you why: The loss of my husband, before he passed away, I died first, I assisted him with all the strength I could. We knew he was going to go and pass, we knew that. He gave me so much (emotional) luggage. It was hard to see him die a little bit every day...

"It's going to sound pretty strange, but what he gave me all those years, the luggage that he gave me, I'm opening suitcases right now as we're talking. I'm discovering who I am." Watch the interview here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

By Lisa Respers France:

-- Netflix has snagged some major talent for its first musical competition series: rappers Cardi B, Chance the Rapper and T.I. will be looking for unsigned hip-hop artists with star potential...

-- Dave Grohl, Guy Fieri and some other celebs have been feeding wildfire first responders...

-- And Pink's husband, Carey Hart, shared a stern warning for wildfire looters...

Thanks for reading. Email me feedback anytime! See you tomorrow...