Forward

Mueller madness

It's as simple as this: No one knows anything.

Brian Lowry emails: While March Madness plays on a suite of Turner networks and CBS, is it fair to say the cable news networks have a pretty good case of Mueller Madness? It's been fashionable to draw comparisons between the Trump admin and reality shows, but the waiting game for the report — with chyrons referring to Washington being on "high alert" — tap into other popular genres, beginning with a tantalizing mystery. And one suspects that the longer the suspense drags out, the harder it'll be for pundits to heed all the calls and reminders to be patient and avoid speculation...

But seriously -- where is the Mueller report?

The "NBC Nightly News," several CNN programs, and several MSNBC programs led with the possibly imminent Mueller report on Thursday evening. "Bracing for Mueller," NBC's Lester Holt said: "The anticipation is palpable tonight, after almost two years into an investigation that moved under a virtual airtight cloak of secrecy, impervious to political arrows. There's a growing belief that the Mueller report is all but complete."

Notice Holt's use of passive voice. He said "there's a growing belief." Among whom? Why?

Over on ABC, Jon Karl cited "widespread speculation his investigation is about to end."

This seems like one of those times when reporters know more than they can say. Are officials at the DOJ providing guidance about an expected timeline? Are well-placed legal sources standing by for news? Again, it seems that way, but I don't know.

I appreciated Anderson Cooper's candor about the situation on "AC360" Thursday night: "We thought that today might be the day," he said, "and we were certainly not alone..."

"The TMZ phase of this probe"

Another sign that newsrooms thought Thursday might be the day: Multiple news agencies had photographers outside the special counsel's semi-secret office location in DC on Thursday morning. They snapped photos of Mueller pulling into the parking garage, ball cap on his head, security pass in his hand.

"Mueller's been going to work for 20 months, but we're now in some sort of mood where photographers are camped out, trying to get this," MSNBC's Ari Melber commented.

CNN, of course, has had a crew of reporters staking out Mueller's office for months. Clues are sometimes discerned by the comings and goings -- including the clues that helped lead CNN to land exclusive footage of Roger Stone's arrest. Last month Katelyn Polantz made a list of the scoops that have been borne out of the stakeout (now known as #CNNStakeout on Twitter).

On Thursday Polantz also made a list of "signs of a wind-down" at the special counsel's office:

- SCO prosecutors bringing family into the office for visits
- Staff carrying out boxes
- Manafort sentenced, top prosecutor leaving
- Office of 16 attorneys down to 10
- DC US Attorney's office stepping up in cases
- Grand jury not seen in 2 months

March going out like a lamb?

Some news outlets are reporting that the Mueller team is done handing down indictments. But Carl Bernstein and John Dean both indicated on "AC360" that they think more indictments are coming. Bernstein said it's a "very real question." Dean said "I think more indictments are coming."

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz interjected: "I don't think there's going to be any more indictments in terms of the Mueller team. They're at the point where they're done with their work. It's been very clear to us that if there's going to be any other indictments, if there's going to be any other law enforcement activity, it's going to come outside of the Mueller team..."

What reporters want to know...

-- In the words of the aforementioned Ari Melber, "whether tomorrow could be the Mueller Friday to end all Mueller Fridays..."

-- Evan Perez on CNN: "The big question we all have on our minds is, What did he find on the big question of collusion? Was there actually a conspiracy between members of the president's campaign and people in Russia, people connected to the government of Russia? Did that actually happen? Was the president aware of any of this?"

-- Did the president try to obstruct this investigation?

-- What will A.G. Bill Barr do when he receives the report?

-- How long will this process take?

James Comey's hope

What does James Comey want from the Mueller report? A "demonstration to the world — and maybe most of all to our president and his enablers — that the United States has a justice system that works because there are people who believe in it and rise above personal interest and tribalism." That's what he wants to see. In an op-ed in Friday's NYT, Comey also says he hopes Trump is not impeached, because it will drive some of the president's fans "farther from the common center of American life, more deeply fracturing our country."

He says a "resounding election result" against Trump would be better, because it would show that a POTUS "cannot be a chronic liar who repeatedly attacks the rule of law." THEN, he said, "we can get back to policy disagreements. I just hope we are up to it."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- "The Florida man accused of sending mail bombs to CNN offices and prominent Democrats pleaded guilty on Thursday in Manhattan federal court to 65 felony counts..." (CNN)

-- With Disney taking over, the Fox restructuring is underway: Thursday's cuts "were small in number, but seismic in impact..." (Variety)

-- More: "After upending the senior leadership ranks at 20th Century Fox," Alan Horn and top lieutenant Alan Bergman "have set the reporting structure going forward for the combined movie studios..." (THR)

-- Join us on the "Reliable Sources" team: We're looking for a new Editorial Producer -- "responsible for booking guests, making pitches, and handling newsmaker requests" -- check out the details and apply here... (WarnerMedia)

Meghan McCain books Khzir Khan

On Wednesday and Thursday's episodes of "The View," Meghan McCain has tried to shift attention away from the president attacking her father and toward veterans' issues. And on Thursday night she tweeted: "I haven't been able to stop thinking about Khzir Khan and his son United States Army Captain Humayun Khan this entire week -- I am blessed to have the platform @TheView and look forward to speaking with Mr. Khan on the show Monday to talk veterans, patriotism, politics & grief."

>> Khan also spoke out on "AC360" Thursday night...

Pirro suspension continues

Jeanine Pirro's weekend show will be pre-empted for a second straight week, according to the network's schedule. This means Trump's call for Fox to "bring back Judge Jeanine" is not being heeded, at least not yet.

Pirro's suspension was always intended to last for two weeks, per a source familiar with the matter. This means Pirro is scheduled to return on Saturday, March 30. The network has declined to confirm or deny on Pirro's status, but here's my full story...

"Former Murdoch Executive Says He Quit Over Fox's Anti-Muslim Rhetoric"

Thursday's scoop by NPR's David Folkenflik: One of Rupert Murdoch's former senior executives, Joseph Azam, "says he left his job in late 2017 over the coverage of Muslims, immigrants and race by Fox News and other Murdoch news outlets."

Azam, a Muslim immigrant who was born in Kabul and came to the United States as a toddler, was a senior VP at News Corp. Per Folkenflik, "Azam says the rhetoric coming from some of his corporate colleagues sickened him: Muslims derided as threats or less than human; immigrants depicted as invaders, dirty or criminal; African-Americans presented as menacing; Jewish figures characterized as playing roles in insidious conspiracies."

Azam described it this way: "Scaring people. Demonizing immigrants. Creating, like, a fervor — or an anxiety about what was happening in our country. It fundamentally bothered me on a lot of days and I think I probably wasn't the only one."

At one point in 2017, Azam responded to a tweet from Tucker Carlson's account that asked, "Why does America benefit from having tons of people from failing countries come here?" Azam replied "If you come upstairs to where all the executives who run your company sit and find me I can tell you, Tucker. #Afghanistan." Azam says his boss "took him aside and counseled him not to attack other figures in the larger Murdoch empire." Read the full story on NPR's site...

>> Folkenflik said "executives at Fox News and News Corp. declined to comment."

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Marisa Porto, the head of the The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press newspapers, is leaving amid a "restructuring..." (Pilot)

-- Gawker's parent company has named former Details magazine editor Dan Peres "as the editor in chief of Gawker.com, the latest move in its bid to revive the dormant website brought down by a high-profile legal battle..." (NYT)

-- BuzzFeed's Marisa Carroll is joining NYMag's incoming editor David Haskell as features editor... (NYMag)

-- Time's Up and The Wing are teaming up... (THR)

THIS WEEK'S RELIABLE SOURCES PODCAST:

Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara says socialism is having a moment

Jacobin, a magazine about democratic socialism, says it is benefiting from the rise of politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and readers' fears about the Trump presidency. On this week's "Reliable" podcast, Bhaskar Sunkara, Jacobin's founder and editor, told me he has seen a "Trump bump" and a Bernie Sanders "bump" too.

Jacobin was founded almost a decade ago, but the real growth has happened in the past few years. "A lot of the credit is owed to Bernie Sanders," he said. The Jacobin website now gets 2 million unique visitors on a good month, he said. The magazine has several podcasts and several international offshoots. The term "socialism," he said, "doesn't conjure up fears the way it used to." Listen to our conversation via Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher, or your favorite app...

"Not even halfway through her first year in office..."

"Not even halfway through her first year in office," AOC "has already established herself as one of the faces of the Democratic party, a hero to progressive voters and a nemesis to Republicans," Tom Kludt wrote Thursday. This week's TIME cover is the latest example...

WarnerMedia adding chief diversity and inclusion officer

Tom Kludt writes: "WarnerMedia said Thursday that it is creating a new role: chief diversity and inclusion officer."

The context: This month's restructuring at WarnerMedia (CNN's parent) has sparked a lot of internal scrutiny. CEO John Stankey was asked about his all-male leadership team when the execs appeared on stage at a company town hall.

The new officer, reporting directly to Stankey, will "transform our culture to one of even greater inclusion and belonging," he said in a memo on Thursday. The person has not yet been named...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

By Katie Pellico:

-- Why are newsrooms unionizing? A NewsGuild organizer tells Steven Greenhouse, "This generation is tired of hearing that this industry requires martyrdom, that it requires that you suck it up, that you accept low wages and long hours..." (NiemanLab)

-- John Homans is replacing Jon Kelly as EIC of VF's The Hive... (WWD)

-- CNN's Donie O'Sullivan tweeted Thursday: "It is a lot of work covering this company." He was talking about Facebook, and talking about this new revelation that the company mishandled hundreds of millions of user passwords... (CNN)

How hate and misinfo have found a new home on Instagram

Oliver Darcy emails: The Atlantic's Taylor Lorenz published one of Thursday's must-read stories, showing how Instagram has become "the Internet's new home" for hate and misinformation. Instagram, which has largely escaped the scrutiny other social media platforms have faced, is "teeming with these conspiracy theories, viral misinformation, and extremist memes, all daisy-chained together via a network of accounts with incredible algorithmic reach and millions of collective followers," Lorenz wrote. For instance, in her piece, Lorenz noted that pages with anti-vaccine are still disseminating misinformation to Instagram users. Speaking of which...

Where's the crackdown?

Oliver Darcy continues: Lorenz's piece led me to check in on both Facebook and Instagram to see if they have actually made progress curbing the distribution of anti-vaccine content. Recall, earlier this month on March 7, Facebook pledged that it would no longer show and recommend anti-vaccine content. But the issue has still persisted. A variety of anti-vaccine pages were recommended to me on both Instagram and Facebook when I used the search tools on each platform on Thursday.

An Instagram spokesperson told me the process has always been scheduled to take several weeks (FB's blog post from March 7 did not say this) and called the effort a "long-term commitment." In the short term, however, the spokesperson told me Instagram would be blocking hashtags with health-related misinformation. Read my full story here…

The vile comments Breitbart readers posted after Christchurch attack

More from Oliver Darcy: As I noted after the Christchurch attack, one does not need to venture to 4chan and the dark corners of the Internet to come across vile or racist comments/discussions. The comment sections of some of the popular far-right websites are littered with this kind of stuff. Don't believe me? Take a look at this Twitter thread by Ed Gibney, who keeps a close eye on Breitbart's comment section. He reviewed the far-right website's comment section after the Christchurck attack and made some disturbing discoveries. Gibney said 40% of the comments he reviewed were anti-Muslim, while 20% "expressed some form of joy or happiness" over the shooting...

Counting down to Apple day...

-- A peek behind the curtain before Monday's event at Apple HQ? Recode's Peter Kafka says Apple's video strategy revolves around "helping other people sell streaming video subscriptions and taking a cut of the transaction." He says "Apple's original shows and movies should be considered very expensive giveaways, not the core product..."

-- As for Apple's expected news subscription service, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Vox has signed up to be part of it...

Trump taped with Fox

President Trump recently complained about some of Fox's daytime news anchors, but he still wants the network's audience and adoration. On Thursday he sat for an interview with Maria Bartiromo... It's airing on Friday's "Mornings with Maria" on Fox Biz... And Bartiromo deserves some credit for pushing back when she asked about the recent McCain attacks and Trump said "I'm not a fan."

"But Mr. President, he's dead. He can't punch back," she said. "I know you punch back, but he's dead."

"No, I don't talk about it," Trump claimed. "People ask me the question, I didn't bring this up. You just brought it up, you asked the question."

"Well you talked about it this week," she said. Yes he did -- on Twitter -- so his excuse about people just asking him questions is bogus...

Fact-checking the Lima, Ohio speech

Sometimes the purest, shortest fact-checks are the best. Case in point: The NYT's Linda Qiu says that Trump, speaking in Ohio on Wednesday, "exaggerated his role in Mr. McCain's funeral, mischaracterized the senator's record on veterans issues and cited misleading statistics on the economy and tanks." There -- that's all you need to know...

Conway's response to yesterday's newsletter

Last night I wrote about how George Conway has been sounding increasingly urgent alarms about Trump's "condition" via Twitter. I said that Conway is proposing a different way to cover the president.

He responded to last night's newsletter and wrote: "Yes. As I said to Susan Glasser, to understand Trump 'you have to look at everything through the prism of his narcissism.' Once you do that, pretty much everything makes sense."

He added a tweet that said, "The only qualifier to this is that his compulsive lying is also important to understand. He lies, as we have seen, about everything, about matters big and small, about things that matter and things that don't."

>> Kellyanne Conway, meanwhile, said on Fox Biz, "I'm not being asked to choose between my marriage and my job..."

>> George Conway's assertions are really serious. Yet Fox's "The Five" went with a "FAMILY FEUD" game show theme for its Thursday chat about the controversy...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Pinterest "has sped up the timing of its IPO," the WSJ's Maureen Farrell reported Thursday. It is "preparing to make the filing public as early as Friday and list its shares on the NYSE in mid-April." The company is not commenting... (WSJ)

-- Comcast just announced a "$5-per-month Flex streaming platform for cord cutters." Chris Welch said "you're basically paying to rent a streaming box with Comcast's guide..." (The Verge)

-- "Welcome to Noraville, the Small Maryland Town Rebuilt by Nora Roberts:" This is a wonderful read about the "still-reigning queen of the romance industry..." (Jezebel)

-- "Tobacco giant Philip Morris International has teamed up with youth-focused Vice Media to promote vaping, in a move that has alarmed health campaigners..." (FT)

"Vice Live" cut in half

After just three weeks, Viceland has cut "Vice Live" in half. The variety show had been airing from 9 to 11 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays... But the Nielsen ratings were miniscule. The show's telecasts were averaging 50,000 viewers on a good night. So on Monday Vice dropped the 9 p.m. hour and started to only show "Vice Live" at 10 p.m.

>> Flashback: "Vice Live" was designed in part to fill the void left when "Desus & Mero" migrated to Showtime. The trouble is, "Desus & Mero" was only ever 30 minutes...

>> When I inquired about this, a Vice spokesman said "we're very happy" with the show -- "it's becoming a showcase for a lot of voices you don't get to see on television from the hosts to the integration of VICE creators from all over the world."

>> The network spokesman said the show was launched as an ongoing experiment. "Part of experimentation is learning, and we learned that in order to foster the potential we see in all this talent we needed to make a more concentrated version of the show."

Dan Frommer's new publication

Five months after leaving Recode, Dan Frommer "is launching a new publication, The New Consumer — an umbrella term he's using to describe the changing landscape in e-commerce, online advertising and direct-to-consumer brands," TechCrunch's Anthony Ha reported Thursday. The core product "will be the Executive Briefing, a newsletter that Frommer plans to put out twice a week, and that you'll need to pay a $200 annual subscription fee to read." Details here...

>> Frommer emails: "I am eager to stay the heck away from the online ad market and build a direct relationship with my professional readers. Email is an amazing format and — as you know, Brian! — there's no more privileged media real estate than inbox access..."

Fact-check: True!

Conservative media writer loses job for accurate CPAC reporting

Oliver Darcy emails: A writer for the conservative media organization Live Action said in a story published Thursday that he was forced to resign after he reported that far-right activist Laura Loomer was "verbally tormenting" me a few weeks ago at CPAC. Zachary Petrizzo told TheWrap's Jon Levine that in addition to Loomer pressuring his bosses to fire him, he was also threatened by her with a lawsuit. This story is nuts, and shows the influence far-right activists like Loomer have amassed in the conservative movement...

Lowry reviews "Us"

Brian Lowry emails: Jordan Peele has been somewhat victimized by his own success with "Get Out" in his second feature, "Us," a solid, almost old-fashioned horror movie starring Lupita Nyong'o that isn't as well-conceived or satisfying as the writer-director's Oscar-nominated debut. Not that this creative quibble will bother a movie that figures to grace Universal with big numbers this weekend...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- "One Day At A Time" still seeking a new TV home? Co-showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett tweeted on Thursday: "Lots of new news in the news. But I'm still over here fighting. It's not over yet..." (Twitter)

-- Geoff Edgers spent a week traveling through Israel with Roseanne Barr. His takeaway: She "just can't shut up..." (WaPo)

-- The latest impact of TV's true crime wave: Atlanta police say they will look into a decades-old killing spree, two days ahead of the premiere of Investigation Discovery's docuseries on the cold case. "The Atlanta Child Murders" premieres Saturday at 9 p.m. ET... (CNN)

"Does Netflix have a killer problem?"

Brian Lowry emails: Does Netflix have a violence problem? Probably no more so than the rest of the entertainment industry, despite Steven Zeitchik's Washington Post piece detailing excesses in its programming lineup. But the story reveals a larger issue that others, including Disney, should take to heart -- namely, that as companies bulk up their content rosters, they expose themselves to criticism on a variety of fronts.

For Netflix, the issue is compounded by its lack of transparency, making the company's defense -- "focusing on one genre to the exclusion of all these others simply doesn't reflect the programming we offer" -- ring somewhat hollow, since reports can't quantify how various genres drive subscriptions...

Remembering Eunetta T. Boone

Lisa Respers France emails: On a personal level I was gutted by news of the death of "Raven's Home" showrunner Eunetta T. Boone. When I was a brand new reporter with my first gig at the Los Angeles Times, Eunetta took me under her wing. Like me, she had worked at The Baltimore Sun before she went on to blaze trails as a writer and producer in Hollywood. She was funny, she was talented and she was a shero to many African American women like me. I can't even express what a loss this is and how much she will be missed. 🙏

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

-- By Lisa Respers France: Lee Daniels has opened up about his and the "Empire" team's "pain" and "sadness" in the wake of the Jussie Smollett case...

-- One more from Lisa: Amy Schumer says she shared her husband's autism diagnosis because they both want to help remove the stigma...

-- Chloe Melas reports: Emilia Clarke revealed that she underwent two life-saving brain surgeries earlier this decade...

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