BREAKING: Sealed charges against Julian Assange?
This just in via CNN's Laura Jarrett, Kara Scannell and Evan Perez: "Errant references to Julian Assange in a recently unsealed and unrelated court case is raising questions as to whether there are sealed charges against the WikiLeaks founder. In a filing unsealed last week, prosecutors for the Eastern District of Virginia included two references to possible charges against Assange while arguing to keep a seemingly unrelated case sealed for another person charged with coercion and enticement of a minor."
CONTEXT: On Thursday the WSJ filed a new story saying the DOJ is preparing to prosecute Assange. Watch this space...
Facebook's newest crisis | | A sampling of Thursday night and Friday morning's headlines:
-- NYT: "Mark Zuckerberg Defends Facebook as Furor Over Its Tactics Grows."
-- TIME: "Zuckerberg tries out transparency as yet another crisis hits Facebook."
-- Daily Beast: "Zuckerberg swears he had no idea Facebook hired GOP hatchet men who went after George Soros."
-- WaPo opinion piece: "The moral and ethical rot at Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg's Facebook."
These are the aftershocks from the NYT's Page One story about the company's sketchy actions and aggressive lobbying. Zuckerberg tried to hold a Thursday afternoon conference call with reporters about new rules for policing its platform, but he "had to focus mainly on the Times' story," Donie O'Sullivan writes.
Donie told me that Zuck "let the call with reporters run almost twice as long as it was scheduled — to 90 minutes. Zuckerberg kept telling the operator to keep the call going."
Zuck notably defended Sandberg, who, as Recode said, "came out looking the worst of all Facebook's executives" from the NYT's investigation...
Sandberg's new statement
In a FB post on Thursday night, Sandberg responded to the kerfuffle and said that "to suggest that we weren't interested in knowing the truth" about Russian meddling in 2016, "or we wanted to hide what we knew, or that we tried to prevent investigations, is simply untrue. The allegations saying I personally stood in the way are also just plain wrong."
Sandberg talked with "CBS This Morning" co-host Norah O'Donnell on Thursday... The interview was scheduled to take place in person, but O'Donnell's flight was screwed up by the snowstorm in NYC, so she spoke with Sandberg by phone. The interview will be shared on CBSNews.com and "CTM" on Friday...
--> 🔌: I'll be discussing the FB scandal on CNN's "New Day" in the 7am hour...
Will there be any accountability?
"In the short run," The New Yorker's Evan Osnos writes, "the Times story will revive questions about whether Zuckerberg and Sandberg should remain at the head of the company. But nobody involved with Facebook thinks they are at obvious risk of losing their jobs, because they maintain the support of a board of directors that some observers believe has been far too passive in the face of Facebook's stumbles." And they are both on the board. Zuck is the chair! Speaking of that...
What the board says
The directors said in a statement on Thursday: "As Mark and Sheryl made clear to Congress, the company was too slow to spot Russian interference, and too slow to take action. As a board we did indeed push them to move faster. But to suggest that they knew about Russian interference and either tried to ignore it or prevent investigations into what had happened is grossly unfair," the statement read. Note the word "unfair," not "untrue..."
The NYT's response
"Our story is accurate and we stand by it," a Times spokesperson told me. "The monthslong investigation by a team of reporters was based on interviews with more than 50 sources including current and former Facebook executives and other employees, lawmakers and government officials, lobbyists and congressional staff members."
FB's message: We're improving
"We are making the investments that we need to stamp out abuse in our system and ensure the good things people love about Facebook can keep happening," Sandberg wrote Thursday night. "It won't be easy. It will take time and will never be complete. This mission is critical and I am committed to seeing it through."
Similarly, the board said FB "has invested heavily" in the last 18 months, and the midterms showed "considerable progress." But the company is being haunted by the past... And challenged about whether it's doing enough now...
This is not a "press problem"
Brian Lowry emails: A good line from MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace re: Facebook: "As a former PR person, though, they don't have a press problem. They have a substance problem." And as she noted later, they'll be compounding past mistakes if they think they can simply spin their way out of this latest controversy...
Notes and quotes
By Julia Waldow:
-- David McCabe's scoop: "A Pennsylvania philanthropist and former hedge fund executive named David Magerman was the initial donor behind a high-profile campaign urging regulators to break up Facebook..." (Axios)
-- Nina Jankowicz writes that it's time for Facebook to be regulated: "Self-regulation has failed, and Facebook can no longer be trusted with it. We would not fly on an airline that lied about an appalling safety record, nor would the government allow it to operate..." (WashPost)
-- Jack Nicas, one of the bylines on the bombshell NYT story, reveals his go-to reporting gadgets and tricks. Burner phones, tape recorders, and doorbells are crucial... (NYT)
Meantime, FB announced some changes on Thursday...
The aforementioned press call was about how FB enforces policies, removes "harmful content," and prevents what the company calls "borderline content" from spreading. Zuck's blog post said "our research suggests that no matter where we draw the lines for what is allowed, as a piece of content gets close to that line, people will engage with it more on average -- even when they tell us afterwards they don't like the content." That's the borderline. It involves "sensationalist and provocative" stuff.
-- So FB says it will be "penalizing borderline content so it gets less distribution and engagement..."
-- Counterpoint by Vox's Emily Stewart: "Facebook keeps saying it will do better — then doesn't..."
A new way to appeal
"Facebook is admitting it needs oversight with content moderation," Sara Ashley O'Brien wrote Thursday. "The company plans to establish an independent group to oversee users' appeals of content policy decisions, starting next year..."
This week's "Reliable" podcast guest: Renee DiResta
Well, this was well-timed! I spoke with researcher Renee DiResta on Thursday about Facebook, misinformation and the power of Big Tech.
DiResta, the head of policy at Data for Democracy and director of research at New Knowledge, discussed Facebook's missteps and described how she studies the spread of "malign narratives." She says people should think of misinfo "as a chronic condition," something that has to be managed, not something that can be fixed. Listen to the conversation via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your preferred app...
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FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Latest update from the Camp Fire: 63 people have died, mostly in the town of Paradise, and 631 people are unaccounted for... (CNN)
-- Benjamin Oreskes wrote about the Chico Enterprise-Record, the closest daily paper to Paradise: "As city burns around it, a newspaper staff rises to cover unspeakable tragedy..." (LAT)
-- A pair of recommended reads to understand the midterm results: "You can't explain our politics by talking about 'red states' and 'blue states,'" Kristen Soltis Anderson writes... (Examiner)
-- And John Harwood's latest: "These charts show how Democrats represent the growing modern economy – and how Republicans are left behind..." (CNBC)
CNN v. Trump ruling expected on Friday morning
The judge assigned to the lawsuit, Timothy J. Kelly, postponed his Thursday at 3 p.m. hearing until Friday at 10 a.m. What does it mean? Which way is he leaning? Only the judge knows for sure. But both sides are now expecting the judge will rule on CNN's request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction on Friday morning...
Reminder: If Kelly grants CNN's requests on Friday, Jim Acosta will get his press pass back for a short period of time. If it's denied, the pass will remain suspended. Either way, this is just round one. Further hearings are likely to take place in the next few weeks...
W.H. won't rule out further suspensions | | Speaking with Robert Costa at a Post Live event, W.H. comms official Mercedes Schlapp said press conferences have a "certain decorum," and suggested that Acosta violated that. "In that particular incident, we weren't going to tolerate the bad behavior of this one reporter," she said.
Schlapp repeated the "bad behavior" claim several times. She said the intern who was in charge of the mic was "very shooken up" (sic) and "intimidated" by Acosta.
I laughed a little bit when Costa asked about the distorted video of Acosta and the intern, and Schlapp said "the tape was not sped up." Last weekend Kellyanne Conway said the video was "sped up."
More importantly, Costa asked if the W.H. is considering yanking other press passes. Schlapp could have said "no," but instead she said "I'm not going to get into any internal deliberations that are happening."
WHCA supporting CNN
The White House Correspondents' Association has asked to file an amicus brief backing up CNN's suit. In the brief, the group's lawyers write that the administration's stance is "wrong" and "dangerous."
"Simply stated, if the President were to have the absolute discretion to strip a correspondent of a hard pass, the chilling effect would be severe and the First Amendment protections afforded journalists to gather and report news on the activities on the President would be largely eviscerated," the association says...
There's one channel supporting the W.H.
While Fox News is standing with CNN on the issue of press passes, Fox's small rival channel OANN is supporting the administration. Per CNN's David Shortell, OANN "applied to file an amicus brief" on Thursday, calling Acosta "narcissistic" and "disruptive." The brief says Acosta's conduct has hindered W.H. briefings and pressers, so it's OK that Trump kicked him out.
It's a little bit ironic, since OANN's reporter at the now-infamous news conference asked several follow-up Q's, interrupted the president, and was ultimately cut off by the president…
Trump hunkered down?
At the moment, Trump's Friday schedule does not include any events where he is likely to take Q's from the press corps. "If this schedule holds," CNN's Steve Brusk notes, "the president will not have taken on the record questions from the W.H. press corps since Saturday."
With speculation about impending indictments swirling, stories about Trump's angry mood are competing for time and space with stories about Trump drafting answers to the special counsel's questions.
"Robert Mueller is very much on the president's mind," Anderson Cooper said Thursday night, citing Trump's flurry of tweets full of falsehoods about Mueller. Cooper's banner: "WHY SO ANGRY?"
Trump and Wallace on Sunday
While he's not talking to the press corps, POTUS did sit down with The Daily Caller on Wednesday. And he's taping an interview with Chris Wallace for "Fox News Sunday." Wallace has been lobbying for this interview for nearly two years...
About that Daily Caller interview...
Having I.D. to buy cereal was just the beginning. Trump made numerous nonsensical claims in his Caller conversation. If you haven't read the full transcript yet, check it out here. At one point Trump went off on a tangent about the media, claiming that "cable television was supposed to be a dying medium. And because of me it's now hotter than it's ever been. But someday I won't be here and it will die like you've never seen."
Die like you've never seen.
He went on: "And so will The New York Times — will die — and every one of them will just be dead." He claimed that the NYT was thin, "like a leaflet that you hand out at the supermarket," before he ran for president, "and now it's a vibrant paper." One of the reporters tried to get him back on track with a Q about policy...
Trump gets too "comfortable" in these interviews?
Maggie Haberman tweeted: "In days with different staff, aides generally kept Trump from doing conservative media interviews because he gets comfortable and says ... things like he says here."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Fox host turned State Department spokesman Heather Hauert, who is reportedly Trump's favored candidate to be the next US ambassador to the UN, defended Trump's "fake news" attacks by saying it's "a real thing." Repressive governments around the world have been using the "fake" label to jail and kill journalists, but Nauert says "there is such a thing..." (CNN)
-- John Dickerson sat down with Cindy McCain for her first interview since her husband's death... (CBS)
-- At The Times: "Kathleen Lingo, who has been running Op-Docs for the past three years, will be our first editorial director for film and TV..." (NYT)
-- "Everything on Amazon is Amazon!" John Herrman holds a magnifying glass up to the Amazon-owned and Amazon-exclusive brands taking over the site... (NYT)
-- The CNN baby boom continues! Correspondent Sara Ganim gave birth to Leyna Franziska Cevallos on Saturday. And publicist Pamela Gomez gave birth to Isabella Jeanine Hill on Tuesday. Congratulations!
| | The caravan has faded from the news. Guess who predicted this would happen...
The caravan is like Ebola.
The caravan is like death panels.
Let me explain what I mean.
In this new column for CNN.com, I note that the migrants traveling through Mexico have faded from the news, partly because Trump has stopped talking about them. Trump stoked fear about the "caravan" before the midterms, but has only used that word once since election day, and it was almost in passing.
Here's the thing: Barack Obama predicted this would happen. "Right before the election, they try to scare the heck out of you," Obama said in a blunt critique of the GOP on October 26. "And then the election comes, and suddenly the problem is magically gone." He said the same thing happened in several past election seasons. Here's his argument... See what you think...
Examiner embarrassed by reporter's creep shot
Washington Examiner reporter Eddie Scarry was criticized by some of his own colleagues on Thursday after posting a creep shot of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Capitol Hill. He said the photo came from a Hill staffer. "I'll tell you something: that jacket and coat don't look like a girl who struggles."
Scarry was flayed on Twitter. Eventually, under pressure from the Examiner, he deleted the tweet. But AOC called him out for not apologizing. She posted a screen grab of his original tweet and said "readers should know your bias." Day by day, she is demonstrating a very 2018 way of dealing with critics and attacks...
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FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Nellie Bowles interviewed multiple computer science students who are not so stoked about the idea of working at Facebook. "I've heard a lot of employees who work there don't even use it," one student told her. "I just don't believe in the product because like, Facebook, the baseline of everything they do is desire to show people more ads..." (NYT)
-- Adam Harris wrote about a pattern the media has maintained in the past two decades of only covering a mass shooting for a week on average... (The Atlantic)
-- Francesco Marconi and Till Daldrup wrote about how the WSJ is taking steps to combat misinformation and "detect deepfakes..." (NiemanLab)
A toast to Fareed Zakaria
CNN celebrated ten years of "Fareed Zakaria GPS" with a party at Porter House on Thursday evening. Henry Kissinger made it there despite the snowstorm and had an on-stage discussion with Zakaria. Also spotted: "GPS" EP Tom Goldstone, Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust, Lloyd Blankfein, Richard Plepler, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Jeffrey Toobin, Jacob Weisberg, Liza McGuirk, Gideon Rose, John Berman, Max Boot, Alisyn Camerota, Jim Sciutto, Dan Senor, Laura Hickey, Don Lemon, Michael Lynton, Richard Leibner, Rick Davis, Rana Foroohar, Adam Gopnik, Jennifer Dargan, Barbara Levin, Caroline Cook, more...
"Cut through that noise" | | On Thursday afternoon at Columbia Journalism School, Lester Holt spoke with Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was fresh off accepting this year's Chancellor Award, in front of an audience of students. A notable quote from Holt:
"This is a very, very noisy world we live in right now. From the minute you switch on that phone in the morning until you switch it off at night -- assuming you switch it off -- you're being told what to think, what's trending, what you should be worried about, this cacophony of voices coming at you and I think that the mainstream organizations -- and I say that proudly, I know that term is used sometimes in a derogatory manner -- but the mainstream institutions help you cut through the noise. I like to think when I come on at 6:30, that our viewers can join us and get a little bit of clarity for a half hour. Here's what we know happened, here's what we don't know happened, here's what it may mean in your life. And kind of simplify it and try to cut through that noise..."
| | Apple teaming up with A24
Jill Disis emails: The WSJ reports that Apple is teaming up with A24, the movie studio behind "Lady Bird" and "Hereditary," to make independent feature films...
--> WaPo's Steven Zeitchik tweeted: "A24-Apple is about as smart as entertainment partnerships get. Apple just found a fast-track into the prestige-film game, and A24 has another financial backstop in case its hedge-fund backers go cold. Something for everybody..."
A big weekend at the box office!
Brian Lowry emails: The weekend kicks off a dizzying lineup of new movies heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, beginning with "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald," a sequel that's more workmanlike than magical. Nevertheless, the project feels like a modest upgrade over its disappointing predecessor, and seems designed to lay the foundation for J.K. Rowling's cinematic pre-Harry Potter Wizarding World.
And while a lot of critics have warmed to "Widows," a heist thriller directed by Steve McQueen (who wrote the script with "Gone Girl's" Gillian Flynn), I found more peaks than valleys in the twisty plot, anchored by the ever-reliable Viola Davis...
Lowry reviews two Netflix series
Brian Lowry emails: Netflix has two very different series premiering this weekend, both well worth watching: "Narcos: Mexico" changes venues and adds star power — with Diego Luna and Michael Pena -- in tackling the futility of the drug war; and "The Kominsky Method" cuts against the younger-demo grain, starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin as a renowned Hollywood acting coach and his longtime agent, but it's really about the indignities of aging and, in its central pairing, friendship...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Chloe Melas:
-- People can't stop listening to "Bohemian Rhapsody..."
-- Meet the entire live-action 'Dumbo' cast in this new trailer...
-- Kanye West and Mark Zuckerberg sang karaoke -- and you won't believe what song...
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Thanks for reading. Email me feedback anytime! See you tomorrow... | | | |
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