Forward

War footing

Many Americans are swiping their phones on, turning on the TV, and asking what the hell is happening in the Middle East. They are hearing terrifying assessments of the situation and wondering who and what to believe. Some implicitly trust whatever President Trump's administration says and some automatically distrust whatever his admin says.

So here we are. News outlets should start at the beginning -- not just "who is Qasem Soleimani" but "what are the root causes of hostilities between the US and Iran?" -- and shed light, not heat. Television segments and special reports and stories should include background info and maps and explainers. And this government's proven lack of credibility, on matters both big and small, should be taken into consideration every step of the way.

For the latest on the strike in Baghdad, CNN TV will be live all night and all morning... And here's the main CNN.com story... Right now the homepage headline is "Trump orders killing of Iranian military leader."

Fareed's assessment

A worried Fareed Zakaria said on "CNN Tonight" that "we appear to be -- without, by the way, I would say, without congressional authorization -- entering into another Middle East war."

"This is going to seriously ratchet up the stakes between Washington and Tehran," NBC Tehran bureau chief Ali Arouzi said minutes earlier on MSNBC. He called Soleimani the "second most powerful person in Iran" after the Ayatollah. And he reported that Iranian state TV "has cut all broadcasts and is showing pictures of Qassem Soleimani on a loop accompanied by prayers."

To more fully understand the stakes, read Dexter Filkins' 2013 profile of Soleimani for The New Yorker. It is widely considered to be the definitive piece about the Quds Force commander. On "AC360," Filkins told Anderson Cooper that "things could get mighty dangerous very fast..."

Hannity's sources

Sean Hannity loves to claim that "journalism is dead" from one side of his mouth while saying he has reliable "sources" out of the other side. Hannity was on vacation on Thursday, but guest host Jason Chaffetz cited info from Hannity's "sources," and then interviewed the main man by phone.

This is "a massive victory for all aspects of our government," Hannity said, crediting the military, the intel community, the State Department, and the president. Hannity was laser-focused on pushing back against the comparisons between the recent Baghdad embassy protests and Benghazi. And he was determined to promote the president at every turn. Throughout the hour-long show, the on-screen banners cited Hannity's "sources" saying things like "Trump & advisers prepared for all scenarios after strike kills Iranian commander" and "U.S. military on high alert."

Top notes and quotes

-- Drudge's banner headline: "2020 BEGINS WITH BANG"

-- WaPo's Greg Miller tweeted: "It's been a refrain among US officials -- even many in White House -- that country is fortunate Trump has not faced a lives-at-stake national security test. It's hard to imagine killing Soleimani won't trigger such a test."

-- The Atlantic's EIC Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted: "1) Soleimani was a mass murderer. 2) The record of the past three years, and the yards of reporting on White House decision-making, make it hard to believe that the Administration has a plan to deal with what may be coming."

-- Julia Ioffe: "Everyone's asking if the US government has a plan. Trump spent the last 3 years hollowing out our diplomatic corps, undermining military commanders, and denigrating intelligence agencies. His supporters like it. They believe he was sent by god. They don't need him to have a plan."

-- Victor Blackwell, filling in for Don Lemon on CNN, pointed out that Trump "ran on getting Americans out of the Middle East."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Ted Johnson has a recap of the prime time coverage of the Baghdad strike... (Deadline)

-- The story developed over several hours, with reports of explosions at the Baghdad airport leading to rumors of a high-profile assassination, then rumblings about Soleimani, then confirmation from Iraqi state TV, Iranian TV, and the Pentagon...

-- So far as I can tell, CBS is the only broadcast network that broke into prime time with the news... NBC ran a crawl on the bottom of the screen once the Pentagon confirmation came in...

Just Security's scoop

Kate Brannen's exclusive drove the day on Thursday until news of the Baghdad strike broke. Brannen's headline: "Unredacted Ukraine Documents Reveal Extent of Pentagon's Legal Concerns."

"Tonight," Anderson Cooper said on CNN, putting the new documents in context, "evidence the Trump administration does not want you to see." Full details here...

New Mueller probe memos

Oliver Darcy emails: The DOJ on Thursday released to CNN and BuzzFeed a third batch of memos from key witnesses in Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference. This release included memos about interviews with right-wing conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi. Of note was this Corsi snippet: "Corsi said the Special Counsel's Office interview was the first time he came to terms with the truth. He had been lying to himself to believe his own cover story. Corsi apologized it had taken him so long to come to terms with the truth. He needed to admit to himself that he was lying."

Corsi said Trump would often call him to talk about birther conspiracy

Darcy adds: According to the memos, Corsi discussed with investigators about how he helped start the birther conspiracy theory in 2008. The memos said, "Trump often called Corsi to speak about the birth certificate issue. Corsi described his conversations with Trump as being one-sided, where Trump would often ask Corsi for his opinion and once Corsi began to speak, Trump would cut him off and tell Corsi what he thought about the topic."

The memos said Corsi "left the phone calls feeling as if he had said a lot, but said nothing at all." Corsi told investigators he recalled having about six phone calls with Trump about Obama's birth certificate. When Obama finally released it, Corsi said Trump called him and told him he was done with the topic.

Manafort used Hannity as 'back channel' to Trump

CNN's David Shortell writes: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said he used Sean Hannity as a "back channel" to Trump in the period between the FBI raid of his apartment and his indictment months later, in October 2017. Hannity would send supportive messages to Manafort, telling him to hang in there and that Trump had his back, according to newly released FBI interview notes. Manafort said he didn't recall any direct or indirect communication with the W.H. in the period, but that Hannity, a personal friend, was "certainly a back channel..."

FRIDAY PLANNER

-- When will POTUS speak re: Iraq and Iran?

-- The Senate will reconvene and Mitch McConnell will likely speak on the floor. Impeachment trial updates TBD...

-- On "Today," Jenna Bush Hager will have an exclusive interview with Oprah Winfrey "live in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. as she kicks off 'Oprah's 2020 Vision' tour with Weight Watchers," per NBC...

Billboard 200 adding YouTube video streams

NPR's Alisa Chang reports on a big change to how Billboard determines the most popular music in the country: "It used to be a simple question of which album sold the most physical copies, but now Billboard needs to consider things like Spotify plays and MP3 downloads." Starting Friday, "it will also include YouTube streams" of official videos for songs.

Details from Billboard's website: "In addition to YouTube, officially licensed video content plays from Apple, Spotify, Tidal and Vevo will be included in the album chart's calculations..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- Laura Jarrett debuted as the new co-anchor of CNN's "Early Start" alongside Christine Romans on Thursday morning... (Variety)

-- "American Media and its 80 percent majority owner Chatham Asset Management have still not sold the beleaguered National Enquirer," Keith J. Kelly reports, "some nine months after they said they had an agreement to sell to Hudson News Distributors boss James Cohen for $100 million..." (NYPost)

-- "Stephanie Ruhle has been promoted to senior business correspondent for NBC News and will appear across their flagship shows including 'Today' and 'NBC Nightly News...'" (Page Six)

-- Greg Sargent's latest on the disinfo wars: "A deceptively edited video of Joe Biden signals what's coming..." (WaPo)

Case study: How a fake Twitter account stirred tensions between Jews and African Americans

Donie O'Sullivan emails: We took a look today at an account on Twitter that posed as a Jewish woman commenting about the recent anti-Semitic attacks in New York — but the account was fake and was actually trying to stoke divisions between Jewish and black Americans.

It's the sort of thing that happens every day on Twitter, but this is a telling case study as we spoke to the real woman whose face was used without her permission to front the fake account, a black Jewish person who reported the account but was told by Twitter that it didn't break its rules. We also have some insight from real trolls who cheered on the account, and Twitter's inaction, from the comfort of 4chan. Read on...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- Ben Dooley's scoop from Tokyo: Carlos Ghosn "held early discussions with a movie producer before his audacious escape. The film's villain: Japanese justice." (NYT)

-- New from Keith J. Kelly: "The passing on Monday of Sonny Mehta, head of the Alfred A. Knopf imprint of Penguin Random House, has set off an industry guessing game on who will succeed the legendary publisher atop a crown jewel of the publishing world..." (NYPost)

-- "Rachel Maddow: A Biography," authored by Lisa Rogak, comes out next Tuesday... The book delves into her "lifelong battle with depression," per this preview... (Page Six)

-- Will Sommer dissects how Trump is using his Twitter to promote and bring credibility to the "dangerous" QAnon conspiracy theory, at times retweeting believers "more than 20 times on the same day." One QAnon "promoter" told Sommer that the "best case is we're up getting a medal at the White House..." (The Daily Beast)

-- Boris Kachka is leaving his post as NY Mag books editor to join the LA Times, where he will work on the recently launched Book Club... (Twitter)

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

By Kerry Flynn:

-- Max Willens reports on the rise of freelancers and salaried workers organizing unions... (Digiday)

-- Hamilton Nolan writes about the lessons he learned as a media reporter, most recently at G/O Media's now-defunct Splinter... (The Guardian)

-- Alex Barker reports on outdoor advertising overtaking newspaper ad sales in 2020, according to GroupM estimates... (FT)

-- Gaby Del Valle reports on cops using TikTok to inspire a positive view of law enforcement, as they've done on other social platforms... (GEN)

-- Kate Clark is joining The Information to cover early-stage startups and venture capital. She is currently at TechCrunch with that same beat... (Twitter)

Plepler's Apple deal is official

Frank Pallotta writes: Richard Plepler, the former HBO CEO, will produce content for Apple TV+.

The WSJ's Joe Flint scooped the news in November that Plepler was in talks to ink a deal with Apple. Now it's done -- and in effect for the next five years. The deal includes original TV series, feature films and documentaries. Plepler will produce the new content via his New York-based production company, Eden Productions.

"I could make a little contribution..."

Pallotta adds: NYT's John Koblin broke the news on Thursday and published an interview with Plepler. After leaving HBO, Plepler said, "I thought that Apple was the right idea very quickly, just because it was embryonic enough that I thought maybe, you know, I could make a little contribution there."

But perhaps the juiciest bits were left unsaid... "One topic Mr. Plepler did not want to discuss in detail: his exit from HBO," Koblin wrote. "New people came in and bought the company," Plepler told him. "And it was just the right time for me to go on to the next chapter in my life."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- "'Fortnite' remained the biggest game of the year for 2019 in terms of revenue, raking in an impressive $1.8 billion — a decline of 25% off a record-setting $2.4 billion take a year earlier..." (Variety)

-- Adam Schefter's 11-year-old daughter Dylan is joining Fox Sports college basketball coverage "as a special correspondent." She will host a segment called "Dylan's Sweet Corner..." (USA Today)

-- RuPaul's "self-titled daytime talk show is not moving forward following its trial run..." (TheWrap)

-- ABC aired a one-hour special about "Jeopardy!" and Alex Trebek on Thursday night. In advance of the special, Trebek sat down with Michael Strahan... (ABC)

Strong football #'s

Brian Lowry emails: ESPN is ringing up solid ratings for college bowl games and the NFL is posting year-over-year ratings growth for its regular season games, the latest evidence that live sports remain one of the few genres to buck the ratings erosion trend. As Variety recently noted, while the focus in terms of the toll of streaming and audience decline is often on broadcasters, basic cable entertainment networks have hardly been immune...

Lowry's review of "The Reckoning"

Brian Lowry writes: Like any blockbuster, the docu-series "Surviving R. Kelly" demanded a sequel. But if the first — which lead to the singer's arrest — flew in under the radar, this latest three-night event, "The Reckoning," feels burdened by a keen awareness of that impact, and trying to cover every conceivable angle...

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

By Lisa Respers France:

-- Wilmer Valderrama is engaged...

-- Nick Gordon's death Tuesday at the age of 30 is the final chapter in the tragic Whitney Houston and Bobbi Kristina Brown saga...