| | | | | Exec summary: Scroll down for Tuesday's Weinstein Co. headlines... Trump's Twitter lull... THR vs. Vanity Fair... and the correction of the year... | | NYT making plans for a weekly TV program | | The New York Times has conquered the podcasting world with "The Daily." Now it wants to crack TV with a weekly news program. The Times is seeking an executive producer for the series, according to this job listing, which has been hiding in plain sight for a few weeks.
Sam Dolnick, the assistant managing editor who is overseeing the NYT's new digital initiatives, told me "we're hoping" the untitled series "becomes a showcase for the most ambitious visual journalism of The Times."
A production company, Left/Right, is already on board. It has created several segments as tests. The idea is a once-a-week program, about 30 minutes long, although the length could vary. It will feature Times journalists at work and in the field... | | | Per Dolnick, the NYT is holding talks with streaming services and premium cable channels about a potential distribution deal. He declined to comment on any specific names/possibilities. But the biz play is obvious: A new source of revenue for the news organization. Here's my full story... | | An Phung emails: For this new VF story, Joe Pompeo talked with NYT editorial page editor James Bennet. Here's Bennet defending the newspaper's recent string of controversial hires...
>> Notable quote from Bennet: "I've lost the capacity to gauge the opprobrium -- what's irrational versus what's a reasonable amount of Internet outrage these days..." | | Weinstein Co. on the verge of bankruptcy? | | The Weinstein Company is moving closer to bankruptcy. Papers could be filed in the next couple of days. What happened? Well, it seems like the company ran out of money as the sale talks dragged on and on.
FIRST: On Sunday night the Weinstein Co. board of directors said in a letter that the would-be buyers were unwilling to provide interim financing to keep it afloat while the deal was finalized...
SECOND: On Monday afternoon the exec leading the buyers, Maria Contreras-Sweet, said the board's letter surprised her because the "we were close to signing the transaction documents in a couple of days." Now, she says, the deal "appears" to be over...
THIRD: It's Monday night, and a source tells me the window for a deal is still open "until bankruptcy is filed." So we'll see... Here's my story... | | What about Weinstein's accusers? | | | This is a key point via Matt Donnelly's story for TheWrap: Bankruptcy "means dozens of Harvey Weinstein's accusers may never see a dime from the embattled indie studio." Contreras-Sweet and co. had committed $50 million for a victims fund. That, along with other sources of $$, would have provided up to $90 million in compensation... | | -- NYT: "How a Deal to Sell the Weinstein Company Fell Apart" by Brooks Barnes...
-- Variety: "Weinstein Co. Bankruptcy Would Be a Costly, Drawn-Out Mess"
-- LAT: "Weinstein Co. bankruptcy could hurt victims' chances for compensation, legal experts say" | | | On the right: A Hollywood Reporter cover from last December. On the left: An earlier version of March's Vanity Fair cover. The NYPost's Alexandra Steigrad reports that VF scrambled to tweak the cover so that it wouldn't look quite so similar to THR's. Here's the final edition of the cover... Released by the mag on Monday night... Along with this cover story by Krista Smith... | | -- Charlie Gibson at Princeton's alumni day: "If you discredit the press... and sow the seeds of disbelief on what they report, then what is to stop a despotic government?" (Princeton)
-- An Phung emails: the State Department is dropping $40 million to "expose and counter propaganda and disinformation from foreign nations..." The $$$ is being transferred from the Pentagon to "bolster the Global Engagement Center, an office set up at State during the Obama years..." (The Hill)
-- "A Slovak investigative journalist and his fiancée were found shot dead Monday, the first time a reporter has been murdered in the country, according to police..." (CNN)
-- Per Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb: "Hope Hicks is scheduled to appear Tuesday before the House Intel Committee behind closed doors..." (CNN) | | | This is one of those rare lulls when President Trump stays off Twitter. It's been more than 48 hours since @realDonaldTrump tweeted. Now, technically, he RTed a couple things on Sunday morning. But he hasn't actually posted since Saturday evening. He usually posts every day... | | A perfectly appropriate Q | | NBC's Peter Alexander was praised... and Ivanka Trump was widely criticized... for this exchange from his sit-down with her in South Korea:
"Do you believe your father's [sexual misconduct] accusers?"
"I think it's a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he's affirmatively stated there's no truth to it."
After stalling, she did answer, saying "I believe my father." But her objection to the Q was ridiculed. She is, after all, a senior advisor to the president. "If she can't handle legitimate questions about her father, she shouldn't serve in his White House," Jack Shafer wrote Monday night... | | | "Ivanka Trump's South Korea trip fuels White House tension" by Jeff Zeleny, Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins: John Kelly "has grown increasingly frustrated with Ivanka Trump since he entered the West Wing last July... Kelly has remarked privately that Ivanka is just 'playing government,' one source said..." Read the rest here... | | Have Q's? No answers? Show the reader... | | I love how the WashPost described its reporting effort in this story. The headline: "Trump Organization says it has donated foreign profits to U.S. Treasury, but declines to share details."
Paragraph four says --> "The Washington Post asked for more details: How much was donated? Which Trump properties were included in this accounting? Which foreign entities had paid money to Trump's businesses?" Trump Org and the Treasury are not commenting on any of that... | | "I have been heartened to see children across this country using their voices to speak out and try to create change. They are our future and they deserve a voice."
--Melania Trump supporting the FL student activists during a speech on Monday... | | GetReligion called this "a laugh-or-cry correction." I agree. The AP sheepishly sent this out on Monday: "In a story Feb. 22 about the Florida school shooting, The Associated Press misquoted Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel in some versions of the story when he spoke about the families of the victims. He said, 'I've been to their homes where they're sitting shiva,' not 'where they sit and shiver.'"
--> Forward says "this is not the first time that the secular media has gotten confused about the concept of sitting shiva, a seven-day mourning period..." | | | Live from Mobile World Congress... | | The smartphone camera wars | | CNN's Samuel Burke emails from Barcelona: Samsung is the star here. The company introduced the Galaxy S9 and S9+ on Sunday. For the moment, Samsung has managed to outmaneuver Apple in the smartphone camera wars with a new augmented reality camera which lets you create a selfie emoji that actually looks like you (not an animal like iPhone X).
>> More broadly, it is quite ironic that as MWC kicks off, out comes news that the smartphone market is actually contracting. New numbers show fewer phones were sold in 2017 than in 2016... that $1,000+ price tag for the the iPhone X is likely one reason why. So Samsung priced their new phones at $720 and $840 -- well below the iPhones... | | | In the midst of MWC, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Debby Wu reported that Apple "is preparing to release a trio of new smartphones later this year: the largest iPhone ever, an upgraded handset the same size as the current iPhone X and a less expensive model with some of the flagship phone's key features." Details here... | | | More from Samuel Burke: Heads up for journalists who have digital privacy paranoia and place tape over their webcams -- the new Huawei laptop has a hidden webcam. A button between the F6 and F7 keys allows you to reveal the camera on the keyboard. This way, no one can surreptitiously record you, or at least that's the idea... | | "The monopolies that are Google and Facebook" | | AdWeek's Marty Swant reports: "On the first day of Mobile World Congress, CNN President Jeff Zucker suggested that U.S. regulators should examine whether Facebook and Google have too much of a monopoly on digital ad revenue."
Zucker noted the government's examinations of the AT&T/Time Warner and Fox/Disney deals, then said, "the fact is nobody, for some reason, is looking at the monopolies that are Google and Facebook, and that's where the government should be looking and helping to make sure that everyone else survives. I think that's probably the biggest issue facing the seriousness and growth of journalism in the years ahead..." | | -- "Michael Wolff is crumbling before our eyes," Erik Wemple says. Wemple is reacting to Wolff's very odd interview with an Australian broadcaster... (WashPost)
-- Gretchen Carlson "will be a correspondent on the second season of the Epix show America Divided..." She'll also be an E.P. of the series... (THR)
-- Do you know Gil Schwartz? Or "Stanley Bing?" Either way, you'll love his essay in the NYT's Book Review section... (NYT)
-- News from Northwestern University: "Joie Chen, an award-winning former reporter and anchor for CBS News, CNN and Al Jazeera America, has been named director of Medill programs, Washington, D.C..." (Medill) | | Highlights from Bob Iger's appearance at Morgan Stanley's tech and media conference on Monday, via Deadline:
-- Streaming and other disruptions in the TV space have had a "faster and a more profound impact than we ever expected..."
-- The ESPN Plus app will launch in late March/early April...
-- The current price point is $4.99, but "I imagine you'll see that price rise for the augmented service," as more leagues/games are added. "We have the opportunity to enable customers to buy seasons, teams, weekends..."
-- "Over time, our intention would be for that app to be the app that people experience ESPN on, but we're going to manage the migration of that very carefully because right now we have a business -- the multi-channel business -- that is serving our company quite well." | | CBS Sports streaming service is online now | | | Recode's Peter Kafka writes: "CBS is launching CBS Sports HQ, a free streaming service that carries 'live news and reporting, game previews, post-game analysis, must-see highlights, projections and in-depth statistical breakdowns' -- but not the expensive pro and college games CBS shows live on its main channel." This is another attempt to launch a streaming service that will complement, but not cannibalize, a network's existing biz... | | | Brian Lowry emails: This Forbes piece brings the NCAA basketball scandal that's unfolding around to the media-business question of what it might mean for CBS and Turner's $8.8 billion investment in rights to the NCAA basketball tournament. As the piece notes, short term, it's probably not much of an issue, even if there are some high-profile suspensions; longer term, it could be, unless the NCAA cleans up its act... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Ricardo Bilton's latest: "Here are a few details about WNYC's Gothamist revival..." (NiemanLab)
-- Disney is donating $1 million of its "Black Panther" profits to Boys & Girls Clubs, Jill Disis reports... (CNN)
-- "The creator of 'Atlanta' wants TV to tell hard truths. Is the audience ready?" Check out Tad Friend's profile of Donald Glover... (The New Yorker)
-- Heather Locklear was arrested Sunday night following a domestic dispute... Sandra Gonzalez has the details here... (CNN) | | -- Megan Thomas emails: Very interesting Vulture feature about how new members of the Academy are changing the way the membership votes...
-- The Academy "will operate its first-ever Oscar pop-up store alongside the red carpet in Hollywood this year," Deadline's Michael Cieply reports...
-- WashPost's Michael Cavna says "The New Yorker's Oscars cover captures a moment in the #MeToo movement..." | | | "The Oscars mark the official end of Hollywood's awards season, which, thanks to the Olympics, this year extends into early March. But as opposed to being the celebratory exclamation point on all that self-congratulation, the prevailing mood may be closer to relief," Brian Lowry writes in his latest column for CNN.com... | | Lest we forget last year's mix-up... | | Megan Thomas emails: THR's oral history of last year's best picture mix-up is packed with snarky quotes. Among my favorites:
STEVE HARVEY, Comedian/TV host, announced the wrong Miss Universe in 2015:
"I was watching live and I probably knew what had happened before anybody else — 'cause I saw the panic-stricken look on the producer's face. When he walked out there and snatched that card out of Warren's hand, that's when I knew redemption was mine. I was finally off the hook. Yeah, OK, I had to live that down: 'Oh, how could he,' 'That's a bonehead,' 'Nobody's ever done that in the history of Miss Universe.' But the Oscars is the biggest night in Hollywood, and when they did it, I lit a cigar and drank a glass of scotch and celebrated. I was free! Thank you, God!" | | | "Looking ahead to this year's show, the production team is confident that sort of freak bungle won't happen again," the LAT's Josh Rottenberg reports. "New procedures have been put in place to further guard against such a mix-up, and the PricewaterhouseCoopers officials who handled last year's envelopes have been replaced. While it's safe to predict that returning host Jimmy Kimmel will make a joke or two about it, the hope is that the audience can shift its focus back to the movies..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: AMC's "McMafia" has one timely aspect with a plot that focuses on money laundering and the Russian mob. Other than that, it's an aptly named, pretty generic addition to a genre with a rich and storied history. The show joins a busy Monday -- including the premieres of NBC's "Good Girls" and CBS' "Living Biblically" -- as networks that largely sat out the Olympics trot out a host of post-Games premieres... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Kevin Smith used Twitter to share the news that he suffered a "massive heart attack." He is now recovering...
-- Bill Cosby has lost a child to renal failure. Ensa Cosby, one of his four daughters, was 44....
-- Marissa Jaret Winokur won "Celebrity Big Brother..." Ross Mathews was the runner-up... Sorry, Omarosa...
-- Justin Theroux has broken his silence (on social media) in the wake of his break-up with Jennifer Aniston... | | "Wrinkle in Time" world premiere | | | Bloomberg's Anousha Sakoui tweeted: "Keep your eyes and ears peeled because another barrier breaking film -- 'A Wrinkle In Time' -- has its WORLD premiere in Hollywood tonight..." | | How to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable" | | | Read the transcript on CNN.com, listen to the podcast through Apple Podcasts, watch the video clips on CNN.com, or watch the full show via CNNgo... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
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