| | | | | Surprise! I had planned on taking the rest of the week off... But there was just too much news today... So here's the latest... | | | Thursday's two big stories about the Trump administration speak volumes about the President's relationship with the media: | | In the end, the whistleblowers made enough noise to be heard.
Concerned EPA officials and other sources played a key role in exposing Scott Pruitt's abuses of power. After Pruitt resigned on Thursday afternoon, President Trump said Pruitt "did not want to be a distraction," an acknowledgment of the damning accounts.
Political observers were surprised by how long Pruitt lasted. But eventually, it seems, the system of checks and balances worked. Whistleblowers sought out reporters. The resulting news stories caused outcries. The outcries spurred investigations, or, as Trump might say, "distractions." Eventually it was enough for some of Trump's staunchest advocates, like Laura Ingraham, who called for Pruitt to step down. Here's my full story... | | Another Twitter newsflash | | | As Brooke Baldwin noted on CNN when the news broke, this was not the first time Trump has "scooped" a sudden change to his cabinet. Rex Tillerson's removal is another memorable transition-via-tweet... | | Pruitt's defenders say the media wanted a "scalp" | | Some members of the pro-Trump media say journalists and liberal activists wanted a "scalp," and they got one. Some say he was singled out for his effectiveness in rolling back Obama-era environmental policies.
Hugh Hewitt: Pruitt was "caricatured by left and MSM." Kimberley Strassel: "The barrage was overwhelming." Mollie Hemingway: The "well funded and media coordinated" anti-Pruitt movement had finally won "its scalp."
BUT: Those arguments sidestep all of the evidence about Pruitt's reported behavior... | | "Accountability journalism at its very best." | | Trump said Thursday that there was no "final straw." Maybe that's because there were SO MANY straws. I was struck by how, over time, journalists from major media outlets became remarkably blunt about calling out Pruitt's abuses of power. It's because the examples were so numerous and so egregious...
>> The Post's Philip Rucker called it "accountability journalism at its very best..." | | "How Scott Pruitt blew it" | | | That's the top headline on Politico right now. The main point: "Trump had grown tired of the torrent of negative stories about him and had come to believe they were a distraction that wouldn't go away..." | | Two CNN stories that "tipped the balance" | | On "AC360," Maggie Haberman cited two recent stories that "tipped the balance" for Pruitt: One was "the embarrassment" that followed when CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported that Pruitt pitched himself as Jeff Sessions' replacement a while back.
The other was "the scrubbing of the records." On Monday CNN's investigative unit identified "discrepancies between Pruitt's official calendar and other records" AND revealed the existence of a whistleblower who said Pruitt kept secret calendars/schedules to hide meetings. The source said on the record that EPA staffers would routinely "scrub" the calendars, a potential violation of federal law.
"That tipped the balance in a very different way," Haberman said... | | -- Al Gore, in a tweet, thanked "journalists, advocates, and citizens for exposing Mr. Pruitt as a destructive, unethical, and wasteful head of the #EPA."
-- NYMag's Gabriel Debenedetti: "Pruitt's tenure will be remembered by the public for the nonstop stream of scandals over recent months. But his real legacy — a concerted, even methodical, effort to dismantle previous admins' environmental policy — will prove far more significant. (This should not be a hot take.)"
-- Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones pointed out that the work is not over: "There's been intense and incredible EPA reporting recently, but with Pruitt out we'll have to keep digging," she tweeted, "and I hope readers stay tuned for it." | | -- POTUS said Thursday evening that he plans to make his SCOTUS announcement Monday at 9pm ET... (CNBC)
-- Ari Melber reacting to Michael Cohen hiring Lanny Davis: "We just hit the point in the plot where Donald Trump's top lawyer is hiring Hillary Clinton's top lawyer. That's not good news for Donald Trump..." (Twitter)
-- Charles Koch, "champion of free speech?" His grants to news media are accelerating, Paul Farhi reports... (WashPost) | | | Alternate headline: "HANNITY'S FRIEND IS NOW RUNNING THE W.H. COMMS SHOP." | | | If you thought Bill Shine's enemies in the right-wing media might be able to hold up his appointment, you thought wrong. The White House made it official around 1pm on Thursday -- Shine, a former co-president of Fox News, will be deputy chief of staff for communications -- essentially filling the vacant comms director role. This is a victory for Sean Hannity, who reportedly pushed for Trump to hire Shine. And it's yet another sign of the backscratching relationship between Fox and Trumpworld. As I quipped on "New Day" the other day, the merger is almost complete... | | Why this is so eyebrow-raising | | It's because Shine resigned in May 2017 amid a sexual harassment scandal at Fox News. To be clear, Shine has never been accused of harassment himself. But he has been portrayed as Roger Ailes' loyal protector and fixer.
Gretchen Carlson filed her historic suit against Ailes two years ago Friday -- July 6, 2016 -- and she tweeted on Thursday, "Life ... works in mysterious ways."
As the allegations piled up, and Ailes was ousted, Shine was accused of covering up the alleged misdeeds. Shine has denied all wrongdoing. But it's hard to imagine major corporations hiring him the way the W.H. just did. Here's my full story... | | How Fox Newsers covered the news | | | They... didn't really. Shine's former network only mentioned him twice on Thursday, both times in news reports by John Roberts. And Fox's web story didn't include any of the reasons why the appointment was controversial... | | Commonalities between Ailes and Trump | | Shine's old boss and new boss were friends, media power players and NYC celebs. Both Ailes and Trump stood accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women. Payoffs to women were also a common thread, though under different circumstances.
That's why Carlson's lawyer Nancy Erika Smith told TheWrap on Thursday: "Bill Shine is the perfect person for the job of protecting a sexual abuser and liar."
The liberal group UltraViolet issued a statement calling Shine's hiring "disturbing" but "unsurprising." The group said the "Trump White House has been a revolving door of sexual abusers and their enablers..."` | | Did the White House "court" this outrage? | | One of the president's sons, Donald Trump, Jr., predicted the criticism in a tweet: "On your marks, get set.... how long till the liberal media and snowflakes start taking shots at the great Bill Shine? Competent, hard working and a believer in making America great again!"
Ahhh, yes, the "snowflakes." Vox's Ezra Klein said the White House knew Thursday's outrage was coming, "and courted it." Klein's point: "The problem is that if you acculturate yourself to hearing outrage as a kind of perverse applause, if you lose the ability to listen to criticism, you end up triggering the libs by owning yourself..."
>> Ezra is my guest on this week's "Reliable" podcast... It'll be up on Friday evening... | | Of all the days for Trump to mock the #MeToo movement... | | Yep, it happened six hours after the Shine announcement, on Shine's first official trip with Trump.
At a rally in Montana, POTUS "mocked the #MeToo movement as he repeatedly attacked Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren over her heritage," CNN's Dan Merica wrote... | | Trump points to the press corps: "These are really bad people" | | CNN's Abby Phillip tweeted from the rally:
"Trump on media: 'they are so damn dishonest.' 'They're fake.' 'These are really bad people.' And he's still going. So there's your answer to the question of whether Trump's rhetoric would change after 5 journalists were gunned down in Annapolis."
Poisonous language from a sitting president, indeed. Lemme just second what Susan Glasser said on Twitter just now: "I still can't accept that the President of the United States is saying this. No matter how many times he does it..." | | -- "Facebook is in discussions for what could be its biggest original series deal to date: a reality show about global soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo..." (Variety)
-- Disturbing: "The World Cup sexism that won't go away -- and the female reporters on the front line..." (CNN) | | Moment of silence in newsrooms across the USA | | Big newsrooms like NPR and smaller newsrooms like NowThis joined in a moment of silence at 2:33pm ET Thursday, one week after the shooting spree at the Capital Gazette.
The tribute was organized by the American Society of News Editors and the Associated Press Media Editors.
Some of the surviving Capital staffers participated in the moment of silence at their temporary new office in Annapolis. Journalists at the paper's parent company, Tronc, also gathered in their Chicago newsroom to reflect. Here's our full story... | | Another letter from the suspect... | | | Journalist Eric Hartley was harassed by the alleged shooter for years. He used to work at the Capital... Now he works at the Virginian-Pilot. And on Thursday, he found a "pink, card-sized envelope in his newsroom mailbox" from a sender who identified himself as "anonymous source." Hartley handed it over to police, believing it was from the suspect. Details here from the Virginian-Pilot... | | Capital reporter Phil Davis told me it was "surreal." Davis and about 20 other Capital staffers and alums, accustomed to covering the Annapolis Fourth of July parade each year, led the parade instead. Davis said the staffers were heartened by the applause and cheers. "I don't know how to thank all of the people all of the time, but I will continue to try," he said.
At the end of the parade route, down by the city dock, staff writer Selene San Felice noticed that someone had scrawled the words "fake news" into a plank of wood. She scratched out the words and wrote the names of her five slain colleagues. Rachael Pacella, who was injured during the attack, added the words "Press on." More... | | Oliver Darcy emails: Ed Schultz, the liberal firebrand and former MSNBC host who most recently anchored a show for RT America, died on Thursday. He was 64. On the radio and on TV, Schultz was best known for championing the American labor movement.
It's not clear exactly why he died but WDAY-TV, where Schultz once worked, reported it was of natural causes. Read Darcy and Tom Kludt's full story here... | | What made Schultz stand out | | Tom Kludt emails: I met Schultz last year at CPAC, though if I'm being honest, it wasn't much of a meeting. Schultz was frosty to me the moment I introduced myself, so the exchange was brief. I concluded that he probably wasn't pleased with a story of mine that had published earlier in the day, a piece that examined the strange turn his career had taken since he left MSNBC and joined RT. Chief among those oddities was the fact that Schultz was speaking at CPAC, an event he once likened to Nazi Germany.
But the latter chapter of his professional life shouldn't obscure the one that preceded it. Schultz was a true progressive in a cable news ecosystem where there aren't many. He wore his heart on his sleeve, perhaps most memorably during the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2012. It always seemed like the Schultz you saw on TV was the Schultz you'd get off camera. I wish I could've had a real conversation with that Schultz last year... | | Schultz had several time slots on MSNBC during his six years there, including the 8pm slot now held by Chris Hayes. On Thursday night Hayes honored him during "All In," noting that some of Schultz's former staffers now work for his show.
Hayes said Schultz "used his platform and his distinctive and passionate voice to channel a worldview massively underrepresented in the media." | | The other night I asked if the border separation story is "fading away." Maybe not so fast. The banner on "AC360" just now: "TRANSPARENCY FAILURE ON KIDS IN CUSTODY."
Journalists are continuing to press government agencies for basic info about the status of the children. "We don't have a baseline number" of how many have been separated, John Berman said. "The issue here is the government will not tell us exactly how many kids they have separated from their parents..." | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Thursday's Page One picture in the NYT, of the fireworks show over the East River, was snapped by a summer intern! Congrats, Emma Howells...
-- Strong ratings for the Macy's fireworks telecast on NBC... (Variety)
-- Earlier in the day, Fox's Brit Hume shared a blog post claiming Democrats "hate" America, and said "hate may be too strong a word, but they sure don't love it." Under pressure, Hume deleted the tweet... (THR)
-- Spotted with President Trump during the evening's celebration at the W.H.: Fox's Kim Guilfoyle with her boyfriend Donald Trump Jr... (Twitter) | | Surge pricing for MoviePass | | | "MoviePass subscribers might have to spend a little more money on their next trip to the theater," CNNMoney's Jill Disis reports. "The service, which lets customers see one movie a day for $10 a month, began rolling out surge pricing Thursday. MoviePass told customers that its Peak Pricing model will trigger whenever there is a lot of demand for a movie or showtime. For example, a subscriber who wants to see a popular evening showing of the latest 'Avengers' movie might be warned by the MoviePass app that he or she will have to pay a few extra dollars to book a ticket." Is this enough to keep the biz afloat? Doesn't seem like it. But maybe we'll see many more tweaks like this. Read more... | | How much more $$$ could Netflix charge? | | This is a key Q for the future of the biz... So take note of what Variety's Todd Spangler reported over the holiday: "Netflix is kicking the tires on a new high-end streaming plan — dubbed 'Ultra' — to see whether consumers are willing to pay more for four Ultra HD streams or content in HDR format. The Ultra plans cost $16.99 per month and is being tested in two versions."
Consumers in some European countries spotted the tests. "Netflix has confirmed the Ultra tests," Spangler wrote. "Only a subset of customers will be shown the higher-priced options. In addition, as with any of the company's trial program, Netflix may not decide to more widely roll out the Ultra tier..." | | | "The future of Rupert Murdoch's Fox is live TV," CNNMoney's Jill Disis writes. "Last week, Fox bought the rights to broadcast 'WWE SmackDown' for five years. It made another five-year deal for Thursday night NFL games earlier this year." More... | | Lowry reviews the new "Whitney" doc | | | Brian Lowry emails: Whitney Houston's estate participated in "Whitney," the second feature-length documentary devoted to the singer's troubled life in less than a year. But while the access to those closest to her creates an intimate portrait, the project brings a heavy-handed approach to the material that's less compelling than the earlier film, "Whitney: Can I Be Me." Read more... | | | More from Brian Lowry: James Woods obviously wants to play the victim by promoting the fact that his agent decided to drop him, becoming the latest outspoken conservative celebrity to maintain that they're the subject of what amounts to a liberal Hollywood blacklist. It is, frankly, a rather convenient, potentially self-serving way to explain why the phone's stopped ringing as regularly... | | | We'll be back on Sunday. Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts straight to me: brian.stelter@turner.com. Thank you! | | | | | | |
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