Forward

Exec summary: Scroll down for President Trump's latest interview, important new research about the loss of local news, and an update from the Chicago police about the Jussie Smollett case...

The state of Facebook

Facebook posted $3.6 billion in profit in the last three months of 2016... $4.3 billion in Q4 2017... and $6.9 billion in Q4 2018.

And if that's not impressive enough, there's this: FB "now has 1.52 billion people who use the social network every single day, and 2.32 billion who use it every month, both of which are up 9% from the year prior," CNN's Seth Fiegerman wrote Wednesday. His takeaway from the earnings: "Facebook's endless PR crises don't appear to be hurting its bottom line."

Here's how other sites are framing it: "Users aren't abandoning the company in large numbers even as its data-privacy practices have been under attack," the WSJ wrote. "Facebook keeps growing despite scandals and privacy outrage," The Verge wrote.

FB moving back onto offense?

Until 4 p.m. ET, the company was having another bruising day, full of headlines about this controversial market research app. Apple said the app violated its policies.

But the earnings report allowed Mark Zuckerberg to, on the earnings call, say things like "we've started to turn a corner and have a clear plan for what we need to do now." He also remarked that "there's a lot of negativity about technology," saying "Some of it is fair," but "some of it is misplaced."

>> LOOKING AHEAD: FB wants to "increase commerce activity" on Instagram and "make more money from Stories..."

>> STOCK WATCH: FB shares are up more than 10% in after-hours trading.

Yes, but...

Usage in U.S. & Canada remains flat

This is a chart of FB's popularity... The company's daily active user # in the United States and Canada has remained stagnant at 185 million since mid-2017... In Q4 2018, it ticked up just slightly to 186 million...

The real test: Do your family members still log into FB?

My family does. How about yours? "People love talking about the death of Facebook only being partially offset by the rise of Instagram," BTIG's Rich Greenfield commented to me Wednesday night. "But it's far harder to leave Facebook than most on Wall Street and the broader tech/media community realize -- the proof is the robust 30% revenue growth Facebook delivered as advertisers continue to follow eyeballs, with Facebook's CFO implying core (blue) Facebook usage is relatively stable."

Still a "vast" list of problems

"While 4Q18 was certainly favorable," Brian Wieser wrote to investors Wednesday night, "nothing in the results should cause investors to look at the company in a meaningfully different way vs. previously... The list of problems the company is grappling with is vast, and the shapes of solutions are unclear...

NY Attorney General targets fake social media activity

This settlement on Wednesday is "the first finding by a law enforcement agency" indicating that the sale of fake social media posts and comments "constitutes illegal deception and illegal impersonation," CNN's Athena Jones reported.

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the settlement with a now-defunct company Devumi, which "sold fake followers, 'likes' and views on platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, SoundCloud and Pinterest, using activity from fake accounts." Devumi was exposed by this NYT report last year...

--> NYT's Nicholas Confessore: "James' investigation could set the stage for further crackdowns on rampant consumer fraud and deceit on social media platforms..."

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST...

Cheddar's pilot episode with Reddit

Cheddar and Reddit have struck a deal to try a video version of "Ask Me Anything." The two brands are launching a "pilot episode" of a 20-minute show called "ChedChats With," an on-camera AMA Q&A. This first episode will feature "Game of Thrones" director David Nutter... He'll answer Q's from Redditors and sit down for an in-depth interview with Cheddar... If it's well-received, expect to see more episodes...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Some of AT&T's Q4 #'s fell short of expectations... But the WarnerMedia division "posted solid profitability gains..." (Variety)

-- Amazon will report earnings after the bell on Thursday... (CNBC)

-- New hires at Forbes: Kerry Lauerman, most recently of Mic, will be executive editor of news; Dawn Chmielewski will be senior editor of tech, media and entertainment; Jillian D'Onfro will be a staff writer covering tech...

-- What does BuzzFeed look like post-layoffs? Max Willens has answers here... (Digiday)

Getting colder

Wednesday night's nightly news ledes for the second day in a row: The "life-threatening freeze" (NBC), "deadly polar vortex" (ABC), "deadly deep freeze" (CBS).

An Phung emails: I reached out to some former colleagues at NBC Chicago to see what's been resonating online with their readers -- and the answers are very telling. It further underscores the importance of local news during a weather crisis like this.

The stories that drove the most traffic on Wednesday included live coverage from local meteorologists and practical news-you-can-use stories (what's closed due to weather, canceled flights, what you need to know to stay safe in dangerous cold, deep freeze car dangers, where this ranks against all-time coldest temps in Chicago). On social, a post comparing the temperature to Alaska and one that counts down to summer did very well...

--> More: For journalists in the region working on stories about this brutal weather, Poynter's Tom Jones has a good tip here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- "Trump cheers as Dow breaks 25,000 -- for the third time..." (CNN)

-- The top headline from Sarah Sanders' interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network: God "wanted Donald Trump to become president, and that's why he's there..." (CNN)

-- New from Maxwell Tani: How Donald Trump Jr.'s fixer Arthur Schwartz "wages war against the media." The way Schwartz reacted to Tani tells you a lot about the conservative media ecosystem... (Beast)

-- Right-wing-media-watcher Howard Polskin says "Breitbart's traffic has fallen dramatically and it can't seem to get up..." (The Righting)

Put yourself in an exec producer's shoes...

What's the 8 p.m. lead? MSNBC went with "New cracks in GOP support of Trump and border wall" and "Trump mocks his own intelligence chiefs on Twitter." (I'm quoting the banners here.) Fox News went with "Dems push late-term abortion bills," reflecting conservative outcry about a failed abortion bill in Virginia.

And CNN went with "Special counsel: Russians altering evidence in Mueller probe to discredit investigation." This is really an astonishing story -- about a pro-Russian Twitter account using non-public material from Robert Mueller's team to discredit probe. Here's Katelyn Polantz's full story for CNN.com...

Trump is laying low...

MSNBC's Chris Hayes noted, in a critical way, that "Trump has not held a public event in five days. He has been holed up in the White House rage tweeting about whatever he sees on Trump TV..."

...But he's talking to The Daily Caller

Trump gave an interview to Vince Coglianese and Saagar Enjeti on Wednesday... Among the takeaways, "Trump said he will leave decisions on how to handle the Mueller report to the Justice Department..."

Trump v. Intel

"Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!" POTUS tweeted on Wednesday, clearly peeved that the intelligence chiefs he appointed were publicly contradicting him about a host of issues.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins is out with new reporting about this -- the CNN.com headline is "Trump singles out director of national intelligence" -- she says Trump "was furious Wednesday as he watched television chyrons blare that the officials had contradicted him."

More: "The President was more frustrated with the coverage than the assessments of the intelligence chiefs, who brief him on national security matters regularly..."

Cuomo's take

"If the president is distorting the facts about national security, his distorted reality is, in itself, arguably a national security threat," Chris Cuomo said on CNN Wednesday night. "So whom should we believe: the nation's top intel officers, who closely monitor our threats, or the president, who doesn't read or heed daily warnings..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- 2020 hopeful Pete Buttigieg on TV: He'll be on "CBS This Morning" and "The View" on Thursday...

-- Rep. Eric Swalwell will be in N.H. on Thursday... He told CNN "he is close to making a decision..."

Howard Schultz disputes "false narrative"

Speaking on "AC360" Wednesday night, Howard Schultz challenged what he called this week's "false narrative" that he "would take votes away from the Democratic party" if he runs for president.

"What I believe is that there are millions of lifelong Republicans who are not interested in re-electing Donald Trump, but are not going to vote for a left-leaning progressive Democratic nominee," he said. "So given the choice, Donald Trump will probably be re-elected. What I really want to do is provide a better choice...

Two changes to the MSNBC contributor ranks

1: Steve Schmidt, many MSNBC viewers' favorite GOP strategist, is no longer a paid contributor to the channel, since he is actively advising Schultz on a possible presidential bid and Schultz is getting more serious about it...

2: There's been some misinfo on Twitter about Maya Harris, sister of Kamala Harris, working for MSNBC. Chris Hayes clarified it in a tweet on Wednesday: "She's currently on leave as a contributor for extremely obvious reasons. If she appears it would be explicitly as a campaign surrogate, labeled as such..."

Sullivan slams the "middle-lane approach to journalism"

Katie Pellico writes: Margaret Sullivan's Wednesday column critiqued what she called "centripetal journalism." That is, the "smarmy centrism that often benefits nobody, but promises you won't offend anyone." Schultz and newly minted political pundits Jeff Flake and John Kasich are prime examples of this for Sullivan. "It's a shame, because a lot of Americans actually seem to appreciate having their minds stretched by unfamiliar ideas..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Trey Gowdy is Fox's newest contributor...(Variety)

-- "Want to get away with posting fake news on Facebook? Just change your website domain..." (Poynter)

-- Before #MeToo: Glenn Kenny, who used to be a senior editor at Premiere magazine, describes his 1998 scoop on sexual harassment at New Line Cinema and why "it didn't have the impact we had hoped it would at the time..." (CJR)

-- Justin Freiman emails: Paramount Pictures laid off roughly 20 staff members as part of a restructuring effort... (Variety)

When a local paper goes down, polarization goes up

New research published in the Journal of Communication backs up what many of us have theorized about the loss of local news. David Bauder's recap of the study: "With fewer opportunities to find out about local politicians, citizens are more likely to turn to national sources like cable news and apply their feelings about national politics to people running for the town council or state legislature... The result is much less 'split ticket' voting, or people whose ballot includes votes for people of different parties."

--> The key point: "Voting behavior was more polarized, less likely to include split ticket voting, if a newspaper had died in the community," professor Johanna Dunaway says...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- Daniella Emanuel emails: Peter Jackson will direct a documentary about The Beatles, focusing on the recording of their last album, "Let it Be..." (NPR)

-- A creative piece of in-house advertising: Kylie Jenner is the "queen of Postmates." The courier service sampled the celeb's order history, and of her 186 purchases this year, the smallest was "a bottle of Smartwater and a single carrot..." (Postmates)

-- An Arizona man reportedly administered CPR and saved a life, thanks to that one episode of "The Office..." (AP, Twitter Moments)

-- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's wife Louise Linton was at Sundance "in search of projects and partnerships for her nascent production company, Stormchaser Films" 👇 (THR)

Police have images of people they'd like to question in Jussie Smollett attack

Here's the latest from Sandra Gonzalez: "Chicago police have photos of people they'd like to talk to in the case involving 'Empire' actor Jussie Smollett, who was the victim of what police are investigating as a possible hate crime. Investigators have located a surveillance camera that shows people who are now wanted for questioning, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said..."

Super Bowl countdown

-- Chloe Melas emails: Here's a look at Maroon 5's upcoming Super Bowl performance and what we know so far... (CNN)

-- "Entertainment Tonight's" Kevin Frazier has an exclusive interview with Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine on Thursday... (ET)

-- A staffer at KDKA, Pittsburgh's CBS affiliate, labeled Tom Brady a "known cheater" in a chyron on Monday afternoon... "The employee responsible for the graphic is no longer employed by the station..." (SI)

-- Great piece about Pepsi's sponsorship of the Super Bowl in Coke's hometown... (CNN)

Netflix offers to give BuzzFeed's unofficial quizmaster a job

Katie Pellico writes: When Matt Perpetua was laid off from his role as BuzzFeed's Director of Quizzes this week, he wrote a memo to say, in effect, "I get it." Still, he marveled at the BF model: "It's kinda amazing how much revenue-generating traffic the site gets from unpaid community volunteers," revealing that the site's "second highest traffic driver worldwide has been a community user in Michigan who is a teenager in college who, for some reason, makes dozens of quizzes every week..."

Well, Rachel McMahon is that 19-year-old community user and she was, subsequently, bewildered by the publicity. She told The Cut why she believed it had been "my choice to give out these quizzes. I knew that I wasn't going to get paid." She told Slate "Now, I don't think I see it as much of a career option..."

On Tuesday, amid the tweeted calls to hire her, Netflix replied: "hey @rachelmcmaho, I'd love to work with (and pay) you. DM me!" Stay tuned...

"Killing Eve" on two channels

Brian Lowry emails: Interesting to see AMC announcing that it will simulcast "Killing Eve" -- the show that has been racking up accolades for Sandra Oh on sister network BBC America -- when the second season begins...

As the LAT's Steve Battaglio wrote, the decision comes as the network has been struggling to find buzz-worthy shows, with "The Walking Dead" in decline and few of its other new series catching on. But it also raises questions about companies being shortsighted in robbing from their smaller channels -- which are more vulnerable in an age of a la carte viewing -- to buttress their flagship networks...

A preview of 2021's "The Batman"

Brian Lowry emails: Director Matt Reeves finally expanded a bit about his reboot of Batman, telling THR's Lesley Goldberg that the movie will be "more Batman in his detective mode than we've seen in the films." Warner Bros. has been largely mum about the project, but it's seen as a vital cog in getting one of WB/DC's signature franchises airborne again after the success with Wonder Woman and Aquaman...

--> Separately, Warner Bros. announced a June 2021 release date for "The Batman," to be followed that August by the follow-up to another DC property, "Suicide Squad..."

Universal still trying to scare up some interest in its monsters

Justin Freiman emails: Universal Pictures is once again trying to set a course for its Monster Legacy. According to Variety, Leigh Whannell has been signed on to direct and write a reboot of "The Invisible Man." Universal was going to have its monster films interconnected, but that plan seems to have disappeared after a disappointing showing from "The Mummy" starring Tom Cruise...

--> In addition to "The Mummy," Universal's classic monsters include Invisible Man, Wolf Man, Frankenstein, Dracula and Creature from the Black Lagoon...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

By Lisa Respers France:

-- Ariana Grande got a palm tattoo with Japanese characters meant to celebrate her new single "7 Rings," but fans let her know that she actually was endorsing BBQ...

-- Céline Dion has something to say about the criticism that she's now too thin: "Leave me alone."

-- Nick Cannon will be stepping in for an ailing Wendy Williams to host her talk show...

That's a wrap. Send me your feedback anytime -- I'm always trying to make this newsletter more useful for all of you. See you tomorrow!