EXEC SUMMARY: Operation Varsity Blues has already sparked a book deal, People mag has a new editor, NBC has hired a YouTube star, and the Washington Post has launched a new long-form Opinions space. Plus, will Friday be veto day? Scroll down for the latest...
Friday's lead story
There are early reports of horrific mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. One mosque attendee told CNN the gunman fired for "10 to 15 minutes" and took aim at more than 200 people.
Per CNN.com's latest reporting, "police are aware of a video shared online and not verified by CNN that purports to show a gunman walking into an unnamed mosque and opening fire."
CNN.com will have constant updates here... For live local coverage, check the TVNZ website...
INTRODUCING...
The One Free Press Coalition
The AP, the FT, Forbes, HuffPost, Reuters, and other news outlets are coming together to form the One Free Press Coalition.
This new group will be announced on Friday. It will share a monthly "10 Most Urgent" list of journalists under attack all around the world. The idea is to highlight cases of journalists "who are incarcerated, under threat or facing injustice," the coalition says. Here is the current list, which is not ranked in any specific order:
-- Maria Ressa, founder of Rappler, The Philippines
-- The late Jamal Khashoggi, Washington Post columnist, Saudi Arabia
-- Eman Al Nafjan, prominent women's rights blogger, Saudi Arabia
-- Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Reuters, Myanmar
-- Claudia Duque, a veteran investigative reporter, Colombia
-- Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed, prominent blogger, Mauritania
-- Anna Nimiriano, editor of Juba Monitor, South Sudan
-- Pelin Unker, Cumhuriyet, Turkey
-- Thomas Awah Junior, correspondent for Afrik 2 Radio and publisher of Aghem Messenger, Cameroon
-- Tran Thi Nga, prominent human rights blogger, Vietnam
CPJ and IWMF will help identify which journalists belong on the list. It will be updated on the first day of each month and shared by each of the participating news outlets. Other members include Time mag, Yahoo News, Belgium's De Standaard, Brussels-based EURACTIV, Le Temps in Switzerland, Süddesutsche Zeitung in Germany. News outlets can become members by emailing the coalition here.
How this coalition formed
Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane brought up this concept when the International Media Council met in Davos earlier this year. "Together, our reach online and on social will signal solidarity for our colleagues and simultaneously tell those who threaten free speech that we are watching," Lane said in a statement...
FIRST LOOK:
WaPo Opinion's new longform effort
The Washington Post's Opinions section is launching what it calls a "new longform storytelling initiative" on Friday. "The Opinions Essay" will create a regular space on the web and in print for magazine cover-type pieces.
The first essay is by historian Robert Kagan... It just went up on the WaPo website… And it will appear in a four-page section in Sunday's print edition. Title: "The strongmen strike back." His message: Authoritarianism "has reemerged as the greatest threat to the liberal democratic world – a profound ideological, as well as strategic, challenge. And we have no idea how to confront it." | |
Trump: "It would be very bad, very bad..."
Arguably the most newsworthy part of Breitbart's interview with POTUS was his hint about violence. He claimed "the left plays a tougher game" -- but HIS supporters are actually tougher, and if they acted out, "it would be very bad, very bad."
Here's CNN's Chris Cuomo on Thursday night: "Imagine for a moment if I said something like this. 'You know, Trump supporters, they play rough. Threaten my life. Bother me at home. Scare my kids. But you know, I have the support of my local police and the military. And some biker friends. I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough until they go to a certain point. And then it would be very bad, very bad.' What do you think happens if I were to say that for real? At a minimum, the Trump trio at Fox would go nuts, and rightly so for a change. My boss would insist I apologize if he even let me stay on. I may be seen as way too unstable to even do this job. Well, what I just said is exactly what this president said today! And he actually DOES have control of the military..."
--> Joe Lockhart's reaction: Trump is "threatening violence against his political opponents" and yet "I bet we don't find it on the front page of any newspaper..."
--> But here's the thing: The threat was veiled enough that Trump's defenders can easily dismiss it...
Conway's dodge
Kellyanne Conway dodged Cuomo's Q's about the veiled threat. Later, Cuomo said to Don Lemon, "I've never seen Kellyanne less effective in defense of the president than she was tonight."
Lemon re-upped his POV that Conway shouldn't be booked on CNN. "For me, it feels beneath the dignity of this network to have someone on who just constantly lies and misconstrues things," he said.
A five-minute-long discussion ensued -- a miniature editorial meeting! Cuomo's rationale for booking Conway: "This is who the president wants out there. I want people to see what he considers his best defense." I posted video of the conversation here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE | | -- Stephen Colbert's open on Thursday night: "Thank you for joining us on day 28 of Donald Trump's national emergency..." (Twitter)
-- The CBS and PBS nightly newscasts led with the 12 GOP senators "defying Trump" by rebuking his national emergency declaration. NBC led with "air disasters connected?" and ABC led with the "bomb cyclone..."
-- Per CNN's Jim Acosta, "aides are hashing out a plan for President Trump to use his veto pen in front of cameras as soon as Friday..." (CNN)
Chris and Chris leaving Facebook
The WSJ.com's lead story right now is "Facebook Executives' Exits Jolt Company Amid Strategy Shift."
The top takeaway from Jeff Horwitz and Georgia Wells: Chris Cox, who was "viewed as a potential successor to Mark Zuckerberg," stepped down while signaling "that he disagrees with the CEO's new focus on private messaging."
The other departing exec, WhatsApp chief Chris Daniels, "handed in his resignation months ago," but FB didn't announce it until Thursday, per the NYT's Mike Isaac.
>> "The steady drip of executive departures come amid a bruising two year period" for FB, CNN's Seth Fiegerman wrote here...
"The Apology Machine"
Sarah Frier's must-read for Bloomberg Businessweek is about "how Facebook makes its hardest content decisions, what they do when things become a crisis, and why critics are still concerned." (She summed it up here.)
This is one heck of a cover for her story, depicting Zuckerberg as "The Apology Machine:" | |
This week's "Reliable" pod is all about... podcasts!
I wanted to chart the growth of podcasting, so I booked Nick Quah, the founder of Hot Pod and a critic for Vulture. Are podcasts the new blogs? Has the pod industry "peaked?" What is Spotify's strategy? We talked about all of that and more. Quah said "the thing to watch over the next 4 or 5 years is... How does money change the fundamental nature of this medium?" Listen to our chat via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite podcast purveyor...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Very important story by Craig Silverman and Jane Lytvynenko: "Reddit has become a battleground of alleged Chinese trolls..." (BuzzFeed)
-- Brad Stone, author of "The Everything Store," is writing a second book about Amazon. Title: "Amazon Unbound." Release date: Fall of 2021... (Axios)
-- Layoffs were announced at The Intercept earlier this week... (Beast)
Operation Varsity Blues: Hallmark Channel severs ties with Lori Loughlin
"Three companies have distanced themselves from actress Lori Loughlin and her daughter over an alleged college admissions scam," Lisa Respers France wrote Thursday. Among them: The Hallmark Channel. "We are no longer working with Lori Loughlin and have stopped development of all productions" involving her, the network's parent company said. Jezebel notes that this is a BIG loss for the channel...
-- More from Lisa: Loughlin's school cheating "Full House" episode has resurfaced...
The first book deal...
Fast Company's Nicole LaPorte had already been working on a book idea about the rich and powerful in L.A. when the admissions scandal broke this week. So she called her agent, they produced a proposal, and Twelve Books bought it on Thursday morning. Incredibly fast turnaround time!
The publishing house says the book will be titled "Guilty Admissions," covering "how a fake non-profit acted as a guaranteed side-door for under-qualified children of wealthy parents to guarantee admissions into top colleges" and zooming out to examine how the college admissions system is broken...
This year's Ellie winners are...
CNN's John Avlon hosted the 2019 National Magazine Awards for Print and Digital Media in Brooklyn on Thursday evening. Via ASME: "The New Yorker won four Ellies, in the Reporting, Feature Writing, Columns and Commentary and Public Interest categories. The New York Times Magazine and Topic were the only other publications to receive more than one Ellie, both winning two."
Four publications received general excellence Ellies: National Geographic, the NYT's Style mag T, the children's mag Kazoo, and the Virginia Quarterly Review.
Adam Moss received the Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame Award... The ASME NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30 were presented to Bon Appétit's Alex Lau, New York's Olivia Nuzzi, Philadelphia's Ernest Owens, The Atlantic's Jeremy Raff and ESPN The Magazine's Elaine Teng...
--> Here is David Remnick's congratulatory email to New Yorker staffers...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- The National Book Critics Circle announced its 2018 award winners on Thursday night... Steve Coll received the nonfiction prize for "Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan..." Zadie Smith took home the criticism prize for "Feel Free: Essays..." Here's the complete list... (NBCC)
-- Correction: In last night's letter, while writing about offensive blog posts in Angelo Carusone's past, I said The Daily Caller wrote about the same comments back in 2014. In fact, Peter Hasson told me, "not all of Carusone's past comments had been reported before. His comments about 'Japs' and 'Jewish gold' were both reported for the first time in my Tuesday piece."
-- Carusone issued a new statement on Thursday... (WaPo)
-- Tucker Carlson said that "anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why." Erik Wemple says this was "Carlson's lie of the week..." (WaPo)
House Oversight requests documents from Diana Falzone
CNN's Lauren Fox writes: "The House Oversight Committee is requesting documents from former Fox News reporter Diana Falzone. The letter requests, among other things, 'all documents…referring or relating to women alleging extramarital affairs with Donald Trump.'"
Background: Falzone is subject to a non-disclosure agreement right now, so she can't talk about her reporting about Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels that was shelved by the network in 2016. Earlier this week her attorney Nancy Erika Smith suggested a subpoena would be a way out of the NDA.
The latest: Smith told MSNBC's Ari Melber on Thursday that this document request "is an exception to the NDA." So Falzone DOES intend to appear for a transcribed interview with the committee...
Gayle King's great interview streak continues
CBS is still touting the high ratings for Gayle King's interview with R. Kelly. Meantime, she keeps landing "gets:" On Thursday she had Beto O'Rourke's first sit-down interview about his entrance into the 2020 race. | | Highlights from the interview will air on Friday's "CBS This Morning..."
Hudson Yards grand opening in NYC
The critics... have not been kind. But the crowd loved the Hudson Yards opening night party on Thursday. Jamie and I thought the best part was José Andrés' Mercado Little Spain food hall. The mall officially opens on Friday... WarnerMedia, including CNN, will be moving into 30 Hudson Yards this spring...
Spotted at the grand opening: Gary Vaynerchuk, Don Lemon, Tim Malone, Anne Hathaway, Rosa Goldensohn, Amy Chozick, Michael Musto, Steve Case, Ana Navarro, Pat Kiernan, Sapna Maheshwari, and many thousands more...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Taylor Lorenz reports that the "hottest chat app for teens is" Google Docs... (The Atlantic)
-- Elisabeth Zerofsky takes a look at the "moral failings of American press coverage of Nazi Germany..." (New Yorker)
-- Twitter shared an update on its diversity goals on Thursday. According to TechCrunch, the company wants its workforce to be "at least 5% black, 5% Latinx by the end of this year..." (TechCrunch)
-- Headline of the day comes courtesy of Bloomberg: "Facebook Takes Worst Bashing on Twitter Since July Stock Crash..." (Bloomberg)
CJR profiles "the lawyer standing between The Times and a hostile world"
Oliver Darcy emails: David McCraw, who just released the new book "Truth In Our Times," received the profile treatment from CJR on Thursday. McCraw is the deputy general counsel for NYT, or as CJR put it, "the lawyer standing between The Times and a hostile world." The article delved into McCraw's role helping get articles to print ("In McCraw's view, the law should open doors to stories, not keep them shut") and characterizes him as someone who is widely liked in the newsroom.
The article also described a task that has fallen to McCraw in recent years -- ensuring the physical safety of NYT journalists. According to the story, McCraw "has helped coordinate the development of a hotline for Times employees who receive threats, aided employees in filing reports with the police, and in some cases commissioned security audits at reporters' homes." Read the whole profile here...
Gannett sells The Big Lead to Minute Media
Darcy emails: Minute Media said on Thursday that it had purchased The Big Lead from Gannett, Morning Consult reported. The deal meant that co-founder Jason McIntyre would no longer be with the website. Morning Consult also reported, "Of The Big Lead's roughly 10 staffers, some full-time and some part-time, only a handful remained as of Thursday afternoon..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Tom Joyner will be honored with the Vanguard Award at the 50th NAACP Image Awards at the end of this month...
-- I missed this yesterday: A&E has tapped Ashleigh Banfield "to host Live Rescue, a spinoff of the network's hit series Live PD," starting April 22... (TVNewser)
People mag gets a new top editor
Tom Kludt emails: Jess Cagle said Wednesday he is stepping down as EIC at People magazine, ending a long career at the magazine and a five-year run as its top editor. On Thursday, we learned his replacement: Dan Wakeford, currently deputy editor, will ascend to the top post.
>> Some context from Tom: Meredith has been putting its stamp on the former Time Inc. properties ever since it acquired the storied magazine publisher, selling Time last year and putting SI on the market. But the company indicated in Thursday's announcement that People still very much figures in its plans...
Drama at "Vice Live" over late-night rides home for staffers
Darcy emails: Some staffers on "Vice Live" are unhappy with management. According to The Daily Beast's Max Tani, employees walked out "following a dispute over the company's refusal to provide rides home for employees working late nights." A tweet from the Vice Union also accused management of refusing to "provide safe rides home for employees." Here is the company's response...
Inside the "Today" show's booming e-commerce biz
"Jill Martin, who has a lifestyle brand on QVC and for nearly a decade has hosted Today's 'Steals & Deals' segment, is now officially joining the show as its lifestyle contributor" to help push the morning show's online store, Fast Company's Cale Guthrie Weissman reported Thursday. "This new e-commerce pursuit brought in $60 million in gross revenue in 2018," and NBC expects it "to grow more this year..."
Whoopi makes surprise appearance on "The View" after pneumonia battle | | Darcy emails: Whoopi Goldberg, who has been absent from "The View" for weeks as she battles a severe case of pneumonia, made a surprise appearance on the program Thursday. Goldberg said, "The only way it's going to get better is if I begin, so this is my beginning." Goldberg said she would try to "ease back" into the show and would "try to come in Monday." She added that her battle with pneumonia was "really bad" and that the "scariest moment" was her doctor telling her, "'You do not realize how close to death you were.'"
First look at Ramin Setoodeh's book
Lisa Respers France emails: Rosie O'Donnell says in a soon-to-be-released book that her father molested her when she was a child. The revelation comes in "Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of 'The View'" by Ramin Setoodeh, which is set to be published on April 2.
--> More: BuzzFeed published an excerpt from Setoodeh's book on Thursday...
| | YouTube star Lilly Singh scores NBC late night show | | "Comedian and YouTube star Lilly Singh is taking over the 1:30 a.m. spot previously occupied by Last Call With Carson Daly, making her the only woman currently with a late-night talk show on a broadcast network," THR's Natalie Jarvey reported Thursday night. "Her new show will be called A Little Late with Lilly Singh and will debut on the network in September. The half-hour show will feature in-studio interviews and pre-taped comedy sketches and segments."
-- Singh celebrated her new role in a Thursday night segment on "The Tonight Show..."
-- Saba Hamedy tweeted: "YouTubers making the jump to their own actual TV shows doesn't always work... But Lilly is not just a generic white male -- and late night needs more like her. 🤞🏽"
Netflix cancels "One Day at a Time"
Brian Lowry emails: Thursday's "One Day at a Time" cancellation -- fully covered by Chloe Melas here -- exposes one of the problems associated with Netflix's refusal to release viewer data. Namely, its decisions can look capricious and arbitrary. While Netflix offered a lengthy thread explaining the move, such cancellations puncture the bubble that Netflix has carefully constructed about somehow being above the conventional TV fray. Ultimately, the LA Times' Steve Battaglio got it right when he tweeted, "I know the numbers are a mystery. But do people really think they would cancel it if it was popular with subscribers?"
The show's producers say that it will be shopped elsewhere. It would be somewhat ironic -- and a sign of the extent to which streaming has truly arrived -- if Sony, which produces the show, actually does find another home for it, given the list of discarded series that Netflix has picked up from other programmers, including "Arrested Development," "Longmire," and deals last fall for "Lucifer" and "Designated Survivor..."
Pallotta's take
Frank Pallotta emails: Netflix said "simply not enough people watched to justify another season." There's one problem with that statement. No one, outside of Netflix, knows how many people watched. Being transparent about viewership data is important because it allows viewers to know WHY something was promoted or canceled. Without it, everyone has to guess or take Netflix's word for it.
That's not good for anybody, which THR TV critic Daniel Fienberg pointed out. Here's the big problem, he wrote, with Netflix cherry-picking ratings for a few shows and keeping everyone "in the dark on EVERYTHING else" -- it means "I can't dispute or argue with Netflix's sincerity here. I can just doubt the f*** out of it."
--> Read Gloria Calderón Kellett and Mike Royce's reactions...
Weekend box office preview
Brian Lowry emails: "Captain Marvel" should have a big second weekend, but it will face a couple of widely released new entries, including "Wonder Park," an animated movie from Paramount/Nickelodeon that starts well before going off the rails. Notably, the project is being released without a director credit, with director Dylan Brown having been fired in 2018...
| | Diverse TV writers report ongoing discrimination
Sandra Gonzalez emails: A group of diverse TV writers is behind a new, troubling report out today about the pattern of discrimination they have faced in Hollywood writers rooms. Among the findings: More than 64% of the those surveyed said they have experienced bias, discrimination, and or harassment while on a writing staff. Others reported significant hurdles when trying to advance in title and rank -- in some cases (about 15% of respondents) even taking demotions in order to be on a writing staff."
I met with seven writers from the Think Tank for Inclusion and Equity (TTIE), the group behind the survey, on Wednesday night in what was something of a coming out for them. It's a bold move to put your name behind an effort like this, but these writers are willing to take that risk. Angela Harvey, whose credits include "Teen Wolf" and "Station 19," thinks it is necessary to put faces to these issues. "I think it takes going on the record to get these tough conversations started because otherwise it's theoretical," she says.
>> Read more in Sandra's story here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Katie Pellico:
-- Two original "Project Runway" producers speak with THR about the show's return to Bravo, and shaking off the "stink of longtime producer (and former format owner) Harvey Weinstein..." (THR)
-- Spencer Kornhaber considers "The All-American Contradictions of 'Queer Eye.'" The show's third season on Netflix, set in Kansas City, drops on Friday... (Atlantic)
-- Lisa Respers France writes: Dominique Gardner fled R. Kelly in what was one of the most dramatic moments in "Surviving R. Kelly." But the young woman who dated the singer for nine years says she doesn't want him imprisoned... (CNN)
-- Justin Freiman emails: A date has been set for the return of "The Sopranos." The prequel to the hit HBO mob series is set to open in theaters September 25, 2020. The film also has a new title, "Newark..." (THR)
FINALLY...
How TV show creators illustrate wealth
Oliver Darcy emails: Ever wonder about the effort that goes into creating the sets for shows like "Billions" that need to illustrate a character's wealth? The NYT has a behind-the-scenes look at all the work involved in the process. For the shows to be believable, producers retain "a number of wealth consultants — some of them billionaires and some of them vendors who cater to billionaires — who advise on what uniforms household staff might wear or which artworks should adorn a corporate office."
In one case, a hedge-funder emailed the "Billions" creators to complain about the state of Axelrod's plane. "I wouldn't be caught dead in that sardine can," the person wrote. NYT notes that the "sardine can" retails for about $40 million...
| | | Thanks for reading! Email me feedback anytime. See you tomorrow... | | | |
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