| | | | CNN president Jeff Zucker quoted in Thursday's NYT: "My job is to remind everyone that they need to stay focused doing their job."
Zucker says President Trump is "trying to bully us, and we're not going to let him intimidate us. You can't lose your confidence and let that change the way you conduct yourselves." Scroll down for more on CNN and its critics inside and outside the White House... | | THE PRESIDENT'S TRIP TO EUROPE | | Trump taking press Q's on Thursday | | Trump is scheduled to participate in a "press event" while in Poland on Thursday morning. (Around 4am U.S. ET.) Will this be his first joint presser in a month? Looks like it... the Polish president's office says it will be a news conference with Q&A... there's so much to ask...
-- Context: Trump did not hold joint pressers when the heads of India and South Korea visited the W.H. last week, and he hasn't held a solo presser since February... | | What the media cares about most: Trump-Putin meeting | | The "bilateral meeting" is not til Friday, but it's been the dominant subject in the pre-trip coverage, with many people predicting that Trump won't bring up the Russian interference in last year's election...
-- New from The Guardian's Julian Borger: "Investigators explore if Russia colluded with pro-Trump sites during US election"
-- Congressman Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington, on Tuesday's "Situation Room:" "I guess I wish he treated Vladimir Putin more like he treats CNN..." | | This is something Putin and Trump have in common | | | This graf at the bottom of the NYT's Trump-Putin curtain-raiser stood out to me: "Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin has expressed disdain for the news media, and he asserted in a recent interview that secretive elements within the United States government were working against the president's agenda. Two people close to Mr. Trump said they expected the men to bond over their disdain for 'fake news.'" | | New phrase alert:
Brian Bennett of the LATimes cites "two U.S. officials" to say "the president often doesn't read the usual briefing books and relies on in-person briefings, the officials said, so aides also have written a list of tweet-length sentences that summarize the main points Trump could bring up with Putin..." | | Trump's contradictions about Putin | | | A reminder from CNN's Stephen Collinson: "Although he said in January that 'I think it was Russia' in reference to election meddling, Trump has more frequently dismissed the idea his aides colluded with Russia as a 'hoax' perpetrated by Democrats and the 'fake news' media dismayed at Hillary Clinton's defeat last November..." | | | -- Why doesn't this get more attention? From March: "CNN's KFile review of Trump's public statements -- from the years immediately before his presidential campaign to present -- reveal that Trump has contradicted himself over the years about the nature of his relationship with Putin. Since 2013 -- when Trump's Miss Universe pageant was held in Moscow -- Trump has at least nine times claimed to have spoken to, met, or made contact with Putin. But as the 2016 campaign wore on and his statements on Putin began to attract more scrutiny, Trump changed course, denying having ever met the Russian president..." | | On Wednesday the president's anti-CNN video became his most-retweeted post ever, surpassing his celebratory election night tweet. But we still don't know how he found it.
Quoting CNN's Chris Cillizza: "We have the White House -- with no name attached! -- insisting Trump didn't get the GIF from Reddit. Which leaves an obvious question: Where did Trump get it then? Did he make it? (Seems unlikely.) Did someone at the White House make it? The version that Trump tweeted was slightly altered from the version on Reddit. Did someone at the White House flag it from a site other than Reddit? Who? And what site was it?" No, of course this is "not exactly the most pressing issue in the country," but it still matters, as Cillizza explains here. And we still don't know the answers... | | KFILE identified the guy who posted a version of the video on Reddit... | | Oliver Darcy emails: CNN was in the news again Wednesday -- this time over a story published written by Andrew Kaczynski and published late Tuesday night. In the story, Kaczynski wrote that he found the identity of the Reddit user who claimed credit for the Trump wrestling video and explained how he had done so.
>> After Kaczynski reached out, the user, known as "HanA**Solo," posted a profuse apology. Then the user called up Kaczynski and asked him NOT to reveal his identity.
>> This user had, before this happened, repeatedly posted racist and anti-Semitic content online, including hateful messages about CNN employees.
>> Kaczynski's story left the user's name out because he's "a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again." Controversy was sparked by the line that followed, which said, "CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change." Many interpreted it to be a form of blackmail aimed at keeping "HanA**Solo" in order and "#CNNBlackmail" trended on Twitter.
>> So what happened? Two CNN sources told BuzzFeed that the line was added during the editing process. Kaczynski wrote on Twitter that it was "being misinterpreted" and "intended only to mean we made no agreement w/the man about his identity." A CNN source told BuzzFeed, "Someone did it as a safeguard and it backfired." When I asked PR about this, a network spokesperson declined to say when in the editing process the line was added...
>> CNN's statement: "CNN decided not to publish the name of the Reddit user out of concern for his safety. Any assertion that the network blackmailed or coerced him is false. The user, who is an adult male, not a 15-year-old boy, apologized and deleted his account before ever speaking with our reporter. CNN never made any deal, of any kind, with the user. In fact, CNN included its decision to withhold the user's identity in an effort to be completely transparent that there was no deal." | | Oliver Darcy adds: When I first read the line, it certainly struck me as unusual -- to say the least. Kaczynski wrote on Twitter it was inserted to underscore that CNN entered into no agreement with "HanA**Solo" about his identity, which makes sense. But the line was poorly written and could have been phrased to more clearly communicate that point.
>> Check out Indira Lakshmanan's Q&A with Ben Mullin over at Poynter. She says "I don't think CNN intended this as blackmail, but..." | | The far-right set the narrative | | | One more important point from Oliver Darcy: One thing that struck me Tuesday night was how the narrative about this story was set by individuals on the far-right. Before it received criticism from conventional critics, prominent far-right personalities worked to get "#CNNBlackmail" trending on Twitter. From there, the narrative seeped into the mainstream. BuzzFeed's Tom Namako put it like this on Twitter: "Same pro-Trump media group that whipped the Pizzagate hoax frenzy are using the playbook on CNN. Substance different, tactic similar. Scary." | | What's really going on here... | | | WashPost's Abby Ohlheiser nails it: "The media has often struggled to cover Trump's online supporters, whose skepticism of mainstream publications has evolved into a total rejection of the idea that places like CNN are even trying to report the truth... Media ethics experts who look at CNN's article on all this might discuss it in the context of a long and tricky media discussion about outing anonymous, racist Internet trolls. On the Trump Internet, however, the subtext of the meme is that 'blackmailing' sources is a normal part of mainstream journalistic practice. The difference is, they believe, that someone finally got caught." | | Donald Trump Jr., misinformation, and fallout | | Oliver Darcy adds: Not surprisingly, a lot of misinformation has been swirling about the story. One of the chief culprits? The president's son, Donald Trump Jr.
Earlier he peddled a false internet rumor that "HanA**Solo" was a 15-year-old. (He's actually an adult.) Later, he accused Kaczynski of deleting a tweet. (He didn't.) "The son of the president sent a second false tweet today about me and CNN. Neither has been corrected," Kaczynski tweeted Wednesday afternoon... | | | Bottom line from Gizmodo's Bryan Menegus: "There's no shortage of people who want to be angry for its own sake. And the whiff of malfeasance is all the justification that sites like 8chan and neo-Nazi outfit The Daily Stormer needed to start collecting personal information on CNN employees..." | | "Online abuse is killing the appeal of public service. Any sane, ethical young person would see the ugliness of modern politics and journalism and conclude they want no part of public life. The President is encouraging that..."
--Timothy Stanley in this op-ed for CNN.com... | | Thursday NYT story about CNN and Trump | | Three key quotes from Michael Grynbaum's story on the front of the Biz section:
-- Jeff Zucker and CNN "are in the middle of their most intense bout yet: an unlikely public fight with the leader of the free world..."
-- "One challenge Mr. Zucker has thought about: safety. The level of threats against CNN employees, he said, has spiked this year. Mr. Trump, he said, 'has caused us to have to take steps that you wouldn't think would be necessary because of the actions of the president of the United States...'"
-- Remember the day CNN sent a sketch artist to the W.H. press briefing? Sean Spicer "has a copy of the drawing — and he now displays it in his West Wing office..." | | Notice what this "senior admin official" told the NYT... | | | This graf in Grynbaum's story is a big deal: "White House advisers have discussed a potential point of leverage over their adversary, a senior administration official said: a pending merger between CNN's parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T." The Justice Department is reviewing the merger. The companies expect the deal to be approved by the end of the year... | | -- Mediaite's Colby Hall mincing no words: "Poll Comparing Credibility of CNN and Trump is Really Just Asking How Gullible America is"
-- Via Howard Cohen D'oh: The NYT had to issue a correction after being tricked by a parody North Korea twitter account...
-- "A deadline passed and nobody blinked," the NYT's Declan Walsh writes, as the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and a Saudi-led bloc continues, with Al Jazeera a focal point of the demands...
-- CNN correspondent Phil Mattingly and his wife Chelsea are the proud parents of a new baby boy! Carter was born Wednesday morning and welcomed on "The Situation Room..." | | Best ratings ever for "Morning Joe" | | | "Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski reached their biggest audience ever when they talked Friday about President Donald Trump's tweets about their show," the AP reports. The #'s are complicated because "Morning Joe" is measured as a three-hour-long show. The biggest ratings spike was in the 7am hour when Joe and Mika appeared. But the overall 6 to 9am average was 408,000 in the 25-54 demo and 1.66 million total viewers, topping Fox and CNN... | | They'll be on Colbert next week... | | | Brian Lowry emails: DVR alert: Scarborough and Brzezinski will appear on Stephen Colbert's "Late Show" next Tuesday. And yes, Scarborough -- who last appeared on the program in February -- will again serve up a musical performance... | | While I was on vacation these past few days, I kept getting messages from people telling me they saw me on Fox News. I wasn't surprised that Fox's prime time hosts called me names on Monday night. As Mediaite's Justin Baragona wrote here, Fox's talk shows are "truly obsessed" with ridiculing CNN.
But I was surprised that Fox's "Outnumbered" show on Wednesday afternoon played a clip of me from Monday morning! ("Outnumbered?" More like "OutDATED," right?)
Abby Huntsman set up the media-critiquing segment by misstating what I said on Monday's "New Day:" "Stelter admits the president needs to do some 'soul-searching' about their unpopularity." No, I said the press should do some more soul-searching. Then she played what I said:
"Partly, these are self-inflicted wounds over the course of decades, but a lot of the reasons for the distrust of the media have to do with politicians like President Trump telling people not to trust the media. We could do a better job telling our own story and explaining how [our news coverage] is REAL news, not 'fake news.'"
This is not a controversial opinion! Politicians have been trashing the press for decades. Trump and his aides have taken it to a new level. Recall this headline from last fall? "Trump takes credit for public distrust of the media."
But Fox's talk shows seem to subsist on daily media criticism sessions, so my two-day-old comment fit the bill... | | Noah Rothman is onto something here... | | | The fewer legislative achievements, the more fiery media bashing on the right? Commentary's Noah Rothman wasn't just talking about Fox, he was talking about conservative media criticism in general, when he tweeted this: "Frantic pace of the criticism, the outsize sense of importance of it and those who engage in it, are inversely proportional to bills passed..." | | -- Via An Phung: Sinclair's strategy to court millennial news consumers is laid out in Nieman's in-depth look at Circa. The company says it aims to provide readers with non-partisan, independent journalism, but It's hard to ignore how frequently its stories get picked up by Fox...
-- Via Howard Cohen: Snapchat is letting you add links, voice filters, and backdrops to snaps. It previously did not allow users to attach links to content in order to keep you locked into the app...
-- Via An Phung: Not all media companies are benefitting from a Trump presidency. Right Side Broadcasting, the conservative media company known for its live streams of Trump campaign rallies, cut its staff from 12 to four amid declines in ad revenue...
-- Via Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman: The Moscow Times is discontinuing its print edition... The decision comes along with drastic staff cuts...
-- CJR's Kyle Pope writes about what we miss when we "obsess" over Trump's tweets. The list includes: "The country's social safety net is being shredded; the EPA is being dismantled; we are marching towards war with North Korea; America's standing in the world is shrinking by the day..." | | About journalism's class problem... | | | Elana Zak emails: We know journalism has a class problem, but this Medium post by Heather Bryant brings a different perspective. Bryant's husband is a garbage man -- and, she writes, the reaction she's gotten from other journalists when she tells them about his job ranges from surprise to confusion to outright distaste. "He worries that he might embarrass me in front of other journalists," Bryant says. It's a stark reminder that our industry is lacking people with more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. If we can't relate to a colleague's husband, what about our sources? | | | Megan Thomas emails: Really interesting read in The New Yorker by Texas native Lawrence Wright on his home state as a bellwether: "The state is as politically divided as the rest of the nation. One can drive across it and be in two different states at the same time: FM Texas and AM Texas. FM Texas is the silky voice of city dwellers, the kingdom of NPR. It is progressive, blue, reasonable, secular, and smug—almost like California. AM Texas speaks to the suburbs and the rural areas: Trumpland. It's endless bluster and endless ads. Paranoia and piety are the main items on the menu." Read more... | | SAG-AFTRA deal is the latest example... | | Hollywood buys stability through labor deals | | | Brian Lowry emails: The SAG-AFTRA deal agreed to on Tuesday went down to the wire, but after the Writers Guild negotiations, it seems pretty clear that in a time where their business model is shifting, the major studios didn't want to risk the uncertainty that would come from a strike. Read the full column here... | | 'Hawaii Five-0' actor breaks silence on exit after pay equity battle | | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: "Hawaii Five-0" actor Daniel Dae Kim has broken his silence about his exit from the show following a salary dispute with CBS that has fueled the flames of the pay equity conversation in Hollywood. (Both Kim and fellow cast member Grace Park reportedly decided the leave the show after they were not given pay on par with that of the white co-leads on the series.) In a Facebook post, the actor said: "The path to equality is rarely easy," he wrote. "But I hope you can be excited for the future. I am..." | | "Hollywood's Bad Movie Problem" | | Megan Thomas emails: The Atlantic's David Sims argues Hollywood can't blame the failure of some of this summer big-budget movies on Rotten Tomatoes:
"Once upon a time, Hollywood probably wouldn't have bothered to make a fifth Pirates movie after the fourth entry, On Stranger Tides, grossed considerably less than the first three, and couldn't even make up its (huge) budget at the domestic box office. Once upon a time, defunct TV properties like Baywatch weren't considered safe bets to be turned into expensive summer tentpoles. Audiences didn't avoid these films because they got bad reviews; they avoided them because they were never interested in them in the first place." | | | One more from Lowry: Produced by director John Singleton, among others, FX's "Snowfall" joins a roster of bleak dramas on the network, while going back to the outbreak of crack cocaine in the 1980s to present the latest dramatic indictment of the drug war's futility... | | "The Post-Review, Post-Premiere, Post-Finale World of Peak TV" | | | Sandra Gonzalez adds: If you haven't read Tim Goodman's take on how changes in TV viewing have affected TV criticism, I recommend doing so. Key graf: "This business is changing across the board. As for criticism, I think it's an exciting time to be more thoughtful, brought about by an industry-wide inability to be up to date on everything. And I think there's a huge audience for that, composed of people equally delayed in their viewing because they've been overwhelmed and otherwise busy." Read the rest at THR... | | Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna's social media battle | | | One more from Megan: The allegations of cheating and abuse levied on social media by the two reality TV personalities Wednesday are ugly, the images are NSFW, and the fallout created a headache for Instgram and Twitter. Variety has the sanitized lowlights... | | | For the record, part three | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Celine Dion gets naked for Vogue...
-- Kelly Clarkson is not here for your body shaming...
-- Lady Gaga supports Ed Sheeran's Twitter exit... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Email us... we're at reliablesources@cnn.com... we appreciate every email. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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