Forward

EXEC SUMMARY: Joe Biden is announcing, The Markup is teetering, James Holzhauer is winning, and Report for America is adding new members... Here are all the details...

Hacking and the 2020 elections

Oliver Darcy emails: The next election is on the horizon, and as we approach, it's worth exploring how newsrooms might respond if hackers release stolen data from a presidential candidate. Obviously, it's a hypothetical scenario, but not one that is out of the question, given what happened in 2016 with Hillary Clinton and WikiLeaks. So has anything changed in the years since that hack? Donie O'Sullivan and I asked major newsrooms how they would respond. And...

We reached out to NYT, WaPo, WSJ, AP, CNN, Fox News, NBC, CBS, ABC, and BuzzFeed. Fox did not reply to any of our requests for comment, while NBC and ABC declined to comment. Of the remaining newsrooms that did talk to us, the overall theme was that in a scenario in which hackers release stolen data, each potential story would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Some highlights:

>> NYT rep Danielle Rhoades Ha: "When we publish, we aim to give readers as much context as possible about the information and the motivation for its release."

>> BuzzFeed EIC Ben Smith said these are "difficult calls" made on a "case by case basis," noting BuzzFeed's revised standards guide explicitly addresses hacked material.

>> WSJ rep Steve Severinghaus: "The Wall Street Journal applies the same high standards for authenticity, accuracy, fairness, and newsworthiness for all of the articles we publish, regardless of the origin of the information."

>> AP rep Lauren Easton: "In deciding whether to publish, we weigh the value of the information and the public's need to know, alongside provenance and possible motivation behind the disclosure."

How much introspection has really happened?

Darcy continues: As you can likely tell, most of the news organizations we contacted did not reveal any sweeping changes to its rules about publishing hacked materials since 2016. So how much introspection has actually occurred? It's unclear. But security researcher Thaddeus Grugq noted in a Twitter thread Wednesday that such discussions need to occur. "This issue needs to be address now, while there's time, before it is too late," Grugq tweeted.

What should they do?

Darcy adds: For our story, Donie and I reached out to Columbia J-School professor Todd Gitlin, WaPo's Erik Wemple, and former CNN DC bureau chief Frank Sesno. They all seemed to generally agree that if the hacked documents reveal something newsworthy, journalists should report on them. "A world in which media organizations demand pure motives from the folks who leak, steal and furnish information will be a much less informed world," Wemple said.

That said, Gitlin, Wemple, and Sesno all stressed that identifying the motive of the hackers is crucial. "Identity of the hackers must be clear-cut," Gitlin said. Sesno summed it up: "In all cases very sophisticated editorial decision making need to take place to determine whether the information rises to the level of importance that the public needs to know, that there is a public good that that information represents, and despite how it got to you, the value of the information overrides that. That's a high bar."

Cooperating with a "crime"

Vox's Ezra Klein brought up this issue on last Sunday's "Reliable Sources." He said "we knew those e-mails were hacked" in 2016. "There was a crime committed to steal information from the DNC and launder it through the press. We cooperated with that." Klein's point: "I don't think that the media is doing all that much self-reflection about the role that we played in making Russia's operation successful. We're looking outward quite a bit, but not inward nearly enough." That's why Darcy and O'Sullivan's story is so critical...

>> Kathleen Hall Jamieson has been sounding the alarm about this. Here's her new op-ed in the Boston Globe...

>> Juliette Kayyem speaking on the PBS "NewsHour" Wednesday night: "The media has to start having some standards by which they will determine whether things stolen, not leaked, things stolen, will be utilized by them to amplify the sort of criminal behavior by a foreign entity..."

THURSDAY PLANNER

-- What time will Joe Biden announce? Will it be timed for the A.M. shows? He's expected to enter the 2020 race on Thursday morning...

-- On the eve of Biden's announcement, Bernie Sanders was the new #1 in Chris Cillizza and Harry Enten's "power rankings" of the 2020 Democrats... Biden slipped to #2... (CNN)

-- Twitter is making it easier to flag fake news in India amid the country's national election. Updates to reporting tools will take effect on Thursday... (CNN)

-- The NFL Draft is starting Thursday evening on NFL Network, ABC and ESPN...

-- Vox is holding a fifth anniversary party in DC Thursday night...

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST:

Report for America's next class

Report for America is announcing its 2019 class on Thursday! There are 61 corps members at 50 news organizations in 28 states and Puerto Rico... That's an even greater # than I expected a few months ago... The details will be up on the website in the morning...

THE MUELLER REPORT

Hillary Clinton urges Dems to hold Watergate-style hearings

President Trump says SO much, every day, that people sometimes suffer from Trump overload. Others choose their words more carefully, in the hopes that they'll have more impact -- and I think that's what Hillary Clinton did on Thursday. She wrote a rare-for-her op-ed for the Washington Post about the Mueller report, saying it "documents a serious crime against the American people." Hours later, it's the most-read thing on the Post's website.

Clinton said the 2016 election was "corrupted" by Russia -- an assault "bigger than politics" -- and "what our country needs now is clear-eyed patriotism, not reflexive partisanship." Citing Watergate as a precedent, she said "televised hearings added to the factual record and, crucially, helped the public understand the facts in a way that no dense legal report could. Similar hearings with Mueller, former White House counsel Donald McGahn and other key witnesses could do the same today."

Former Nixon W.H. counsel John Dean, on "AC360," said "I do agree with her. You have to educate the public. That's what happened during Watergate. That's what she's suggesting should happen again. And that's the only way to really, politically, move forward -- is to have an informed electorate. They are not today."

Meanwhile...

TIME's Abigail Abrams writes: "Constitutional experts say that President Donald Trump got a fundamental fact about impeachment wrong." He tweeted on Wednesday that "if the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court."

"In fact," Abrams wrote, "the framers of the Constitution debated whether presidential impeachments should be handled before the Supreme Court, before deciding that was a bad idea for four main reasons."

Politico's Katie Galioto added: "The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1993 that authority for impeachment trials resides in Congress and 'nowhere else.'" I don't know, maybe these sorts of basic constitutional screw-ups by the president should be big stories, not shrugged off?

An "ongoing threat"

Wednesday began with lots and lots of Trump tweets... and the NYT's scoop about Kirstjen Nielsen being told by Mick Mulvaney not to bring up Russian meddling with the president.

"You know," Jake Tapper said later in the day, "he still seems pretty agitated for a guy claiming at the beginning of the week he's never been happier or more content." Indeed, the tweets keep coming... But the reporting keeps coming too...

At 4 p.m.ET, Tapper shared new reporting about the "ongoing threat" of election interference from Russia. He asked: "Why haven't there been more than a couple senior-levels principals meeting to coordinate this response -- government-wide -- and why is President Trump so willing to use his bully pulpit to attack cable news anchors or 'SNL' comedians? Why is he so unwilling to do so on this issue related to his job, related to national security?"

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- A must-read by Charles V. Bagli: "As Durst murder case goes forward, HBO's film wll also be on trial..." (NYT)

-- Strangest story of the day: Tom Arnold called Michael Cohen, recorded the call, and gave the tape to the Journal... (WSJ)

-- Shares in AT&T (CNN's parent) fell 4% on Wednesday after its earnings report showed that its "pay-television subscriber base continued to erode during the first quarter..." (WSJ)

-- More: "Some analysts" say "the slump at DirecTV Now is another sign that the holy grail of cheap, a la carte television remains as elusive as ever, and that the promise of cord-cutting has yet to materialize for consumers..." (WaPo)

-- Just announced: Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon are talking their nightly handoff to the stage... They'll be together at the 92Y on July 9... (92Y)

What Holzhauer is doing right

"James Holzhauer has dominated 'Jeopardy!' like no one else since the current version of the television game show premiered in 1984," the NYT's Victor Mather writes. He's "second on the all-time list behind the legendary Ken Jennings. And the remarkable thing is that Holzhauer, a 34-year-old professional sports bettor from Las Vegas, has reached that mark in just 15 games; Jennings's $2.5 million came in 74 games." Here's what Mather asked him about his "extraordinary strategy..."

>> Holzhauer summed up his strategy to The Atlantic's Joe Pinsker this way: "Play fast, build a stack, bet big, and hope for the best."

>> 538's Oliver Roeder says Holzhauer has "taken the game to its logical conclusion..."

The Markup is in limbo

The Markup's EIC Julia Angwin was fired on Monday... five of the startup's seven editorial staffers resigned on Tuesday... and now this: On Wednesday afternoon, Craig Newmark and the other funders of the site said they are "taking steps" to "reassess our support" for the startup. In response, The Markup's remaining leaders Sue Gardner and Jeff Larson said "we respect their statement and their need to review this situation, and we will support them in any way. We are hard at work continuing to build The Markup, and believe deeply in this mission as do our funders." Full story here...

🎧 Julia Angwin on the "Reliable" podcast

"I want this team and I want this mission, and I want to build this," Angwin told me on Wednesday. "I don't quite know the mechanics of how this works, but I can tell you my vision is exactly the same." She said she hopes that Newmark "would choose to fund us in some other way, or to put us back in place at The Markup. Or maybe another funder comes forward. But I didn't give up the best job in journalism to just give up on this dream."

>> 🎧 Listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your app of choice...

Facebook prepares to pay up

Facebook "exceeded revenue expectations and matched estimates for its daily active user growth," per CNBC. But most headlines, rightfully so, were about this massive fine. The company expects that an ongoing investigation by the FTC "could result in fines ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion," CNN's Seth Fiegerman wrote.

Still, the company's stock popped in after-hours trading. Fiegerman: "The stock move may be a sign investors feel relief that Facebook is close to putting the FTC investigation behind it — and that the settlement isn't even worse."

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

By Katie Pellico:

-- "A priest received a standing ovation at Lyra McKee's funeral when he asked why it took her death to unite politicians..." (BBC)

-- The AP is joining RNF, RNS and The Conversation in a new initiative to "expand religion news reporting in the U.S. and around the world..." (RNS)

-- A notable new report by Reuters: "Facebook's flood of languages leave it struggling to monitor content..." (Reuters)

-- Tortoise and the Hare, tech edition: Why "Microsoft is winning the techlash." Axios' Kim Hart explains how the OG tech giant "sidestepped the mistakes made by its younger, brasher Big Tech brethren..." (Axios)

The Intercept, "the loudest voice attacking Democrats from the left"

In this I-wish-I'd-written-it piece for Politico, Steven Perlberg describes The Intercept's "sharp turn into party politics." As the Democratic party "grapples with fractures emerging in its coalition, the Intercept is a crowbar working those fractures apart, probing hard at fault lines," he writes. But "will the site's belligerent strategy be effective, or will it handicap the only Democrats who have a serious chance of capturing the White House?" Asked another way: Is the Intercept "undermining its own side?" Read on...

Bila's promotion at Fox

"Former The View panelist Jedediah Bila, who has filled in on 'Fox & Friends Weekend' since returning to the cable news network as a contributor, has been named a permanent co-host of the weekend edition," Deadline's Lisa de Moraes writes. "She debuts in that capacity this coming Saturday, joining co-host Pete Hegseth and a rotating third co-host." Ed Henry and Griff Jenkins are often in the rotation...

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

An Phung emails:

-- Julia Carrie Wong reported on the complexities of young influencers on YouTube who are making money from unboxing toys -- and sidestepping Hollywood's system of child labor protections... (The Guardian)

-- Please please please read this important guide on how to be better allies to the marginalized members of the newsroom... (OpenNews)

-- This VF profile about Bari Weiss, a divisive NYT opinion editor, is creating...you guessed it...divisions on Twitter. Read it! So much for the NYT-VF "war..." (VF)

Limbaugh lavishes praise on "best host" Trump after golf outing

Oliver Darcy emails: It's been well publicized that Rush Limbaugh golfed with Donald Trump on Friday. But Limbaugh hadn't really discussed it in much detail. On Wednesday that changed. Limbaugh spent an entire segment going into great detail about his golf adventures with the president – and it really was something.

To give you an idea of the segment, here's a tiny snippet of what he said: "When he hits a bad shot, he just walks away from it and doesn't let it distract," Limbaugh said. "Never, ever, is he in a bad mood. Never, ever, gets mad. Never, ever, gets angry." Limbaugh went to great lengths to express his feeling that Trump "is the best host" and "understands hospitality like no one else." Anyway, you get the idea...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Correction: Yesterday I said CNN DC bureau chief Sam Feist spoke with Michael Calderone about the network's town hall strategy, but actually Daniel Lippmann has been filling in for Calderone this week. My fault! (Politico)

-- A "curated playlist of short-form digital content from CNN's anchors and reporters" can now be found on Viacom's Pluto TV... (Variety)

-- "Andrew Yang, the most meme-able 2020 candidate, also wants to save journalism." Well, depends on your definition of "save..." (NiemanLab)

Another collaboration in California...

Via the AP: "After the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, killed 85 people, journalists from AP, The Sacramento Bee, Chico Enterprise-Record, Paradise Post, Record Searchlight in Redding, Reno Gazette-Journal, Ventura County Star and Desert Sun came together to determine how to tell the story of wildfires with the goal of illuminating problems and pointing to potential solutions." Details here...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- One heck of a booking! Chuck Todd sat down with both Harry Reid and John Boehner "in a rare joint-interview in Las Vegas," per NBC... (Apple Podcasts)

-- "The Joe Rogan Experience" is the latest big-name podcast to request to be removed from Luminary's recently launched platform. Nick Quah says this is "less an overt expression of the brewing podcast platform war," and more "the result of more mundane procedural breakdowns around licensing agreements." Still significant though... (Hot Pod)

-- BI's Ben Gilbert says Epic Games is "reportedly struggling to keep up with the extreme success of its free-to-play Battle Royale game," and some employees "describe working 100-hour weeks..." (BI)

-- ICYMI: Rachelle Hampton reports on "The Black Feminists Who Saw the Alt-Right Threat Coming..." (Slate)

What's going to happen to "The Office" ?!

"Hollywood studios that licensed old TV shows to Netflix are getting into streaming and want their hits back," the WSJ's Joe Flint and Amol Sharma wrote on Wednesday.

I call this "tightening the spigot." You can let the water flow freely... Or you can tighten the spigot and stop the water. Five years ago, I thought the water suppliers had control. But now Netflix has so many other ways to hydrate.

Anyway, NBC's "The Office" is the water in this scenario. Reruns of "The Office" are Netflix's "No. 1 show," but the show's owner NBCUniversal "has begun internal discussions about removing 'The Office' from Netflix when the contract expires in 2021, according to people familiar with the situation." NBCU's competing streaming service is launching next year...

The "Avengers" take China

Frank Pallotta emails: "Avengers: Endgame" has taken off in China. Disney is estimating that the Marvel film's opening day in China nabbed about $107.2 million. That's, in a word, BIG. It's also the highest industry opening day of all time in China and the beginning of what is likely going to be a record-breaking weekend for the Disney superhero studio.

Disney will report first day international grosses starting Thursday morning... And then the film opens in North America Thursday evening. After that, it could get crazy, so stay tuned to CNN Business as I break down all the numbers through the weekend...

There's an app called Runpee. Get it?

Brian Lowry emails: Among the potential beneficiaries of "Avengers: Endgame's" three-hour running time? Runpee, an app designed to cue movie-goers on the best time for a bathroom break during a movie. "This is as big a movie as we've ever done for Runpee," says Dan Gardner, the app's founder, who came up with the idea after another long movie, the 2005 remake of "King Kong..."

FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX

By Lisa Respers France:

-- Jennifer Garner has nabbed the cover of People's annual "Beautiful People" issue.

-- Serena Williams had a tough time planning BFF Meghan Markle's baby shower...

-- Sean "Diddy" Combs has revealed Kim Porter's last words to him before she died...

Academy doesn't change streaming eligibility for Oscars

"Netflix can chill: Streaming movies will still be eligible for Oscar nominations," Lisa Respers France writes. "The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors announced Tuesday it 'voted to maintain Rule Two, Eligibility for the 92nd Oscars' when it approved the slate of rules for its next season." In other words, no rule change "to make content from streaming services like Netflix ineligible." Read on...

>> The NYT's Brooks Barnes has the must-read backstory here, including new comments from Steven Spielberg...

Bond #25...

Brian Lowry emails: The stewards of the James Bond franchise are trying to build an event around a Thursday reveal of the title and casting for the next movie -- the 25th in the series, and the fifth starring Daniel Craig. Not sure I'd have tried to do that the day "Avengers" opens, but there you have it...

Nick and CBS teaming up for animated 'Star Trek' series

"Nickelodeon is beaming up a new animated "Star Trek" series with help from CBS TV Studios," CNN's Sandra Gonzalez reports. The show is billed as a chance to introduce the "Star Trek" universe to a new generation of viewers..

FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN

-- WaPo's Monica Hesse spent a marvelous "45 catatonic hours" watching all 21 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and says she "witnessed a decade of progress for women..." (WaPo)

-- Airbnb is turning to show biz to entice travelers. Reuters reports "a slate of original shows to whet customers' appetite for travel" that are in development... (Reuters)

Lowry recommends "Cobra Kai"

Brian Lowry emails: YouTube hasn't made much noise with its original programming, which makes "Cobra Kai" all the more impressive. Derived from "The Karate Kid" franchise, the second season actually packs a bigger kick than the first, thanks to the arrival of another original cast member, Martin Kove, and has mastered the mix of nostalgia and storytelling that has eluded so many reboots and revivals....

Thank you for reading. Email me anytime. See you tomorrow...