Exec summary: Andrew McCabe speaks, George Stephanopoulos re-ups with ABC, the Knight Foundation commits $300 million to the future of news, and much more... Here's the latest:
Washington Post sued over Covington coverage
"Attorneys for a Kentucky high school student who was at the center of a viral video controversy are suing the Washington Post, seeking $250 million in damages," An Phung reported Tuesday evening.
"The law firm Hemmer DeFrank Wessels said on its website that attorneys have filed the lawsuit on behalf of Nicholas Sandmann for "compensatory and punitive damages." The law firm said "this is only the beginning" -- an allusion to potential suits against other news outlets.
Tuesday's complaint accused the Post of engaging in a "modern-day form of McCarthyism by competing with CNN and NBC, among others, to claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann, an innocent secondary school child."
The Post's response
A WaPo spokeswoman told Phung that the paper is "reviewing a copy of the lawsuit and we plan to mount a vigorous defense..."
Controversy over CNN's newest hire
CNN says it is hiring Sarah Isgur Flores, who most recently served in the Justice Department as Jeff Sessions' spokesman, to be a political editor in the Washington bureau. Flores is a longtime Republican political operative who previously worked for Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz and Mitt Romney.
The reaction has been strong. CNN employees are concerned, according to numerous people who reached out to me on Tuesday. They are asking what Isgur's role will be and questioning whether her sudden leap from the Trump administration to the CNN newsroom is an ethical breach.
The Daily Beast's Maxwell Tani is hearing the same questions. He reported that CNN staffers are "demoralized" by the news.
Isgur's hiring is also being questioned by journalists at other news organizations. While there is a long history of political aides moving into the media and vice versa, this is an abnormally fast spin of the so-called "revolving door." And it's even more unusual because Isgur is moving directly into a managerial role.
Several Democratic strategists harshly criticized CNN for the move. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted about it on Tuesday night, gaining thousands of likes and shares. "Sorry," she wrote, "didn't get the latest memo after 1,000 experienced + qualified journalists of all stripes were let go w/o warning a few weeks ago and still looking for work: are we still pretending that hires like these are evidence of a meritocracy?"
A source pushed back on the suggestion that Isgur is not qualified... calling it "absurd..." Scroll down for details...
What CNN management is saying
Politico broke the news of Isgur's appointment on Tuesday. The headline said "Ex-Sessions spokeswoman to join CNN as political editor." CNN PR confirmed that she would report to political director David Chalian but otherwise declined to comment.
My understanding is that Isgur -- who isn't starting work for a few more weeks -- will be joining a group of several political editors who coordinate coverage. This entails managing teams in the field, making decisions about how to frame the day's biggest campaign stories, etcetera. There is certainly a lot of work to go around, given the crowded Democratic field of presidential candidates and the prospect of Republican primary challengers.
"Isgur has no experience in news," Politico wrote, "but a long history as a political operative." Many reporters know her and like her. But she was always on the other side of the fence. The DOJ, for example, engaged in aggressive leak hunts to ferret out reporters' sources. Soon she'll be working with those reporters and possibly talking with them about sourcing.
What CNN employees are saying
In confidential conversations, they are objecting to both her hiring and the way it was revealed through a Politico story, with no internal communication on Tuesday.
"We hired a former Trump administration official to help 'guide' our coverage of his re-election," a baffled editor said. "Reporters are up in arms about this."
"This just feels like a disaster," one of those reporters said. "I'm really, really worried about this, and concerned about the ethical implications of taking direction on stories from someone I covered when she was an operative in 2016 and who pledged loyalty to one of the candidates in the 2020 race. This seems different and much more problematic to me than your typical political-media revolving door hire."
Adding to the concern: Employees don't know exactly what her job will entail.
"I'm sure she's a wonderful person, but no one knows what she'll be doing," a staffer in Washington said.
Here's the argument in favor of Isgur's hiring
I have also spoken with CNN executives who defended Isgur's appointment. They described her an exceptional person whose political experience will improve CNN's coverage.
The fact is, political insiders have been joining newsrooms for decades. The executives pointed to past examples like George Stephanopoulos, who went from Clinton White House to the ABC News anchor chair. (But Stephanopoulos moved much, much more slowly from politics to journalism. He was an ABC political analyst for several years before becoming a host.)
"The notion that she isn't qualified for this role is absurd," a source told me Tuesday night. "There are plenty of examples of people going from high profile political jobs to news networks. George Stephanopolous. Nicolle Wallace. Dana Perino. Tim Russert. And those are anchors with huge platforms at their networks. She is one of more than a dozen people who will be helping coordinate our political coverage. She is highly qualified to do so."
A few more details
-- According to CNN PR, Isgur will occasionally appear on-air as an analyst.
-- She will have no involvement in coverage of the DOJ, given that she used to be the DOJ's spokeswoman.
-- Vox pointed out that she previously criticized CNN and other news outlets on Twitter.
-- While most of the outrage on Tuesday came from the left, some on the right don't trust Isgur because of her association with Sessions, who fell out of favor with Trump and was eventually fired.
-- Isgur declined to comment.
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Reba McEntire will help announce the nominees for the 54th annual ACM Awards on Wednesday's "CBS This Morning..." (Twitter)
-- "John Finley has been named Fox News EVP of development, which includes overseeing Fox Nation, the network's OTT service which launched last fall..." (TVNewser)
-- The WSJ's Peter Nicholas is joining The Atlantic to be a W.H. correspondent there... (Twitter)
-- Former Trump aide Marc Short, who joined CNN as a contributor last summer, returned to the Trump admin as VP's chief of staff. Kaitlan Collins' story noted that "he is no longer paid by CNN..." (CNN)
| | Justice Clarence Thomas calls for reconsideration of landmark libel case
Via CNN's Tammy Kupperman and Sophie Tatum: "Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday called for reconsideration of a landmark First Amendment precedent, criticizing the 1964 decision that the Constitution creates a higher barrier for public figures to claim libel." Read the rest here...
George re-ups with ABC | | "George Stephanopoulos has signed a new four-year deal with ABC News," Page Six's Sara Nathan and Oli Coleman reported Tuesday. "Sources say that the broadcasting veteran — who's been with the network since 2002 and anchors both 'GMA' and Sunday show 'This Week' — was heavily courted by both CBS and CNN as the end of his last contract approached. CNN declined to comment. But in the end, he stayed put, signing a deal with ABC worth somewhere between $15 million and $18 million per year."
Knight Foundation committing $300 million to rebuild local news
Knight has been backing journalism initiatives for many years. But Tuesday's announcement is a big, big increase.
"We are doubling our commitment to $300 million over five years on journalism, primarily local journalism," Jennifer Preston, Knight's VP for journalism, told me. "We are also using this increase in funds to help address the growing concern about the spread of misinformation and impact of technology on our news and information ecosystem and our democracy."
The bottom line, per Preston: "We are making some very big bets on people, projects and approaches that we believe offer the best chance to help build a future for local news, one community at a time."
There are many beneficiaries, including Report for America, ProPublica, the American Journalism Project, "Frontline," NewsMatch, The News Literacy Project, Solutions Journalism Network, Cortico, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Full announcement here...
The McClatchy buyout deadline...
...Was on Tuesday. Here's one example of the local impact: "More than half a dozen marquee reporters at The Kansas City Star have accepted buyouts from the newspaper's parent company," KCUR's Dan Margolies wrote... "Between them, the employees accepting the buyouts have well over 200 years of combined experience at The Star."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Important new column by Kevin Roose: "YouTube Unleashed a Conspiracy Theory Boom. Can It Be Contained?" (NYT)
-- "Vox Media is expanding its partnership with Stitcher, one of the biggest end-to-end podcast companies, to produce a new technology news podcast from Recode as part of a multi-million dollar deal..." (Axios)
-- ICYMI: "Screen time has more than doubled for children under 2 years old since 1997..." (CNN)
Climate change, told honestly
An Phung emails: David Wallace-Wells' new book "The Uninhabitable Earth" hit bookshelves on Tuesday and he wrote an op-ed in the NYT ahead of the book's release that caught my attention. In "Time to Panic," Wallace-Wells postures that scientists have been reluctant to sound the alarm on global warming because "there were few things with a worse reputation than 'alarmism' among those studying climate change," but change is afoot and "we're at a point where alarmism and catastrophic thinking are valuable."
So I asked Wallace-Wells about the media's role in the messaging, and he told me that climate journalism was "misleading on three big points:"
1. "The speed of the crisis, which was not unfolding over centuries but in something like real time, with half of all the emissions from the burning of fossil fuels coming in the last three decades."
2. "The scope of the crisis, in that we heard so much about sea level rise as though climate change was something other than an all-encompassing, global threat, which wouldn't impact those of us living off the coasts."
3. "The severity of the crisis, in that journalists had heard scientists describing two degrees Celsius of warming as a threshold of catastrophe for so long they didn't stop to consider climate possibilities north of that threshold, though in fact we have almost no hope, by conventional means at least, of staying below it."
The takeaway for journalists is, he said, "there are great storytelling opportunities in that perspective, which climate journalists have long been reluctant to pick up because they felt so narrowly confined by their subject. But they needn't feel that way. Climate change is not just one story among many, it is the global story—and quite cinematic and engaging, if it's told honestly."
Bernie's rollout
Bernie Sanders' 2020 announcement began with a pre-taped interview on Vermont Public Radio, so he could say he was telling his constituents first. VPR aired the audio shortly after 6 a.m. "CBS This Morning" followed at 7 a.m. with John Dickerson's pre-taped interview with Sanders.
>> Next Monday night, Sanders will take Q's at a CNN town hall moderated by Wolf Blitzer...
| | Tuesday's biggest story
 You know the NYT has dropped a BIG story when it also publishes a "takeaways from the story" sidebar.
That's what happened on Tuesday with this piece titled "Intimidation, Pressure and Humiliation: Inside Trump's Two-Year War on the Investigations Encircling Him." It's the lead story on Wednesday's front page. I'm sure you've heard about it by now, but if you haven't read it yet, click here...
McCabe, on CNN, says "it's possible" Trump is a Russian asset
From Tuesday night's "Anderson Cooper 360:"
COOPER: "Do you still believe the President could be a Russian asset?"
MCCABE: "I think it's possible. I think that's why we started our investigation, and I'm really anxious to see where Mueller concludes that."
Read/watch more on CNN.com...
"The Threat" is an instant bestseller
A memoir by a fired former deputy director of the FBI? In normal times, it might not attract much attention. But in the Trump years, it becomes a best seller. Here's my full story about McCabe's book tour...
Trump v. Kessler
On Tuesday morning Glenn Kessler came out with WaPo's new count of Trump's deceit. "In 759 days," he wrote, "President Trump has made 8,718 false or misleading claims." Trump's response via Twitter: "Fake Fact Checker!" I guess that's claim #8,719...
Trump's tweet implied that the Post's fact-checking protects Dems. Kessler responded with a reminder that Trump has cited his team's fact-checking in the past "when we give Pinocchios to Democrats..."
"Tomi Lahren Is Trump's Rightful Heir"
Brian Lowry emails: Strip away the partisan jabs, and there's a really salient point in this Bulwark piece by Molly Jong-Fast about the rise of Tomi Lahren, and her intuitive understanding of how to push her "brand." As Jong-Fast writes, "Tomi stays in the news cycle by fighting with people. But unlike Trump, she almost always picks her beefs with people more famous than she is, so she can chase their clout and be exposed to their fans and followers." The idea of picking fights as a promotional strategy says as much about the current media ecosystem as it does about Lahren...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Josh Dawsey called this "a peak 2019 headline: Judge orders Roger Stone to court over Instagram post." (AP)
-- Another W.H. exit: Lindsay Walters "will leave her post as deputy press secretary in April for a role as vice president of US public affairs at public relations firm Edelman..." (CNN)
-- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter and the guild's unit chair Jonathan D. Silver told Tom Kludt, "In 22 years at the Post-Gazette this is by far the worst period I've experienced." Read Tom's full story here... (CNN)
Latest updates in the Smollett case
-- It's still not clear when, or if, Smollett will speak with Chicago police detectives again...
-- ABC reported that "the FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service are currently investigating" whether Smollett "played a role in sending a threatening letter addressed to him at 'Empire's' Chicago studio prior to the alleged attack..."
-- Fox declined to comment on reports that Smollett's role on "Empire" is being reduced for the time being...
-- Lisa Respers France has a running list of "everything we know so far" here...
-- France also wrote this on Tuesday: Smollett's siblings blaming the media for their portrayal of the "Empire" actor and the story of his attack...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Congrats to all of this year's Polk Award winners! "In The Dark" is the first podcast to ever win a Polk... Other winners included Bill Siemering, Julie K. Brown, Ben Taub, Jane Ferguson, the NYT's Trump tax team, and the staff of ProPublica... (Full list)
-- Egyptian officials detained NYT correspondent David Kirkpatrick "after he arrived in Cairo on Monday, holding him incommunicado for hours before forcing him onto a flight back to London without explanation..." (NYT)
-- The Alabama newspaper editor who called for the return of the Ku Klux Klan's infamous night rides had no new comment amid a widening outcry and calls for his resignation on Tuesday... (CNN)
-- Chip Brownlee of the Alabama Political Reporter says that the editor, Goodloe Sutton, "has penned countless racist, sexist, xenophobic pieces..." (APR)
FIRST LOOK AT...
THR's Oscars cover | | THR says this is the biggest issue of its magazine ever... The theme is "The New Politics of Oscar," with a cover story on this crazy awards season and all the political causes that have intersected with Hollywood's biggest night... It'll be out on Wednesday...
| | Lowry's Oscars preview: Who will win and who should win
Brian Lowry emails: Oscar prognosticators are staring into inordinately fuzzy crystal balls, thanks to the utter lack of consensus among the major guilds in this year's awards cycle. But I took the obligatory stab at identifying what will win and suggesting what should, with a best-picture race that boils down to three movies -- "Roma," "Green Book" and "Black Panther" -- that will each have to overcome an ingrained Academy bias or other hurdles in order to emerge victorious...
The Netflix mystery continues
Brian Lowry adds: If "Roma" does fall short, Netflix has itself in part to blame, thanks to its policy of refusing to release box-office data, as CNN's Brandon Griggs reported. The service's tightfistedness about such information also extends to its TV shows, where subscribers are left to guess at why its Marvel shows and the comedy "Friends From College" were the latest series that won't be earning renewals, or as other networks call that, "canceled..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Megan Thomas:
-- "Captain Marvel" is being targeted by trolls on Rotten Tomatoes before the film has been screened for critics... (THR)
-- Gwyneth Paltrow reflects on how "Shakespeare in Love" changed her life...and the Oscars (Variety)
-- And Harvey Weinstein had a lot to say about Paltrow's statement he wanted Ben Affleck to play Shakespeare in the film (Vulture)
-- Lisa Respers France emails: Mandy Moore says she was "drowning" in her marriage to Ryan Adams...
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
Meet AMY
THR's Scott Feinberg tweeted: "LOL, points for creativity to Netflix for promoting Amy Schumer's upcoming comedy special GROWING with a STAR IS BORN-inspired billboard..." | | | |
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