| | | | | Exec summary: "The Band's Visit" cleaned up at the Tony Awards... the Anthony Bourdain tributes are pouring in... the Singapore summit coverage is heating up... and the AT&T decision is imminent... | | | During the Tonys, the drama students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas H.S. sang "Seasons of Love" from the Broadway musical "Rent." Simply incredible. Hopefully CBS will post the video soon... wherever you can stream it, check it out... | | Viewers couldn't hear this... | | ...Because it was bleeped. But according to THR's Scott Feinberg and other reporters at the show, Robert De Niro said "F--- TRUMP" from the stage.
Per Feinberg, there was a "standing O" for De Niro. Then he "repeats it! TV production people wearing headsets are staring at each other with mouths agape. Amazing live TV moment." | | -- "The Band's Visit" was the biggest winner of the night... Best musical and so many more awards...
-- Ari'el Stachel accepting his "Visit" award: "Your biggest obstacle could turn into your purpose..."
-- Via this recap story by CNN's Chloe Melas: Andrew Garfield gave a passionate speech while accepting the award for lead actor in a play for "Angels in America:" "We are all sacred and we all belong. So, let's just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked..."
-- Bruce Springsteen won a special Tony Award for his sold-out Broadway show, "Springsteen on Broadway..." | | Monday's headline in Singapore | | | We're under 24 hours til Trump and Kim meet. The question on the front page of The Straits Times Monday morning: "Will the summit sink or swim?" | | How the press should cover this moment | | -- Respect the gravity of this event. This isn't "history" the way the word is often overused, this is really historic.
-- Don't be fooled by the photo-op. The pictures matter, but we have to put the pix in the proper context.
-- Ask hard questions about what's actually accomplished. And what's left unaccomplished. | | Back at the G7, before Trump left early, he held a surprise Q&A session with reporters. A few outlets, including MSNBC, called it his first press conference since February 2017. But because it wasn't scheduled ahead of time, and because most of the W.H. press corps weren't in the room, it does not meet that definition. I'd call it an "impromptu presser." Still, it was an important moment -- Trump was in a chatty mood -- as he tried to frame coverage of the G7 and the coming summit.
Trump lashed out when CNN's Kevin Liptak asked a spot-on question. Notice how Liptak foreshadowed what was about to happen: "As you were heading into these G7 talks, there was a sense that America's closest allies were frustrated with you and angry with you, and that you were angry with them and that you were leaving here early to go meet for more friendlier talks with Kim Jong Un in Singapore. And I'm wondering if you view it the same way. And do you view the U.S. alliance system shifting under your presidency, away-- "
Trump interjected: "Who are you with, out of curiosity?"
Liptak: "CNN."
Trump: "I figured. Fake News CNN. The worst. But I could tell by the question. I had no idea you were CNN. After the question, I was just curious as to who you were with. You were CNN. I would say that the level of relationship is a 10. We have a great relationship. Angela and Emmanuel and Justin. I would say the relationship is a 10." | | | Ten out of... 100? I said on CNN afterward that Trump was engaging in "wishful thinking." His behavior later in the day -- trashing "Justin" and withdrawing from the joint communiqué -- proved the point of Liptak's Q. CNN.com's headline right now: "Trump wages war of words on allies..." | | In the wake of the G7 mess, there's a strong media critique coming from the left -- from figures like Paul Krugman and Eric Boehlert -- that basically says "Trump's crazy, but journalists are too scared to say so."
"They're afraid to say that the president is completely out of touch with reality," Krugman tweeted, claiming this amounts to "huge pro-Trump bias."
There really are a lot of concerned political pros and foreign policy experts out there right now. "I don't say this casually," David Axelrod tweeted Saturday night. "At what point do we ask, Is the POTUS off his rocker?" | | "MEDIA MELTDOWN!" Fox loves these graphics.
On Saturday night, Jeanine Pirro accused media types "rooting for America's failure, and that is un-American." She reassured viewers that "our president has no fear" and said "it's time for the un-American haters to get on board..."
--> BTW: On Sunday's "Fox & Friends," Abby Huntsman accidentally said the summit is a meeting of "two dictators..." She apologized via Twitter... But viewers kept criticizing her... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday: E3 press conferences continue... Enix, Ubisoft, Sony will announce new games...
-- Tuesday: The E3 show floor opens, and Nintendo holds its presser... Here's the full E3 schedule...
-- Tuesday: The paperback edition of Alisyn Camerota's novel "Amanda Wakes Up" hits bookshelves...
-- Tuesday afternoon: Judge Richard Leon will hand down his ruling in US v. AT&T at 4pm ET...
-- Thursday: The Mirror Awards for media industry reporting will be awarded in NYC...
-- Sunday: Father's Day! | | Prep for AT&T decision day | | | Quoting the NYT's big Monday story: "Disney's offer to buy 21st Century Fox. CVS's bid for Aetna. T-Mobile's proposed merger with Sprint. The path for these blockbuster deals and others could be transformed in an instant on Tuesday, when a federal judge is expected to issue his opinion on the government's effort to block AT&T's merger with Time Warner..." | | -- A MUST-READ: These two men helped tape Trump's papers back together... That is, until they were terminated... An incredible scoop by Annie Karni... (Politico)
-- Ratings for the fourth and final game of the NBA Finals were down a bit from last year... Still pretty strong though... (TVLine)
-- "A pro-Brexit journalist held back evidence of links between Russia and the Brexit campaign while playing down so-called conspiracy theories on TV," Nico Hines reports... (The Daily Beast) | | Q's piling up about why reporters' records were seized | | Why did the US government secretly seize info from a reporter while investigating the longtime Senate staffer she had been dating? Setting aside the issue of the romantic relationship, is the government secretly surveilling other journalists this way?
Press freedom groups have lots of questions following last Thursday's arrest of James Wolfe, the former security director for the Senate Intelligence Committee. He stands accused of lying to FBI agents in December 2017 about his contacts with three reporters, including Ali Watkins... | | Watkins currently works for the NYT, but she was writing for BuzzFeed at the time. The site's EIC Ben Smith joined me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" for his first interview about the case.
"The story at the heart of this, a great story which nobody has challenged a word or a comma of, was about contacts between Carter Page, the Trump adviser, and a couple of agents of Russian intelligence," he said. "The sourcing in that story is really clear," so "I don't understand why they would be going hunting after a leaker for this story. And also, I don't understand why they think this ought to be secret."
Smith said the DOJ wants people talking about Watkins' past relationship with Wolfe instead of "what impelled them to use this kind of last-resort tool of covertly spying on journalists." The relationship is definitely a reason for red flags -- as Callum Borchers wrote here -- but I also understand where Smith is coming from... Read/watch the full interview here... | | The NYT's latest on this case | | As Smith said, "They could be looking at other reporters' phone records. We don't have any way of knowing that."
The NYT's Michael Grynbaum has a new story about all this in Monday's paper... Here it is...
--> And if you haven't read the 11-page indictment yet, I recommend reading it (PDF) here... | | -- Agonizing news: "Oren Dorell, a former construction contractor who became a globe-trotting foreign affairs reporter for USA Today, died Friday evening." It was a hit-and-run. Prayers to his family and the paper... (USA Today)
-- Joe Pompeo's new story about the possibility of Charlie Rose attending Allen & Co's Sun Valley conference (?!) also reveals that Rose's September gathering in Aspen, "The Weekend," will "carry on this year but without Rose as its host..." (VF)
-- Abby Huntsman is coming out with a children's book titled "Who Will I Be?" She announced it on Saturday... (Fox) | | | REMEMBERING ANTHONY BOURDAIN | | Sunday's new episode of "Parts Unknown," planned well before Anthony Bourdain's death, aired as scheduled on Sunday night, but with a special intro by Anderson Cooper. He was "one of the best correspondents at this network," Cooper said, "a remarkable, unique storyteller..."
This weekend we've been watching the makeshift memorials grow in NYC and Atlanta... Especially at CNN HQ in Atlanta... Staffers have been lighting candles and leaving cards and Post-It Notes at a giant poster of Bourdain... | | How Tony changed Jason Rezaian's life | | Remember when Bourdain interviewed the WashPost's Jason Rezaian for the "Parts Unknown" episode about Iran? When Rezaian was imprisoned, Bourdain tirelessly advocated for his release... And after he got home, Bourdain very quietly helped him "get through what was really a tough reintegration." Bourdain's book imprint is even publishing Rezaian's memoir about his time in captivity.
Here's what Rezaian told me on Sunday's "Reliable." I asked him how we should all honor Bourdain, and he said, "We should keep reading him, we should keep watching his shows, we should keep traveling around the world."
To Rezaian's point, several of Bourdain's books are still on the Amazon best sellers list right now... | | Resources for covering suicides | | | Indira Lakshmanan also joined me on "Reliable" to share some best practices for covering suicides. Here's video of the segment... Also check out Tom Kludt's excellent story about this... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Quite a read by Kat Stoeffel: "The Age of the MSNBC Mom" (NYT)
-- ICYMI: Julia Waldow recapped my newest podcast conversation... The guest is The New Yorker's Adam Davidson... We talked about the "simple" Trump story that's been overshadowed by deception and distraction... (CNNMoney) | | Don't hit snooze on the news! | | Our lead story on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" was a wake-up call. A new Pew survey finds that seven out of ten Americans are overwhelmed with the amount of news coverage... But right now is a really bad time to have "news fatigue..." Here's my opener...
>> David Frum's reaction: "If your child is feverishly ill, it can be very fatiguing to sit by her bedside and take care of her but it's what you do, because that's your duty... If your country is ill, you have the same responsibility..."
>> Lakshmanan: "Trump is essentially boiling the frog..." She was citing "that old parable about how you turn up the heat slowly on the frog until he doesn't realize it..." | | "Tailspin" is a best seller | | | Steven Brill's new book "Tailspin" is #8 on the NYT's list... It's about America's "fifty-year fall" and potential fixes... Re: the media's role in all this, he said on "Reliable" that outlets that united us as a country are now "breaking us up into little pieces..." You can watch the discussion here... | | Here's how to catch up on the show | | Listen to Sunday's episode as a podcast via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn...
Read the transcript here... Catch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full program via CNNgo or VOD... | | | Newsday was printed in-house for the very last time on Saturday night. Printing has been "contracted out to NYTimes' College Point plant," Newsday's Ellen Yan tweeted. "Will miss ear-splitting clacking, ink smell, guys vs giant rolls." She said some press crew members "will look after their parents, others chase jobs, lucky ones hired by NYT, a few remain to close down presses..." | | This week's NYMag cover story: "Inside the Binge Factory." Joe Adalian had exclusive access inside Netflix.
And check out this cover -- with Spike Lee, Robin Wright, Ryan Murphy, Jane Fonda, Laverne Cox, Alison Brie, and Jason Bateman... | | Lowry reviews the "Billions" season finale | | Eeeek! I'm still like six episodes behind! Note to Jamie: We need to catch up...
Anywho, enough about me, Brian Lowry's review will be up on CNN.com overnight... | | | "Actor Jackson Odell, 20, was found unresponsive at a home in Tarzana, California on Friday," CNN's Amanda Jackson and Chuck Johnston report. No information on cause of death yet. Odell played Ari Caldwell on "The Goldbergs," and he also played Ted Durkas on two episodes of "Modern Family," both on ABC. Read more... | | Actor Vince Vaughn arrested for DUI | | | "Actor Vince Vaughn was arrested early Sunday morning on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to authorities," CNN's Chuck Johnston and Dakin Andone report. "Vaughn was stopped at a DUI checkpoint outside of Los Angeles between Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach around 12:30 a.m." and was "subsequently arrested for driving under the influence and for resisting, delaying or obstructing officers..." | | This weekend's box office report | | "Proving that fanboy-centric tentpoles aren't the only summer box-office jewels, the female-fronted Ocean's 8 opened over the weekend to a series-best $41.5 million from 4,145 theaters to easily place No. 1 in North America," THR's Pamela McClintock writes.
She says "the movie's debut is a victory for the slew of gender-swapping spinoffs and remakes being plotted by Hollywood studios."
>> Key quote: "The target audience — females — are just so underserved," Warner Bros. domestic distribution prez Jeff Goldstein said... | | Look out for "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" | | | WSJ's Ben Fritz tweeted: "Jurassic World 2 opens to $151 M internationally and the biggest opening ever in South Korea. It's going to have a lot of money racked up before it even gets to the US in two weeks..." | | Feedback welcome!
Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts to brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thank you! | | | | | | |
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