| | | | | Exec summary: How the Capital Gazette is functioning... Why Atlantic Media is selling Quartz... What Oprah Winfrey is saying about 2020... Plus: Where is Brian Ross going? | | NJ might invest $5 million in journalism... | | What if every state in the union provided some seed money for local journalism -- as a way to rebuild some of what's been lost through years and years of cuts and cuts?
That's what New Jersey is on the verge of doing. Public media advocates are calling it a historic legislative victory.
WHAT HAPPENED: Both houses of the NJ legislature passed the "Civic Info Bill" last month. On Sunday night, governor Phil Murphy signed a budget that allocates $5 million for the Civic Information Consortium, a nonprofit group that is tasked with providing grant $$$ to strengthen local news coverage...
WHAT'S NEXT: The funding is secured, but Murphy hasn't signed the actual bill yet. I'm told his counsel's office needs to review the bill first. But because the $$ was in the budget, advocates are optimistic...
WHO'S IN CHARGE: The consortium is supported by five NJ universities. But this is not about academic research. A board of directors will be established to oversee the group and approve the grants...
WHY THIS MATTERS: The liberal public interest group Free Press has been campaigning for this bill for 2+ years. It's well known that parts of NJ are underserved by both local and regional media (partly because of the state's location between two big cities, NYC and Philly). This bill could be a corrective...
| | Could this bill be a model for other states? | | "Never before has a state taken the lead to address the growing crisis in local news," Mike Rispoli, the state director for Free Press Action Fund, said in a statement. "Trustworthy local journalism is the lifeblood of democracy; it allows people to participate meaningfully in decisions regarding local elections, public schools and policy decisions."
Rispoli's point: NJ is now "a model for the rest of the nation."
| | A "blueprint" for addressing the loss of local news coverage | | I followed up with Rispoli on Monday night. He said the Free Press campaign showed that people truly care about local news.
"We were told over and over that people wouldn't participate in a campaign about strengthening local news, or that it wasn't an issue that people would take action on," he said. "They did time and again. I really do hope that newsrooms, funders, and lawmakers look to this legislation and campaign as a way to spark conversation about the value of local news, and gives them a blueprint for addressing its disappearance in their community and state..."
| | | If you're opposed to publicly funded news coverage, a la the PBS "NewsHour," then you're probably concerned by this NJ idea. (The Daily Caller posted a skeptical story on Monday.) On the other hand, if you think there should be more taxpayer funding for news coverage, then you're heartened by it, and you're hoping Murphy will sign the bill... | | -- Via The Baltimore Sun: "The alleged gunman in Thursday's killings at The Capital sent three threatening letters before the shooting rampage at the Annapolis newspaper, Anne Arundel County police said Monday..."
-- MD flags remained at half staff until Monday evening. President Trump declined a request from the Annapolis mayor to lower American flags in honor of the victims, per Capital Gazette reporter Danielle Ohl...
-- A woman who filed a stalking complaint against the suspect spoke with NBC about him... | | | Rob Hiaasen's life was celebrated by family, friends and co-workers in Owings Mills Monday night. "Nearly 500 people packed under a tent at the Irvine Nature Center, chosen because Hiaasen loved nature and the outdoors. They wore shorts and casual dress because he wasn't a formal kind of guy," The Sun reports... Read more here... | | How the Capital Gazette is functioning | | Obviously the Annapolis office is inhospitable. Some staffers are working out of The Baltimore Sun's HQ on N. Calvert Street. And others are borrowing the Annapolis bureau of UMD's Capital News Service.
"It's a small room, but it felt good to have a newsroom that's full of people," reporter Danielle Ohl told me Monday night. "We have Baltimore Sun reporters and editors temporarily stationed with us. One reporter who left the Capital for the Morning Call is back and helped today." That reporter is on loan for a few days.
Ohl wrote three short stories on Monday. "It was good to just work and feel useful after so many days of sitting around and being sad," she said. | | -- Harvey Weinstein was indicted on additional sexual assault charges on Monday. "The additional charges include two counts of predatory sexual assault, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life..." (NYT)
-- WashPost's latest: "A federal investigation into Facebook's sharing of data with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica has broadened to focus on the actions and statements of the tech giant and now involves multiple agencies," including the SEC... (WashPost)
-- NBC's scoop: "Since her husband took office Melania Trump has earned six figures from an unusual deal with a photo agency" -- Getty -- "in which major media organizations have indirectly paid the Trump family despite a requirement that the photos be used only in positive coverage..." (NBC)
-- George Stephanopoulos is on a roll... Last month he had a rare interview with Trump, now this sit-down with Michael Cohen... (ABC) | | Oliver Darcy emails: Brian Ross and his longtime producer Rhonda Schwartz are leaving ABC News, seven months after Ross was sidelined for making a seismic mistake about Michael Flynn on live TV.
Context: After being suspended, Ross returned to ABC in a reduced capacity... Not reporting on Trump or contributing to live special reports like the one that landed him in hot water... His last investigative report appears to be a broadcast in late May on "20/20" which focused on the failures of the ankle bracelet monitoring system... | | Where are Ross and Schwartz heading? | | So what's next for Ross and Schwartz? Where are they going? That's what ABCers are wondering. But almost no one knows. Their note to colleagues said, "While we are signing off from ABC News, we are hardly leaving investigative journalism. There is much more to do."
--> TWO VIEWS IN THE TV BIZ: One POV says "Ross was always sloppy, and his screw-ups have finally caught up with him." The other POV says "Ross is an incredibly hard worker, he scored countless scoops, and his enemies are using his mistakes against him." | | Widespread criticism of Bartiromo's chat with Trump | | In last night's newsletter I showed some examples of Maria Bartiromo's softball questioning of President Trump. Outside the pro-Trump media universe, Bartiromo has been criticized and mocked for the interview. "She's in Hannity territory," the "Pod Save America" co-host Jon Favreau commented to me on Monday.
But Fox News is clear: Bartiromo is a journalist, not an opinion host like Sean Hannity. I know this doesn't make much sense, given her Trump boosterism, but that's what Fox says... | | | In response to the slams and the snark, Fox Biz president Brian Jones issued a statement, saying: "Maria Bartiromo's wide-ranging interview with President Trump made news on multiple fronts and elicited answers to numerous questions. We are proud of her hard work and continued success across each of her FBN and FNC programs." | | The "MAGA-phone" in action | | CNN's Jim Acosta has an affectionate name for the media outlets that promote POTUS: The "MAGA-phone." That's the "Make America Great Again" megaphone. "They by and large just echo what the president wants to hear," Acosta said.
I wrote up Acosta's comments from Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." About Fox, Trump, fact-checking, and more... Read/watch here... | | "Within a year or two, it's going to be really hard for a person to distinguish between a real video and a fake video. This technology, I think, will be irresistible for nation states to use in disinformation campaigns to manipulate public opinion, deceive populations and undermine confidence in our institutions..."
--Andrew Grotto of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, quoted in this AP story about deepfakes... | | Ben Mullin broke the news early Monday morning: Uzabase is buying Atlantic Media's Quartz. "The Japanese financial intelligence and media firm" will pay "between $75 million and $110 million for Quartz in cash and stock, tied to the site hitting certain financial goals."
Mullin said the sale is part of David Bradley's "plan to divest his media properties as he plans to step away from full-time management of Atlantic Media by the time he is 70." Bradley, 65, said in a memo to staffers that "all of this — my partnership with Emerson on The Atlantic and the sale of Quartz — is coming years faster than I had imagined." | | | Notice the year-over-year decline on this chart via Uzabase: | | | NYT's Edmund Lee tweeted: "Quartz sales dropped last year to $27.6 million, from $30 million in 2016 due to downturn in ad business. $75 million purchase price by Uzzabase pegs it around 3+ times revenue, compared with 6 times for Business Insider sale to Axel..." | | -- Correction: In yesterday's newsletter I said Sheryl Sandberg is due to testify at European Parliament today. Not true. The calendar listing was the result of a miscommunication. My apologies!
-- Abby Ohlheiser's smart take on the bot-fueled hashtag about Dems leaving the party: "The #WalkAway meme is what happens when everything is viral and nothing matters..." (WashPost)
-- "Todd S. Purdum is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer and as a California correspondent." He'll cover politics and culture from L.A., where the mag is establishing a bureau... (The Atlantic)
-- Deadspin's Timothy Burke is jumping to The Daily Beast... He'll be the site's director of video...
-- TechRepublic's Dan Patterson is joining CBS News and CNET as a senior producer... | | "Mainstream media grapples with a left-wing wave" | | | This is an important piece by CJR's Jon Allsop... He says "it's not too late for media outlets to pay more attention to America's left-wing wave, and to treat it with the seriousness it deserves..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: Sarah Ellison's otherwise-excellent Rupert Murdoch profile -- flagged in last night's newsletter -- downplays one salient point about the mogul's plans: He built 21st Century Fox with a stated desire to pass the empire off to his kids. While Murdoch might be right in his appraisal of the company's place in the current media landscape, it's hard to escape the conclusion that his decision to sell off much of the company indicates he didn't feel they were up to managing Fox into the future in its current form... | | She's on the cover of the August issue of British Vogue. Key graf from this summary of the story:
"It was following her rousing Time's Up speech at this year's Golden Globes that talk of Oprah 2020 reached fever pitch. But anyone hoping a presidential bid might be in the works for Winfrey will be sadly disappointed. 'In that political structure – all the non-truths, the bullshit, the crap, the nastiness, the backhanded backroom stuff that goes on – I feel like I could not exist,' Winfrey says. 'I would not be able to do it. It's not a clean business. It would kill me.'" | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Politico's Brad Dayspring will head the outlet's newly-consolidated marketing and comms team... (Twitter)
-- "In what's believed to be a first, a married couple of TV journalists" -- John Roberts and Kyra Phillips -- "shared the front row Monday at the White House press briefing..." (Wash Times)
-- Melissa Francis is joining Harris Faulkner as an official co-host of "Outnumbered" on Fox News... (TVNewser)
-- Steven Perlberg tweeted: "Newly-appointed WSJ editor Matt Murray is making his maiden visit to DC today (a bureau that clashed with prior EIC Gerry Baker). Per source, Murray told staffers, re Trump coverage, 'I have no thumb on the scale and there is no thumb on my scale.'" (Twitter) | | HBO orders Spanish-language comedy | | | "A new half-hour comedy from Fred Armisen and 'SNL' boss Lorne Michaels has been ordered to series at HBO. And it's in Spanish," The Wrap's Jennifer Maas reports. "Los Espookys" is the working title... The series was previously known as "Mexico City: Only Good Things Happen..." | | A record quarter for the US box office | | Frank Pallotta's latest: "The US box office made a record high of $3.3 billion in the second quarter of 2018. Pixar's 'Incredibles 2' and Universal's 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' led the way in June with revenue that contributed to the month's $1.27 billion windfall -- a 19% bump over last June." The quarter was also boosted by "A Quiet Place" and "Avengers: Infinity War" in April... This is, Pallotta notes, "a huge rebound for Hollywood..."
--> "This shows how important a great slate of movies is to the bottom line," comScore's Paul Dergarabedian says. "With the amount of competition available on the small screen, the record pace the industry is currently enjoying is a testament to the enthusiasm of audiences going to the movies." | | Gadsby and Seinfeld bring very different comedy philosophies to Netflix | | | Brian Lowry emails: Netflix has been on a binge in terms of buying stand-up programming, and its big tent has produced an intriguing conversation about comedy from what feel like polar opposites: Jerry Seinfeld, an upholder of the old guard, with his light-hearted "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," which returns this week; and Hannah Gadsby's special "Nanette," a searing one-woman show that questions the very nature of stand-up from a completely different perspective... | | What network is Rosanne talking about? | | As Chloe Melas reported here, Roseanne Barr SAYS she's fielding "many" TV offers since getting fired by ABC.
How 'bout just one? Can Barr identify one of the networks? | | | Brian Lowry emails: Roseanne's latest podcast interview -- in which she discussed all the TV offers she's supposedly fielding -- reinforces my earlier assessment that if ABC execs think firing her will get her out of their lives as their Roseanne-free spinoff "The Conners" proceeds, they likely have another thing coming... | | | For the record, part four | | | -- Adrian Chen's latest is about the "lucrative, stressful life" of a live streamer... (New Yorker)
-- I missed this yesterday: "Buyers are circling Tronc," Gerry Smith reports. Hearst is "interested in buying some of Tronc's titles but not the company..." (Bloomberg) | | Here's how to catch up on "Reliable" | | | Hope you had a great weekend. Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts straight to me: brian.stelter@turner.com. Thank you! | | | | | | |
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