Forward

EXEC SUMMARY: Hello from 11,000 feet, about to land at LGA... This edition of the newsletter has everything from "Fortnite" to fact-checks, Apple to Google, Glenn Beck to Donna Brazile, Gannett to the Globe... Start scrolling!

Connecting Trump's dots?

At any given time President Trump is in multiple fights. Right now it's especially cringeworthy: He is insulting John McCain seven months after McCain's death AND complaining about Robert Mueller AND punching back at George Conway.

These storylines are often covered independently, as if each spat stands alone, best understood on their own. But Conway is saying that that's the wrong way to understand Trump. All of the feuds and fictions are connected, Conway says, by narcissistic personality disorder.

So when Conway says all Americans "should be thinking seriously *now* about Trump's mental condition and psychological state," he's also suggesting a different way to cover the president.

Fox's Brit Hume, just to pick on one commentator, said Wednesday that it's "beyond me" why Trump gets in "petty disputes." I hear this kind of thing a lot on cable news. "WHY?" Well, Conway is offering an explanation. He tweeted Wednesday: "What really matters — who cares about me — is how many people have now reviewed the diagnostic criteria for Narcisisstic Personality Disorder?"

Narcissistic 'disorder' talk in prime time

On Wednesday's "AC360," Anderson Cooper spoke with Rolling Stone senior writer Alex Morris, who wrote the story that Conway credited with being "the article that first got me to really understand you." Dated April 2017, it was titled "Trump's Mental Health: Is Pathological Narcissism the Key to Trump's Behavior?"

Morris: "Donald Trump is certainly not the first narcissistic president we've ever had, but it's a matter of degree."

Cooper: "There's a difference between being narcissistic and then actually having a disorder."

Morris: "Right. There's a difference between the personality trait and an actual disorder. I think what a lot of mental health professionals are coming out and saying is that this has crossed the line. This is a problem."

Checking the "Executive Time" clock

Former Obama W.H. aide/CNN analyst Sam Vinograd emails: "There's no pause button on the rest of the world turning while POTUS has a mean girl moment." She says "we used to painstakingly review President Obama's schedule every day and how he spent each minute because presidential time is such a major but finite resource. It was the most important thing we did, because if he misused time that increased the risk of threats going unaddressed, etc. This whole Conway thing is just another very public signal that he doesn't work..."

The pro-Trump view

Trump's supporters "don't want a politician who's PC," former RNC chief of staff/CNN commentator Mike Shields said on "AC360."

"They want someone who kinda tells it like it is and offends people," Shields said. "His supporters like it that we're going to come on here and be offended. We're the people that they want to see offended. That's the whole purpose -- is to offend us."

Or as Chuck Todd put it on Wednesday's "MTP Daily:" There is "a part of the Trump base… that just wants to make liberals cry, I guess, or just wants to – what is it – own the libs, that that's all the Trump candidacy is for these folks..."

THURSDAY PLANNER:

-- First full day of March Madness games!

-- FCC chair Ajit Pai is speaking at ACA's annual summit in the A.M....

-- Comcast is having a 12:30 p.m. ET media call to "announce the launch of a new service." Xfinity Services EVP Matt Strauss will be doing the talking...

FIRST LOOK

AOC on the cover of TIME

The interview is by Charlotte Alter... The cover photo is by Collier Schorr... Alter describes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as "Wonder Woman of the left, Wicked Witch of the right," and "the second most talked-about politician in America, after POTUS..."

Counting down to Apple Day...

New iPads! New AirPods! Apple has been making news all week long in the run-up to Monday's streaming service curtain-raiser in Cupertino.

Reporters are expecting some big news about Apple's news ambitions on Monday as well... And the NYT's Mike Isaac has a preview: The WSJ "plans to join a new paid subscription news service run by Apple," while "other publishers chafe at the terms that the Silicon Valley company is demanding of its partners." Per Isaac, both the NYT and WaPo "have opted out of joining the subscription service..."

>> The skeptics: BI's Lucia Moses talked to a half-dozen publishing execs who said "Apple is pitching itself as a savior to the publishing industry — but that its logic is flawed..."

>> The mystery: Is the WSJ undercutting its own digital subscriber biz by becoming part of a bundle? I have a feeling this will make a lot more sense next week...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Announced on Wednesday: NYT picked up six awards from the Overseas Press Club... WaPo, The AP, Reuters, and VICE News won two awards each... (OPC)

-- Yahoo News is launching a new series called "The Ideas Election" on Thursday... The first piece is a deep dive into policy ideas surrounding child care...

-- At the one-year mark, the Google News Initiative is giving itself a check-up and "announcing new tools to fact check content..." (9to5Google)

-- Worrisome news for Berks County, PA: "Reading Eagle Company, the family-owned business that has published the Reading Eagle newspaper for more than 150 years, is filing for bankruptcy protection." The paper will continue to publish under Chapter 11... (Reading Eagle)

-- "The Penny Hoarder, a multimedia-heavy personal finance publication based in St. Petersburg, laid off 45 employees on Tuesday, slashing roughly half its newsroom and a majority of its visuals team in a company-wide reorganizing effort..." (CL Tampa Bay)

Congrats to the Mirror Award finalists!

Syracuse U's Mirror Awards honor outstanding media industry reporting... Winners will be announced June 13, but the finalist list came out on Wednesday. Here's the full list...

Holding Facebook accountable... is going to be more difficult in the future

Donie O'Sullivan emails: Two weeks ago Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook over the past 15 years had built a digital "town square," but that more people are moving into private "digital living rooms." It was his way of saying the company was pivoting to encryption and privacy.

Here's the thing though -- these "living rooms," private groups on Facebook and WhatsApp are pretty big. Some have hundreds of members. Some groups are used to share all sorts of misinformation. But the groups are private, not open, so news organizations and others won't be able to measure the scale of the problem. It'll be more difficult to hold Big Tech accountable.

Facebook talked about how the company had a team working all weekend to prevent the spread of the New Zealand attack video on Facebook... but the video is still spreading on WhatsApp and they have no way of stopping it. Read on...

Shafer doesn't want the NZ video scrubbed from the web

Oliver Darcy emails: Jack Shafer argued in a Wednesday column that the video shot by the New Zealand terrorist should not be removed from the web. Shafer compared the video to footage of the September 11th terrorist attacks, noting networks played such footage on loop and that it is still available online.

I hear what he's saying, but I don't think the massacre video is entirely comparable to the 9/11 footage. One obvious difference is that the New Zealand video was shot by the shooter with the intent it would be used as a propaganda video, while the 9/11 footage was shot by news cameras and witnesses.

Three more takes on Big Tech

-- This distills what lots of people have been thinking: Tech platforms "obliterated ISIS online," and they "could use the same tools on white nationalism." Will they? (BuzzFeed)

-- "The platforms as well as the press are now being held accountable for their reactions and policies in terms of how material enters the public square," Emily Bell writes... (CJR)

-- David Goldman: "If the tech industry wants to survive this wave of regulation and public outrage, it will have to take bold action to fix its mistakes..." (CNN)

Dershowitz rips Nunes' Twitter lawsuit

Oliver Darcy emails: After Devin Nunes filed his lawsuit against Twitter earlier this week, he was roundly mocked online. On Wednesday, he even received some criticism in an unlikely place. Fox News regular Alan Dershowitz ripped Nunes' lawsuit, saying the California congressman "has no case at all" against the social media company. Per Mediaite, Dershowitz went on to argue that the lawsuit was "wrong from a political and ideological point of view." Yikes. 😬

The cow now has more followers than Nunes

"The parody account @DevinCow had only 1,200 followers on Monday," when Nunes filed his suit, but now it has over 500,000 followers. "Of course," the NYT's Laura Holson wrote here, "no one might have heard of @DevinCow if Mr. Nunes had not sued..."

EYE ON 2020

-- Margaret Sullivan's latest conservation-sparking column is on "Beto, Biden and Bernie: The B-Boys and the media's dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy..." (WaPo)

-- Joe Scarborough tweeted Wednesday: "Mika and I have been overwhelmed by the reaction Pete Buttigieg got after being on the show. The only other time in twelve years that we heard from as many people about a guest was after Barack Obama appeared on Morning Joe..." (Twitter)

-- "By conventional standards," Andrew Yang "remains a fringe candidate," but Kevin Roose says "his viral popularity on social media feels reminiscent of the 'meme army' that helped lift President Trump to victory in 2016..." (NYT)

Donna Brazile promises to "speak truth to power" at Fox

Katie Pellico emails: In a contentious interview with the New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner, Donna Brazile defended her decision to sign on as a contributor at Fox News. Brazile promised to "speak truth to power" at the network, describing a December dinner both she and Rupert Murdoch attended...

>> When Chotiner asked her to compare Fox News to other "news or journalism networks, if we are going to call it that," Brazile replied, "Look, you are asking me to condemn Fox without looking at the entire media landscape? You are talking to somebody who saw reporters take bait and food from WikiLeaks and turn it into a front-page story... I am saying to you, as a journalist, that I have seen the media itself tear us apart by using material that was stolen."

>> But then she also said, "I consider myself a pundit. I am not a journalist. I am a pundit with a partisan point of view." Read on...

Glenn Beck says this is "insulting"

Oliver Darcy emails: Glenn Beck responded on Wednesday to suggestions that his recent move to effectively embrace Trump on Sean Hannity's Fox show was motivated by business interests. In an email to Mediaite's conservative columnist John Ziegler, Beck said he found the assertion he warmed to Trump to better appeal to the right-wing base to be "truly insulting," adding that he firmly believes everything he says and is "tired of the business angle." Beck wrote, "I will at times refrain from speaking but I will NEVER sell my soul for a million bucks."

>> Ziegler, however, did not seem to entirely buy this. He wrote, "I really want to be believe that Beck is being sincere, if not also misguided, here, but the timing of this dramatic move is obviously consistent with a business wager that pays off at a higher rate the earlier the bet is made..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Hope Hicks "plans to turn over documents to the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into potential obstruction of justice..." (CNN)

-- Former Fox reporter Diana Falzone "has handed over documents requested by the Chair of the House Oversight Committee..." (MSNBC via Twitter)

-- Jim Puzzanghera is the new DC bureau chief of the Boston Globe... (Politico)

-- One of the strangest and saddest stories of the day: "Mom on popular YouTube show accused of pepper-spraying her kids when they flubbed their lines." She has been charged with abuse... (CNN)

Nexstar shedding 19 stations

Jordan Valinsky reports: Nexstar Media Group is "selling 19 local television stations in 15 US cities to two different companies: Scripps and Tegna. The local TV media conglomerate announced in December it was buying Tribune Media and needed to divest several stations to comply with FCC ownership rules and gain the DOJ's approval for its $4.1 billion deal." Of note, Scripps is picking up WPIX in NYC...

"Bid for Gannett Picks Up Support"

That's one of the headlines in Thursday's WSJ... Cara Lombardo and Lukas I Alpert describe Digital First Media's "step forward in its hostile bid for Gannett Co., with a debt specialist indicating Digital First could raise the funds needed to pay for the $1.4 billion takeover." Gannett responded by saying that Oaktree's confidence in the bid "does not alter the company's assessment of MNG's proposal..."

THE SUNNY SIDE...

Listen closely, and there's a lot of optimism in local news

I spent the day at Facebook, ONA and the Knight Foundation's Accelerate Local News summit in Denver. And what stood out was the optimism. We all know about local's woes. Just scroll up in this newsletter for some of today's examples. But so many people are working on new business models and new media outlets. And they're finding success.

As I mentioned last night, the summit was held under Chatham House Rules, so I can't attribute these quotes, but here's what I scribbled down that may apply to your newsroom:

-- The view from FB: "When we've seen success to date, it's really about collaboration and partnership..."

-- "The structure of our organizations is probably more key to innovation than any tool you can buy or build..."

-- "We're not making news for people, we are making news with people..."

-- "How do we enable people to pay for news on their own terms, not ours?"

-- "Don't just give your reporters web analytics. Give them subscription analytics, to show them what compels people to subscribe..."

-- "What stories inspire people to subscribe? It is not celebrity clickbait. It is investigative reporting..."

-- Smart point about making "audience engagement" more than a buzzword: "If there's no pathway for input from your audience to shape the decisions your newsroom is making, then it's not engagement..."

-- "Journalists are great at informing. We're getting better at engaging. We've got a lot to learn about equipping." Meaning: Spread journalism skills and encourage the public to gather info...

Check out these startups

These are the ventures -- some young, some old, some in between -- that caught my attention:

Spaceship Media... The Colorado Media Project... The Daily Yonder, covering rural America... The Devil Strip in Akron... The newsletter builders at WhereByUs... Chicago's City Bureau, the creators of Documenters.org... Berkeleyside... Hearken... the weekly Migratory Notes newsletter about immigration journalism...

Following up on California's collaboration

On Wednesday I corresponded with Ethan Lindsey, the exec editor of KQED News, one of the outlets that's been coordinating this remarkable statewide collaboration by 33 newsrooms and counting.

"One of the most compelling parts of this work, for me, has been the way newspapers and public media have found real common ground right now," Lindsey said. Competitive pressures have gone by the wayside for the moment. "It has given me some real hope going forward ... especially in a state where public media, some newspapers and the LA Times are all experiencing such moments of ambition and growth," he said.

Maybe best of all? Readers and listeners have been thanking the newsrooms and sending in offers to help out...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Justin Freiman emails: Former NASCAR and IndyCar driver Danica Patrick will be back at the track... as a TV analyst for NBC on the Indy 500. Patrick retired from racing after running the Indy 500 last year... (Yahoo! Sports)

-- Lisa Nishimura is moving to Netflix's film group, and Brandon Riegg is getting comedy oversight in an exec "streamlining..." (Deadline)

-- Here's the latest excerpt from Ramin Setoodeh's "The View" book "Ladies Who Punch..." The book comes out on April 2... (Vulture)

-- Gavin Purcell "has signed an exclusive overall producing deal with Universal Television..." (Deadline)

-- Vice employees in New York are continuing to push for transportation benefits, in particular, rides home for those working late on "Vice Live." One week after staging a walkout, the employee union tweeted, "This disregard for our safety shows the lack of respect VICE management has for the talented and experienced staff working on the company's new flagship project..."

Willie Geist's interviewing strategy

Willie Geist gets the profile treatment by Brian Steinberg in this week's Variety. Some of the highlights:

-- His interviewing strategy: "If I get the first 10 or 15 minutes for them to trust me, it's going to be OK for them to give me a deeper answer, a more thoughtful answer, a longer answer."

-- Why he doesn't bring a list of Q's for his TV interview tapings: "There is no way you would bring a pile of notes if you met somebody in a bar."

-- More to come? "I'm an add-to-the-plate kind of guy. I don't have to choose, and so I won't until they force me to."

-- Elsewhere in the piece, Geist's Sunday E.P. Matt Carluccio "says he'd like to expand the show..."

Uniting Disney and Fox

-- Bob Iger's Wednesday morning memo to staffers: "I wish I could tell you that the hardest part is behind us; that closing the deal was the finish line, rather than just the next milestone. What lies ahead is the challenging work of uniting our businesses to create a dynamic, global entertainment company..."

-- To the thousands of staffers worried about the impending layoffs, Iger said some businesses will be "impacted more than others," with details coming "as quickly as possible..."

-- Deadline has lots of info for Disney and Fox staffers here...

The Burbank <-> Century City shuttle

Brian Lowry emails: This story by Variety's Cynthia Littleton and Brent Lang noted one of the more nettlesome logistical problems the deal has introduced if you know anything about the geography of Los Angeles — namely, that there's almost no good way to get from Disney's HQ in Burbank (and adjacent offices in Glendale) to the historic Fox lot in Century City.

Rupert Murdoch retained the Fox property, but in the interim there's going to be a lot of shuffling between the two locations, which can take more than an hour if you're trying to traverse those 20-some-odd miles anywhere near rush hour.

Fox broadcast network's "fresh start" ad

Fox aired a one-time-only trailer in prime time celebrating the start of the new Fox Corp... Brian Lowry says it's basically a promo saying "We're still in business." The trailer is up on YouTube...

Why Matthew Ball is bullish about Disney+

Matthew Ball's latest must-read for REDEF: "Disney may be entering the SVOD market late and without much of its best content, but Disney+ is going to thrive. And while some of the reasons are evident, most remain overlooked or misunderstood." Read on...

A new 'Bill & Ted' movie is actually happening

Sandra Gonzalez writes: "Most excellent news for supporters of the 'everything old is new again' trend in Hollywood: Bill and Ted are making a new movie. Hammerstone Studios on Wednesday announced that production will begin this summer on a third installment of the 'Bill & Ted' franchise, with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter set to reprise their roles as the duo of metalhead slackers...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

By Lisa Respers France:

-- Kit Harington sought therapy after Jon Snow's death on "Game of Thrones."

-- Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus and Halsey are among Woodstock 50 headliners. The event pays tribute to the iconic 1969 festival.

-- R. Kelly returned to social media in honor of his daughter's birthday.

Lowry reviews "The Act"

Brian Lowry emails: Erin Lee Carr's documentary "Mommy Dead and Dearest" made quite an impression when it aired on HBO, and the story of the Blanchards — Gypsy and her mother Dee Dee, who was eventually murdered — birthed first a quickie Lifetime movie and now "The Act," a Hulu series. The eight-part drama was adapted by Michelle Dean from her BuzzFeed article on the story, featuring Patricia Arquette (using a pretty off-putting accent) and Joey King in this strange mother-daughter tale...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

By Katie Pellico

-- Lupita Nyong'o talks about being Jordan Peele's "second pair of eyes" on the story of "Us," in theaters Friday... (NYT)

-- The trailer for season 3 of Netflix's "Stranger Things" is out. The fireworks-laden "hair-metal mall battle" seems fitting for the July 4th release... (NY Post)

-- Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" trailer came out Wednesday too. Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino... "How many stars can you spot?" (USA Today)

Epic Games is "sharing Fortnite's unbelievable success"

Katie Pellico writes: Epic Games is doling out $100 million in grants to game developers, media creators, students and educators (or anyone working to improve "the open-source 3D graphics ecosystem"). CEO Tim Sweeney announced the "Epic MegaGrants" program at the Game Developers Conference Wednesday, saying, "This is our way of sharing Fortnite's unbelievable success."

Sweeney shared more of Fortnite's successes at the conference: The game gained 50 million new users in the last 4 months, now at 250 million in total.

>> Asked about Apex Legends, the new-ish game that garnered 50 million users in its first month, Sweeney told VentureBeat, "We hit a Fortnite non-event peak twice after Apex was out." If anything, he says Apex's "adding a unique spin" to shooter games "re-energized a lot of shooter players" on Fortnite.

>> CNET's Ian Sherr writes, "Fortnite, as much a cultural phenom as a video game, continues its march toward world domination..."

Thanks for reading! Email me feedback anytime. See you tomorrow...