| | | | | Exec summary: Michael Cohen met up with George Stephanopoulos... LeBron James cooly announced his L.A. move... Roseanne Barr claimed she has a new TV opportunity... Jim Acosta answered his critics... But first... | | Let's start this week on a hopeful note: With words of wisdom and encouragement from WashPost exec editor Marty Baron. Here's some of what he told me on stage at Aspen Ideas the other day:
— "We have the greatest credibility when we do our jobs honestly, honorably, accurately, fairly, diligently, energetically, unflinchingly. And that's what we try to do."
— When I asked him if we're living through a "crisis" or even a "national emergency," he said that's for others to decide...
— "We're under a lot of pressure. It's something we're going to have to deal with. I think that we need courage in our profession to deal with that." He paraphrased author Tony Lewis saying "the press has been given tremendous freedom by the Supreme Court. It owes society courage."
— "I think the public is looking for a press that stands for something, that stands for telling the truth [and] will do it regardless of the pressures and that people will support that."
— What the Post needs to provide: "Distinctiveness." The objective is to "create a sustainable business model." | | "We as an industry need to talk more about who we help." | | This was my favorite part:
People "remember all of our worst mistakes," Baron said, quickly adding "we are not a perfect profession. We have many flaws. We're flawed because we're human, just like any people in any other profession. But we also do a lot of good. And I think that we need to highlight that good. We can't take it for granted and we need to make sure that the public doesn't take it for granted either." This is a marketing and comms challenge for many news outlets... | | | >> You can hear the full Q&A in podcast form via Apple, Stitcher, or TuneIn... Or read Julia Waldow's recap here... | | "What could we have done to deserve this?" | | Rachael Pacella was injured while trying to flee the Capital Gazette newsroom last Thursday. Pacella and fellow reporter Phil Davis joined me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources."
In the ambulance, on the way to the hospital, Pacella worried that there wouldn't be a paper the next day. (Thankfully, there was.) And she wondered: "What could we have done to make people hate us so much? Why do people hate the media? What could we have done to deserve this?"
Take a few minutes and watch some of what they told me:
-- What happened when the gunman stormed into the newsroom
-- How they are remembering and honoring their five slain colleagues
-- What will they do now? What's next for the paper?
| | All 32 surviving staff members wrote an open letter to readers in Sunday's edition of The Capital. Please read it.
"We will never be the same as we were, now that Rebecca, Wendi, John, Gerald and Rob are gone," they wrote.
"Some day we hope to be as good again. That's all we can do. Until then, keep reading. We've only just begun."
| | "Rededicating" to the mission | | On "Reliable," photojournalist Joshua McKerrow told me about how he covered the shooting at his own paper. "I want to rededicate the rest of my career to helping create more empathy and more communication. That's what we're missing," he said. Watch... And/or read Nathaniel Meyersohn's recap of the interviews on CNNMoney.com...
| | -- Newsrooms across the country have been sending food, flowers and offers of assistance to the Capital Gazette...
-- Sunday's Baltimore Sun had a haunting reconstruction of the attack. "There were 11 people in the office at the time. Five were killed."
-- Capital Gazette EIC Rick Hutzell says "we'll never go in" the bullet-riddled newsroom again. There's a search for new office space underway...
-- Slain features writer and editor Wendi Winters "worked far ahead, so her byline will continue to appear for a while," The Sun notes...
-- A celebration of Rob Hiaasen's life will be held Monday evening at the Irvine Nature Center in Owings Mills...
| | | On "Reliable," David Zurawik said: "I hope everyone will read their obituaries. A great obituary makes you see people as human beings. We're being dehumanized," he said. When "somebody tells you we're the enemy of the people -- see if those obituaries match up with that description..." | | -- Notice how Jonathan Swan handled this scoop: He published a draft bill about blowing up the WTO, but "retyped the leaked document" to protect the source... (Axios)
-- People like Anthony Scaramucci quickly noticed that the "United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act" is the U.S. FART Act... (Twitter)
-- A long but worthy read that had lots of media thinkers buzzing over the weekend: "What if journalists covered controversial issues differently — based on how humans actually behave when they are polarized and suspicious?" (Medium)
-- Sarah Ellison's latest is about Rupert Murdoch: "The media mogul says goodbye to much of the company he built." Full story in Monday's paper... (WashPost) | | No "Decision" show or SI essay this time | | How LeBron James announced his move to L.A. Sunday evening: His agency Klutch Sports sent out a one-sentence statement via Twitter and Instagram. Understated!
Brian Lowry's reaction: "LeBron's move to the Lakers does two things: Squarely positions him for a media career post-basketball (which he's already done as a producer), and immediately make the Lakers the hottest ticket in town..." | | Michael and George's meeting... | | Michael Cohen tweeted this on Sunday night: "Spent Saturday afternoon with @GStephanopoulos @abc (not on camera) interview for Monday's @GMA. My silence is broken!"
Stephanopoulos confirmed that he'll have details on "GMA..." | | Media week ahead calendar | | Cohen aside, it's shaping up to be a very quiet week... Hey, here's hoping I didn't just jinx us...
-- Monday: Sheryl Sandberg is due to testify at European Parliament
-- Tuesday: Brad Thor's next novel, "Spymaster," hits bookshelves. (Remember how Thor said he's going to challenge Trump in 2020?)
-- Wednesday: Happy Independence Day! Hallmark Channel will air a live concert from the South Lawn of the White House... | | "Fox and Trump: It's a Friendship Without Equal" | | That was the headline on Page One of Sunday's NYT. Here's Michael Grynbaum's story...
Brian Lowry emails: The NYT has a way of doing features that state the obvious but still have value because they pull a lot of info together in one place. So it is with Sunday's Fox and Trump story, which closes with a rather tart quote from Ted Koppel, who suggests that cable news in general didn't adorn itself in honor in the run-up to the election: "There weren't a lot of our colleagues who covered ourselves with glory at that time. They were just so happy to get him on."
| | Jim Acosta joined me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources…" So I asked him about the news that former Fox News co-prez Bill Shine is taking over Trump W.H. communications… He said it's a further "meshing of these two entities, the White House and Fox News."
--> Key Acosta quote: America now has "what I would consider to be a system of state-supported media — in that you have a White House, you have a president, they lend so much support to one individual news network, which gives them beneficial coverage, that it has changed the nature of what we view as being our system of delivering the news in this country."
Keep scrolling for much more from Acosta...
| | Missed opportunities in Trump's chat with Bartiromo | | I chose the word "chat," not "interview," on purpose. It aired on Fox News Sunday morning. Almost every time Trump said something shocking or unsubstantiated, Maria Bartiromo let it slide. Sometimes she didn't just fail to follow up, she encouraged it.
Here's an example: Trump said "you get rid of ICE, you're going to have a country that you're going to be afraid to walk out of your house." What?! No followup. A little later, he claimed ICE liberates towns from MS-13: "They actually liberate towns." Did Bartiromo ask "Which towns? Nope... She moved on to North Korea: "How was the summit? Can you give us any anecdotes?"
Sometimes SHE sounded like the president:
BARTIROMO: "Well you made a bold decision on Iran. I mean this was incredible."
TRUMP: "And Iran, look what's happening in Iran."
BARTIROMO: "And look what's happening now. The strikes and the protests, the people want economic freedom."
TRUMP: "Iran's a different place, Iran's a different place."
| | Is Bartiromo proud of this? | | In this exchange, Bartiromo sounds more like a counselor than an interviewer:
TRUMP: "Now, there's no collusion with me. There's no Russia with me. There's no nothing."
BARTIROMO: "I know."
TRUMP: "It's a – honestly, it's a disgrace. But I purposely said I'm not getting involved. Let it just go. You know, they found nothing. Nobody has found anything –"
BARTIROMO: "I know."
| | | POTUS juiced preorders of Sean Spicer's book on Saturday... But not by enough to lift "The Briefing" onto Amazon's best seller list... The book, due out July 24, was around #20,000 on Amazon before Trump promoted it on Twitter... Twenty four hours later, it's around #2,000... | | -- Hugh Hewitt's low-rated Saturday morning show on MSNBC is no more... (Mediaite)
-- "The Unpublished Political Cartoons of Rob Rogers," the former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoonist, will go on exhibit at the Corcoran School in DC later this month... (WashPost)
-- How "General Hospital," America's longest-running soap opera, "is talking about #MeToo..." (WashPost)
-- ICYMI: Peter Kafka's discussion with Keach Hagey about her new Sumner Redstone book... (Recode) | | Here's the link to my full interview with Jim Acosta. He had a lot to say. A few of the notable quotes:
-- On his tendency to shout Q's to Trump: "People don't understand there's a process to it. And, you know, we typically adhere to that process..."
-- It's a necessary part of the job: "If they want to send me to hell, I will still be shouting at the devil, is the way I look at it. We have a job to do..."
-- On Trump's lies: "We spend a lot of our time... calling out his falsehoods. That consumes a lot of the coverage. And it presents, I think, to the American people this sense that all we're doing all day long is bashing the president, when, in fact, we have to be fact-checkers..."
-- On the reasons why he's a target of Trumpworld: "To some extent, you know, the president, Fox News, they don't have Barack Obama around anymore. They don't have Hillary Clinton, although the president goes after Hillary Clinton a lot. So does Fox News. And so we have sort of replaced Obama and Hillary. They need somebody to attack. And I think that we have sort of filled that role..."
-- Plus: Acosta confirmed that he was asked to appear on the pilot of Sean Spicer's potential TV talk show. "We politely turned that down," he said…
| | The left is raging. Is the media listening? | | We ran out of time for this on TV, so we posted this bonus segment to the web. Trump opponents are mobilizing at marches and expressing profound fear and anxiety about the direction of the country. Is the press fully and accurately capturing this? I asked Jelani Cobb and Liz Plank... Here's what they said...
--> Related: Are Trump alarmists turning off the people they're trying to reach? Cobb's response: "Shouting fire in a place where there is actually a fire isn't alarmism."
| | | I also asked Plank and Cobb about the widespread belief that the news media "missed" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- that newsrooms failed to cover her campaign or foresee her victory. Plank made a great point: Journalists shouldn't just "follow the money," i.e. donor support, they should "follow the tweets," i.e. pay attention to other signs of passion and energy... | | Here's how to catch up on "Reliable" | | | Check out the podcast of the show via Apple or other apps... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full show via VOD or CNN/go... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Congress gets answers: "Facebook gave dozens of companies special access to user data, detailing for the first time a spate of deals that contrasted with previous statements that it restricted personal information to outsiders in 2015..." (WSJ)
-- Univision vs Dish Network: Several Univision networks went dark on Dish's satellite service and Sling TV over the weekend... (Deadline)
-- Megan Thomas emails: In a letter printed by Variety, former Pixar employee Cassandra Smolcic describes the shockingly brazen sexist culture that prevailed under John Lasseter... (Variety) | | "The Disney-Fox Deal Sails Through, a Bit Too Easily" | | | The NYT editorial board's eyebrows are raised: "It is mystifying" why the DOJ "took such a hard line against AT&T-Time Warner, which legal experts argued would be a difficult case to bring because of the nature of the merger, while going so easy on Disney-Fox," this editorial in Monday's paper says... | | Mark me down as very, very skeptical. Roseanne Barr says she's already getting offers to get back on TV.
"Inside every bad thing is a good thing waiting to happen and I feel very excited because I've already been offered so many things and I almost already accepted one really good offer to go back on TV and I might do it. But we'll see," she told Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in a new podcast chat... Their second convo since she was fired... ABC News has details here...
>> The obvious Q: Which network made her a "really good offer to go back on TV?" | | "Jurassic" about to top $1 billion at the box office | | "Make it four in a row for Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and its dino-might atop the international box office," Deadline reports. "In 68 markets, the JA Bayona-helmed sequel grossed $56.1M this weekend to take the overseas cume to $667.6M. That lifts the global gobble to $932.4M with the $1B milestone in stomping distance."
In North America, "Jurassic" made another $60 million this weekend. "Incredibles 2" was #2 with $45 million... | | | Brian Lowry emails: Documentaries aren't known for cashing in at the box office, but a few left a mark over the weekend: "Won't You By My Neighbor?," about Mr. Rogers, added 300 screens and amassed $2.3 million, good enough for 10th place overall; and "RBG," about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, continues to score, upping its total tally to $11.5 million. "Three Identical Strangers" also garnered a solid $160,000, opening in just five theaters. Speaking of... | | I wholeheartedly second Lowry's review of "Three Identical Strangers." Jamie and I watched it on Saturday and we were blown away. I don't want to explain WHY you should see this film, lest I ruin it, but you should. (It will air on CNN in early 2019.)
On Saturday evening, right after a screening of the film at Landmark 57, I moderated a Q&A with the director and a couple of the "strangers..." | | "As Marvel movies soar, Stan Lee sees his private life crumble, with allegations of elder abuse" | | | Brian Lowry emails: On Sunday's Page One, the LA Times recapped the sad story of Stan Lee, and accusations that the 95-year-old Marvel patriarch -- who, as the piece notes, has a track record of dealing with shady characters -- has been exploited and abused since the death of his wife... | | | Hope you had a great weekend. Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts straight to me: brian.stelter@turner.com. Thank you! | | | | | | |
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