Forward

The Lie of the Year is...

PolitiFact had so, so many lies to choose from. But when it came time to determine 2018's Lie of the Year, Angie Holan and Amy Sherman settled on the online smear machine that tried to discredit the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. They recalled how "crisis actor" became a household term due to this disinformation campaign -- and due to the surprisingly effective refutations by the students.

"The attacks against Parkland's students stand out because of their sheer vitriol," Holan and Sherman wrote. "Together, the lies against the Parkland students in the wake of unspeakable tragedy were the most significant falsehoods of 2018. We name them PolitiFact's Lie of the Year."

Now, the lie of the day...

So much of the debate about immigration and border security is built on misinformation and misconceptions. Politico Playbook was right in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's televised White House fight: "Conversations between Pelosi, Schumer and Trump are not really going to be terribly useful since they can't even agree to stick to a basic sets of facts." And let's be clear: Trump bears most of the responsibility for that. As Anderson Cooper said on "AC360," it was "hard to keep up with how many things about the wall and the border the president said that simply weren't true." Kirsten Powers added, "This sort of manufactured crisis about our country being invaded by undocumented immigrants — the entire thing is something that's been manufactured to basically gin up support for a wall that we don't need."

I'm glad the cameras were allowed in for Tuesday's meeting between Trump and the Dems. But it was troubling to see the sheer # of misstatements. Trump said "tremendous amounts of wall have already been built," which is grossly untrue. Schumer called him out: "The Washington Post today gave you a whole lot of Pinocchios because they say you constantly misstate how much the wall is — how much of the wall is built and how much is there." Trump scoffed at the Post, but the fact-checkers are right.

To me, though, the worst statement was when Trump claimed "we caught 10 terrorists over the last very short period of time." Peter Bergen had one word for this: "Bogus." Please read his fact-check here...

At the end of the day, three takeaways...

A partial government shutdown looks a bit closer than it did before. And Trump has a "new world" to figure out. Via Twitter:

-- Edward-Issac Dovere: "The focus on today's Oval Office meeting was on the clash, but it was more than that. Pelosi flipped the script on Trump: using TV cameras to perform, she was the confrontational one, daring him, tagging him w/a shutdown nickname, playing to her base & setting the media narrative..."

-- Josh Dawsey: "White House and GOP Hill aides did not see Trump's performance today as helpful. He gave away some of his leverage, even allies concede. It's a new world for him..."

-- Amy Walter: "Trump has one speed. it's always about drama and division. The problem is that only about 1/3 of Americans 'strongly' approve of the job Trump is doing. More than 45 percent 'strongly disapprove...'"

Pair of Reuters reporters have been imprisoned for one year

Wednesday is the one-year anniversary of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo's arrests. The two reporters were working on a Reuters story about a massacre in Myanmar. They were "arrested in a set-up" by police who were "intended to interfere" with the story, Reuters EIC Stephen J. Adler said in a new statement Tuesday night.

"The fact that they remain in prison for a crime they did not commit calls into question Myanmar's commitment to democracy, freedom of expression and rule of law. Every day they continue to be behind bars is a missed opportunity for Myanmar to stand up for justice. The people of Myanmar deserve the freedoms and democracy they have long been promised, and Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo deserve to be returned to their families and colleagues immediately."

Amal Clooney, who is representing Reuters and the reporters, says "their future is in the government's hands, and the world is watching." Case in point, Lone and Soe Oo are on the cover of Time...

"The Guardians"

The way the news cycle works these days, Time's Person of the Year announcement came and went in an hour. But I want to draw attention back to it. I was predicting President Trump would be on the cover, and I was wrong. Time created four covers, all featuring journalists who have been targeted for their work. One of the covers shows Jamal Khashoggi, marking the first time that a deceased person is a Person of the Year. Another features the Reuters reporters. The third shows Maria Ressa of Rappler. And the fourth shows the surviving staff members from the Capital Gazette.

Time is onto something by spotlighting the "War on Truth." As EIC Ed Felsenthal said on the "Today" show, "the manipulation and abuse of truth is really the common thread in so many of this year's major stories." That's why "The Guardians" are so important...

Read Karl Vick's cover story

It's a thing of beauty about an ugly topic. "This OUGHT to be a time when democracy leaps forward," but "instead, it's in retreat," he wrote. People have the ability to be more informed than ever, but threats to information sources are on the rise. And "the story of this assault on truth is, somewhat paradoxically, one of the hardest to tell," Vick noted.

Ressa, for example, said she is not allowed to comment on the Philippines' case against her. Speaking with CNN's Kristie Lu Stout about the recognition, Ressa said "it's bittersweet and it's daunting. Look at the challenges we are facing." She said it's a "tough time to be a journalist, but what strengthens all of us is that there's probably no better time to be a journalist, because this is when we live our values and we live our mission."

The mag's closing thought

Vick wrote: "There is urgent work ahead in shaping a communications system guided not by software but by the judgment of citizens, and the social contract implied in the First Amendment: facts matter."

-- There are also several excellent sidebar stories, like this one about the Capital Gazette staff...

Trump was the runner-up

Chris Cillizza commented that Time was sending a message to Trump by putting "The Guardians" on the cover while naming him the runner-up. Trump, after all, has a special place in his heart for Time mag. He had no public reaction on Tuesday. But notice this next headline...

Trump says he is still standing by the Saudi crown prince

In a Tuesday afternoon interview with Reuters, Trump said "that he stood by Saudi Arabia's crown prince despite a CIA assessment that he ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and pleas from U.S. senators for Trump to condemn the kingdom's de facto ruler."

More from the Reuters interview...

Trump claimed that lots and lots of people want to be his chief of staff, despite evidence to the contrary: "I have at least 10, 12 - 12 people that want it badly. I'm making a decision."

The key quote: "Everybody wants it. Who doesn't want to be one of the top few people in Washington, D.C." Then he gestured to the three Reuters reporters. "I mean, you three guys would take it."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- From CNN's newest poll: "Half of Americans say they think it is likely that the Mueller investigation will implicate the president in wrongdoing..."

-- NBC's Craig Melvin snagged Nikki Haley's first interview since she announced her departure from the Trump admin. The interview will air on Wednesday's "Today" show...

-- Don't miss this big WaPo piece titled "Agents of doubt: How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth..." (WaPo)

-- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responds to Myanmar criticism: "I need to learn more..." (CNN)

Verizon throws in the Oath towel

The stark headline on Jordan Valinsky's story for CNN Business: "Verizon says its media brand is essentially worthless."

"Verizon announced Tuesday that it would take a $4.6 billion writedown on Oath, which includes Yahoo and AOL," Valinsky wrote. "Oath's brand value is now just $200 million, according to Verizon. That's a stunning decrease in value since it formed in 2017. Verizon said Oath's brand was worth $4.8 billion when it last accounted for the company's goodwill valuation. A goodwill valuation encompasses a company's brand value and reputation..."

Remember, Verizon "bought Yahoo for $4.5 billion in 2017 and AOL, which owns HuffPost, for $4.4 billion in 2015." Nearly $9 billion in deals. But now, "with virtually no goodwill brand value, Oath's overall value (assets and goodwill) is now worth half of what it was a few years ago." What happened? Bad business strategy. Mismanagement. And the giant sucking sound of the digital duopoly.

Verizon's new vision...

As Recode's Peter Kafka wrote, this writedown has been in the works for a while. Verizon's digital media dream was led by Lowell McAdam and Tim Armstrong. Now Hans Vestberg has replaced McAdam as CEO and Armstrong has left. The new CEO "cares about boosting Verizon's wireless business, not building a media one..."

-- T-Mobile CEO John Legere rubbed it in via Twitter: "I've been telling ⁦Verizon⁩ this for years," he wrote, linking to a story about the "$5 billion mistake" betting on AOL and Yahoo. "In fact, I told them the day they bought those '90s relics," Legere tweeted. "Hopefully they learned from this $$$ mistake, but I don't have a ton of hope 😂"

-- "Verizon investors seem relieved to put the writedown behind them," Bloomberg's Scott Moritz noted. "The shares rose 1.6 percent to $59.20 on Tuesday, bringing them to a nearly 12 percent gain for the year. That compares with a 22 percent decline for AT&T..."

-- Past is prologue? Peter Kafka tweeted: "If you are old, you will remember when both AOL and Yahoo seemed as synonymous with the Internet as Facebook does today..."

Why Kathie Lee is leaving "Today"

Kathie Lee Gifford's farewell to the "Today" show is an end of a morning TV era. Thankfully it won't take effect til next April, which means a smooth transition for NBC.

Both sides say she's leaving the 10 a.m. hour of "Today" because she wants to focus full-time on her other projects, like a movie, books, songs, etcetera. Backing this up, Gifford "previously told People that she had informed NBC in January 2017 that she would leave at the end of the year to pursue film projects. But Matt Lauer's overnight firing in November for alleged sexual misconduct prompted her to shift her plans." According to Gifford, NBC asked to her to "consider staying," lest there be even more changes on the air, and she said yes. So she ended up staying for another year. Her final show will be in April, the 11th anniversary of the 10 a.m. talk show...

What will NBC do at 9 and 10?

In the coming months NBC will have to retool both the 9 and 10 a.m. hours, in light of Megyn Kelly's ouster and Gifford's much more cordial goodbye. Several outlets, including People and Page Six, are reporting that Jenna Bush Hager is the favorite to join Hoda Kotb at 10.

Page Six also says "rising 'Today' star Sheinelle Jones — who has also sat in for Gifford — is widely expected to join the panel on the 9 a.m. hour." But I wonder if network execs will think better... And try something new... Perhaps bringing the 9 and 10 a.m. hours together in one way or another...

--> Check out this never-before-seen NYT profile of KLG: Andrew Goldman wrote it back in 2012... PDF here...

--> Meanwhile, the earlier hours of "Today" notched another weekly win on Tuesday... Its total viewer winning streak keeps growing, per TVNewser's A.J. Katz...

"Becoming" hits the three million mark

Truly extraordinary sales #'s for Michelle Obama's book: "More than three million copies of Becoming have sold in the U.S. and Canada alone," People reports. When it comes to book sales in 2018, Obama is in a league of her own...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- In Wednesday's NYT, John Koblin and Alexandra Alter say "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" and "Late Night with Seth Meyers" are two late night spots that are still giving promotional platforms to literary writers… (NYT)

-- This year's duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award winners were named on Tuesday... "Frontline" was "the big winner, receiving the duPont Gold Baton," the "first Gold Baton awarded in a decade..." (TVNewser)

-- More duPonts news: Two of the 16 awards went to CNN... Collaborations between WaPo and "60 Minutes," and WNYC and ProPublica, were also honored... "Twelve of this year's duPont Batons will be awarded to reporting teams led by women..." (WNYC)

No news from the CBS annual meeting

Irin Carmon snapped this photo of protesters outside the CBS Corp's annual shareholders meeting in midtown:

Incredibly, the concerns about misconduct scandals and Les Moonves's severance package never came up at the public meeting. There were, instead, typical myopic complaints from individual shareholders. The NYT's Edmund Lee described the scene here.

He noted that "the board met on Monday and Tuesday to review the findings" from the two law firms that were tasked with investigating the allegations against Moonves and others. So we may hear more soon...

--> ICYMI, from Tuesday's WSJ: "CBS Directors Fear Legal Risks from Leaks in Moonves Probe"

--> And there's this via BI: "CBS News has settled a lawsuit with 3 women who accused former host Charlie Rose of sexual harassment..."

Slate staffers give the OK to strike

Jill Disis emails: Slate's newly unionized writers and editors have voted to green-light a strike.

I reached out to the executive director of the Writer's Guild of America East, Lowell Peterson, to find out a bit more. Peterson says that while there should be more bargaining next week, the staff has made it clear that they're willing to walk out if real progress isn't made. "Let's see what happens at the table," he added...

Inside the Google hearing

Oliver Darcy emails from DC: It was a wild day on Capitol Hill. Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, where he faced questions from lawmakers on the company's practices on a host of issues. Lawmakers grilled Pichai on topics in four key areas: Allegations of bias against conservatives, plans to launch a search engine product in China, data/privacy concerns, and the spread of misinformation on Google/YouTube. I have a full recap here...

Claims of bias against conservatives

Darcy emails: Pichai stressed to lawmakers that the company operates in a nonpartisan fashion. But GOP lawmakers appeared unconvinced. Throughout the hearing, Pichai was repeatedly asked whether the search engine discriminates against conservative politicians and ideas. At one point, Republican Rep. Lamar Smith cited a debunked study to claim Google provides biased results for searches about President Trump...

>> Context: Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee have a long history of leveling unfounded accusations of bias against tech companies. Often citing no real evidence, and regularly appearing to fail to grasp the basics of how various technology companies operate, Republicans on the committee have allowed hearings on tech issues to drift into conspiratorial waters...

Tech illiteracy on display

Some of the Dems ran interference at the hearing, defending Google against GOP claims about bias. But more than one Dem also displayed a glaring lack of digital literacy.

Katie Pellico emails: My favorite part of the hearing was when Rep. Ted Lieu concluded by "stating the obvious" to some of his colleagues across the aisle: "If you want positive search results, do positive things. If you don't want negative search results, don't do negative things.... Don't blame Google or Facebook or Twitter. Consider blaming yourself."

Spread of misinfo

Darcy adds: Pichai also faced Q's about the spread of misinfo and conspiracy theories on YouTube. And he didn't have a great answer. Pichai said that the company has defined policies against hate speech, and that if content violates the policies it will be removed. He conceded Google needs to do better and is "looking to do more." That's been the effective line from the company for quite some time now...

The Alex & Roger sideshow

Darcy emails one more item: What are the odds of this? As I arrived on Capitol Hill in the morning to attend the hearing, my Uber parked at the same time and dropped me off at the exact same location as a vehicle carrying Roger Stone and Alex Jones. You may remember Jones berated in me in the halls of Congress last time a major tech CEO testified. This time, however, he found humor in the situation of us arriving at the same time in the same place and only briefly shouted various things at me as I headed inside. When he arrived, he did his usual routine, causing as much mayhem as possible to attract the attention of photographers and reporters. It seemed from my limited observation, however, that journalists were a lot more reluctant this time around to give him the attention he craves...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Axios has hired Dion Rabouin away from Yahoo Finance... He will be writing the weekly Axios Markets newsletter... (Talking Biz News)

-- Via John Ourand: "Fox says its coverage of MLS Cup brought in 1.563 million viewers, which is the game's biggest TV audience since 1997 and nearly doubles the number of viewers that watched last year (819,000)…" (Twitter)

-- Katie Pellico emails: Instagram is testing a small batch of "creator accounts" for high-profile influencers, per THR's Natalie Jarvey. The new tier of account will offer more metrics, direct message filtering, and other helpful features that set the new tier of account apart from Instagram's business profiles... (THR)

-- I missed this Tina Nguyen story the other day: "How Hollywood invented Ben Shapiro," a look inside Shapiro's L.A.-based Daily Wire… (VF)

Correction to last night's newsletter

Last night Hadas Gold sent me a 100% accurate item, and I screwed it up. She sent along a photo from the set of the Fox News/Roger Ailes movie that's in production in L.A. But I thought she was referencing the Showtime miniseries about Fox and Ailes that's in the works in NYC. But no -- both projects are actually underway at the same time! Hadas had it right, I made it wrong, my apologies.

It turns out some other photos from the set of the L.A. production have made quite a stir this week. Nicole Kidman was photographed on set as Gretchen Carlson — and Carlson was not happy about it. Here's the full story via Chloe Melas...

As for the Showtime miniseries, that's a completely separate project, also shooting right now. TBD if the film or the miniseries will debut first...

Lowry likes "Aquaman"

Brian Lowry emails: DC and Warner Bros. essentially worked backwards in trying to establish their cinematic universe, jumping to the super-team phase before establishing the individual building blocks. Viewed that way, "Aquaman" exceeds expectations, overcoming some turbulent patches — and the darkness of some of DC's previous efforts — to deliver a movie that sails along on waves of fun and spectacle. And as previously noted, given the movie's huge haul in China in advance of its US opening later this month, some of the pressure would seem to be off in terms of its North American box-office performance...

"Aquaman:" Does it sink or swim with critics?

Frank Pallotta emails: Now that I've gotten that horrible pun of a headline out of the way, "Aquaman's" review embargo lifted Tuesday and, hey, it looks like the king of Atlantis is off to a good start with a 76% review score on Rotten Tomatoes.

It'll be interesting to see how well "Aquaman" does when it swims (more puns!) into theaters next week. The DC Extended Universe has never been the darling of critics, but its films do well at the box office, especially overseas. For example, 2016's "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" made $873 million globally and 62% of that was away from the United States. And that movie was, well, not good! It had a 27% review score.

With "Aquaman" reviews in the positive (at least for now), things are going swimmingly (another pun!). But we'll see if Aquaman can take down his greatest opponent yet, Mary Poppins, who returns to theaters next week...

The newest "30 for 30"

Brian Lowry emails: In that slightly fallow patch before bowl games kick off in earnest, ESPN premiered another of its "30 for 30" documentaries Tuesday night, this one about James "Buster" Douglas' then-astonishing upset of Mike Tyson to win the heavyweight championship in 1990. The title, "42 to 1," is based on the odds that one of the few hotels to take action on the fight was offering. Details about the film here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

By Chloe Melas:

-- Charlie Sheen is celebrating one year of sobriety...

-- Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas are in "marital bliss..."

Netflix's most-binged-of-2018 list

...Well, that's kind of sort of what this list is. It only includes Netflix originals, no licensed shows. Netflix says these are the original series that launched in 2018 with "the highest average watch time per viewing session. Based on US viewing data." Oh, and "ranking on this list has no relation to overall viewing:"

On My Block
Making a Murderer: Part 2
13 Reasons Why: Season 2
Last Chance U: INDY
Bodyguard
Fastest Car
The Haunting of Hill House
Anne with an E: Season 2
Insatiable
Orange Is the New Black: Season 6

That's a wrap on this edition of the newsletter... Thanks for reading and sharing... Send me your feedback anytime, it helps make the newsletter better!