Forward

Pell guilty

"For months, journalists sat through one of the most high-profile trials held in any court in the world, without permission to report a moment of it — until now."

That's how Emma Younger of Australia's ABC News framed Tuesday's news from Melbourne.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, one of the most powerful men in the Roman Catholic Church, was found guilty of child sex abuse last December. But it all happened in secret. CNN and all other news outlets that are accessible within Australia were legally prohibited from reporting on the trial or the conviction. "Under Australian law," CNN.com's story explains, everything was "suppressed due to concerns they could prejudice future juries."

The legal restrictions were lifted on Tuesday morning in Melbourne because a planned second trial was called off.

Newsrooms were ready. They'd had months to prepare. They fired off stories and sidebars and Q&A's. CNN International produced a special report. "This is absolutely explosive," CNN's Anna Coren reported from outside the courthouse. "It will send shockwaves not just here in Australia but certainly around the world, right to the top of the Vatican." Read/watch more here...

>> "Pell has repeatedly maintained his innocence. His legal team confirmed on Tuesday they had filed an appeal against the guilty verdict..."

About the suppression order

The restrictions were deeply frustrating to many journalists, both in Australia and beyond. Back in December, immediately after Pell was convicted, several of the country's papers ran stories about the suppression order. "IT'S THE NATION'S BIGGEST STORY," screamed the front page of the Daily Telegraph. "Yet we can't publish it."

Younger's story on Tuesday noted that "none of those outlets formally opposed the suppression order being made."

Melissa Davey, the Melbourne bureau chief for the Guardian, covered the entire trial. She tweeted on Tuesday, "I have been unable to comment on what unfolded until now. Other media did, albeit vaguely. I had no interest in potentially jeopardising justice for victims or the right to a fair trial for Pell."

Jorge Ramos and crew detained in Caracas

Six Univision staffers, including veteran anchorman Jorge Ramos, were briefly detained at the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday. They were there to interview embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro when he bristled at the questions.

Ramos said Maduro "got up from the interview after I showed him the videos of some young people eating out of a garbage truck… Immediately after, one of his ministers came to tell us that the interview was not authorized…"

And that's when the journalists were detained. The tapes were confiscated. Ramos was able to call Univision HQ to alert his boss, but his phone was taken away mid-conversation. The network, in turn, alerted the State Department and called Venezuelan government contacts and tweeted out a statement about the situation.

After nearly three hours, Ramos and the crew members were released. Univision broke into programming for a special report, with Ramos joining by phone. "They interrogated us. They put us in a security room. They turned off the lights," he said in Spanish, according to our translation.

Will the interview ever air?

Ramos called the episode a "violation." He said Maduro's aides still had the tapes. "They have stolen our work and are trying to keep what is happening from airing," he said...

>> ABC's Tom Llamas also interviewed Maduro on Monday... Quotes here...

>> As I noted in my story, this all happened on the same day that VP Mike Pence met with opposition leader Juan Guaido...

Arrests made in SF news crew robbery

Here's the story as it was reported by the local station: "A KPIX 5 news crew covering the Oakland teachers strike was robbed of a camera and tripod by two suspects, one of whom shot the crew's security guard before fleeing on Sunday evening." Details here...

Per the AP, "two people were detained and the stolen camera was recovered." In parts of the SF metro area, the story noted, "assaults on routine assignments became so commonplace in recent years that some TV stations have hired armed guards to ride with news crews."

Wounded security guard is recovering

The guard hired by KPIX, Matt Meredith, was hit in the leg. He is a retired Berkeley police officer. According to Joe Vazquez, the reporter who was out on assignment, Meredith was shot; then robbed of his phone; then was able to return fire on the suspect. On Monday Vazquez tweeted, "Matt is out of the hospital, recovering. Thanks for protecting us!"

TUESDAY PLANNER:

-- Standing by for a possible Tuesday morning ruling from the appeals court regarding the DOJ's appeal in the AT&T case...

-- The House is expected to vote on a resolution of disapproval to block Trump's national emergency declaration...

-- Michael Cohen is scheduled to testify behind closed doors ahead of his public session on Wednesday... Elie Honig says Cohen needs to answer these five questions...

A new congressional push to get #JusticeForJamal

CNN's Alex Marquardt reports: "Democrat senators Ron Wyden, Jack Reed, Marin Heinrich and Kamala Harris plan to introduce legislation on Tuesday requiring the Trump admin to answer what they know about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The proposed legislation would require the Director of National Intelligence to 'submit to Congress a report [unclassified] on the death of Jamal Khashoggi. Such report shall include identification of those who carried out, participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi.'"

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- The Washington Post is establishing the Jamal Khashoggi Fellowship. Saudi scholar and activist Hala Al-Dosari is the inaugural fellow... (WaPo)

-- Most important read of the day: "The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America" by Casey Newton... (The Verge)

-- Moderators told Newton that the constant exposure to conspiracy theory videos and memes "gradually lead them to embrace fringe views." For example: "One auditor walks the floor promoting the idea that the Earth is flat. A former employee told me he has begun to question certain aspects of the Holocaust..."

-- Bloomberg's Joshua Brustein reports that some FB employees have been concerned about the outsourcing of content moderation for a while. He quoted an employee's post on an internal forum: "Why do we contract out work that's obviously vital to the health of this company and the products we build?" (Bloomberg)

Bernie Sanders' town hall with CNN

Get caught up on Monday night's town hall, moderated by Wolf Blitzer, via CNN's live story...

-- Sanders jokingly described his strategy for handling Trump at a debate: "We'll bring a lie detector along" (the audience laughed and clapped) and every time he lies it goes BEEP."

-- Harry Enten tweeted: "It's pretty cool to watch candidates' Google Trends go up in real time during these CNN town halls. I think it's an indication that people are searching for/about the candidates and trying to learn more about them."

-- Counter-programming: Elizabeth Warren appeared on Chris Hayes' show opposite the Sanders town hall...

Lowry reviews "The Trump Dynasty"

Brian Lowry emails: A&E is devoting six hours to President Trump's life in "The Trump Dynasty," a three-part documentary that will likely function as a Rorschach test for those who tune in; still, I found a lot that was worthwhile in this project under the "Biography" banner, from details about Trump's grandfather (who cashed in on the Klondike Gold Rush) to Trump's navigation of rough-and-tumble New York politics as he assiduously built his brand. The interviews run the ideological gamut, including biographers, supporters and critics. Read on...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Dana Bash's sit-down with Harry Reid aired on "New Day" Monday morning... And POTUS reacted by attacking Reid minutes later. "Thanks for watching, Mr President.," Bash tweeted... (CNN)

-- Trump's attack was heartless, given Reid's poor health, and it was also inaccurate: He falsely claimed that Reid was "thrown out" of office... (PolitiFact)

-- Trump also claimed on Monday that his daughter Ivanka had "created millions of jobs." So Holmes Lybrand checked. "No matter how you spin it, that's not true..." (CNN)

R. Kelly out of jail

R. Kelly said nothing to the camera crews as he "left Chicago's Cook County Jail on Monday afternoon after posting bail in his sexual abuse case," per CNN's team in Chicago...

Kraft charged

While Robert Kraft's camp is denying that he committed a crime, Kraft was formally charged on Monday "with soliciting prostitution at a Florida spa just hours before the Patriots played in the AFC Championship Game..." Here's CNN's full story...

"Enough is enough"

The R. Kelly case, the Robert Kraft case, the Jeffrey Epstein case. Women "have been used and tossed out like trash by billionaires, music stars, powerful men who have been accused of horrendous things. And too often these seemingly invisible women get overlooked," CNN's Brooke Baldwin said on her show Monday afternoon.

More: "This story is bigger than these men, much bigger. We should be focused on empowering and protecting the women they're accused of victimizing. Let this be a time of reckoning. These seemingly invisible women need to know your voice has a power no amount of money or power or fame can buy. Enough is enough."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- "We need your advocacy," Jon Stewart told journalists at a presser to push Congress to make the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund permanent... (THR) // Stewart spoke with Brianna Keilar on Monday afternoon... (CNN)

-- "On Monday, The New York Review of Books named Gabriel Winslow-Yost and Emily Greenhouse as the magazine's co-lead editors..." (NYT)

-- Read Ben Strauss on the evolution of Deadspin, an "unabashedly progressive voice in sports and beyond" that "now critiques other sites around the Internet for their crude behavior..." (WaPo)

-- Eye-popping stats in Gerry Smith's story: "There are more than 600,000 podcasts in Apple's service, about double the number from three years ago. The top ones attract audiences rivaling those of cable-TV shows, but the vast majority reach few listeners and make no money. The median audience for a podcast is about 130 people, according to hosting site Libsyn..." (Bloomberg)

-- Warner Music Group is asking an Indian court to block Spotify "from offering songs by its roster of songwriters, including Katy Perry and Led Zeppelin, in the country..." (Bloomberg)

Facebook is still figuring out its Russia problem

Donie O'Sullivan emails: Facebook has restored a network of millennial-focused pages tied to Russian state-backed broadcaster RT, ten days after suspending them. The pages, which are designed to appeal to Americans and look like they could be run out of Brooklyn, had not disclosed their ties to Russia.

None of that seemed to be a problem for Facebook until CNN asked about the pages and if FB had a policy of telling its users if a page is part of state-funded media. (This was our original report.) YouTube has had a policy like that in place for over a year. But FB still doesn't...

In this specific case, the company only let the pages back online after a disclaimer about the ties to Russia was added. (Former FB CSO Alex Stamos pointed out an issue with the disclaimer.) A FB spokesperson said the company is working on making pages more transparent and that they'll have more to share on this soon...

A new tactic?

More from Donie: Russia has overt media here in the United States, with the likes of RT and Sputnik. And we know they had a covert Russian troll operation running in 2016, posing as real Americans on social media. This new project... pages with names like InTheNow and Soapbox... is somewhat gray.

Slick videos without RT branding, or any mention of Russia at all, are a smart way to push a Russian-backed line into young Americans' newsfeeds. The company behind the videos says they are editorially independent of RT...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Indra Nooyi is Amazon's newest board member... (CNN)

-- Ex-CBS correspondent Lara Logan told Jeremy Barr that "she's been approached for work by mostly right-leaning media companies but hasn't had discussions with any, including Fox News..." (THR)

-- Another Tribune paper seeking to unionize: "Journalists at The Morning Call on Monday announced they have started the process of forming a union... (Lehigh Valley Live)

-- "A 'Gremlins' animated series is in development at WarnerMedia's upcoming streaming service..." (Variety)

Here's why NBC just bought the rights to a H.S. all-star football game

"NBC Sports Group has bought the All-American Bowl, a high school all-star football game that occurs every January," SBJ's John Ourand reported Monday. "The deal follows NBC's strategy of becoming the exclusive owner and operator of smaller properties, such as the American Century Championship, PNC Father/Son Challenge, National Dog Show and Beverly Hills Dog Show."

>> NBC Sports programming chief Jon Miller: "The idea is to find windows for live sports properties that we can own and develop..."

Oscars ratings rebound

Frank Pallotta emails: The Oscars averaged 29.6 million viewers on Sunday. That's a 12% increase over last year's record low numbers. Likely reasons: A fast-paced show, an earlier end time, and a decent number of nominated films that actually found a mass audience.

"Black Panther," "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "A Star Is Born" -- along with the other Best Picture nominees -- brought in a combined $609 million more domestically than last year's nominees. That matters...

Here are Lowry's takeaways

Brian Lowry emails: The improved ratings for the Oscars -- even if they remain low in historic terms -- surely represent a sigh-of-relief moment for the Academy. But they leave a number of Q's about what lessons to draw from Sunday's show...

-- BTW: All of the "If you missed the Oscars, watch this" tweets and clips flying around the Twitter-sphere are a big reason why more casual viewers don't feel compelled to watch anymore. Anything worth seeing will be widely available almost immediately after the show, a challenge that all live events now face, and which really none of the proposed or implemented changes are equipped to address...

Red states, blue states

A little birdie, looking at the early overnight #'s for the Oscars, pointed out that the nine highest-rated markets for the awards shows were all in blue states. And the nine lowest-rated markets were all in red states.

So when the commentators on Fox News say America doesn't care about the Oscars... well, that's obviously not true, it's one of the biggest TV events of the year... But it's true that the Fox base has mostly tuned out...

Unpacking the "Green Book" win

Lisa Respers France writes: With people being split over whether the film is uplifting or racist, that "Green Book" Oscar win is so our country right now...

>> The LAT's Justin Chang wrote this minutes after the show wrapped: "'Green Book' is the worst best picture Oscar winner since 'Crash,' and I don't make the comparison lightly..."

>> Brooks Barnes has a story about the debate on the front page of Tuesday's NYT. He quoted USC professor Todd Boyd saying that "there are inherently people in the academy who think the organization's diversity efforts are going too far..."

"This year's Oscars seemed suspended..."

Sharon Waxman's latest column: "This year's Oscars seemed suspended between what the Academy aspires to be — progressive, inclusive and actually diverse — and where it traditionally has been, which is politically progressive as seen through the eyes of privileged white folks, almost exclusively men. 'Green Book' fell squarely in the latter category, the latest iteration of well-intentioned storytelling about American race relations told by white people who continue to hold most of the power..."

Netflix won AND lost

Netflix's ship is sailing full speed ahead. But given the $$$ it spent on the "Roma" campaign, the best picture loss was definitely disappointing. "Hollywood trade publications immediately drew connections between the Academy's snub of Roma... and its members' anxiety about the deep-pocketed Netflix, with its ambitious to disrupt theatrical distribution," Forbes' Dawn Chmielewski wrote. Chris Lee's headline for Vulture: "How Netflix Tried and Failed to Buy a Best Picture Oscar."

Still, with four wins on Sunday night, "Netflix tied Disney, Fox, and Universal for the most wins by any studio," Yahoo's Daniel Roberts pointed out on Monday morning...

Notes and quotes

-- Brian Lowry emails: It was a big Oscar night for Disney, made bigger by the fact that several of the winners from Fox (including "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Fox Searchlight's "The Favourite") combined for nearly half of the awards, as Deadline detailed...

-- NYT's James Poniewozik says "Nobody" hosted the Oscars, "and they did a fine job of it..."

-- While the NYT was disinvited from Vanity Fair's after-party, WaPo was still there... Here's Amy Argetsinger's dispatch...

That's a wrap! Thanks for reading. Email me with feedback, story ideas, etc... See you tomorrow...