Forward

EXEC SUMMARY: So much news, so little time. Here's the latest on Facebook's new News plan, Apple's rollout of News+, Discovery's streaming strategy, Deborah Norville's surgery, Ramin Setoodeh's new book about "The View," Mark Boal's next show, and much more...

BREAKING

This is Trump's health care promise

President Trump could not be more clear: He is pledging to provide "truly great HealthCare that will work for America."

But maybe not until after the 2020 election.

In an unusual nighttime tweetstorm on Monday, he said "everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn't work," so the GOP is developing "a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare." He said a "vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win" (pause for the next tweet) "back the House."

The president went on to say that "the Republican Party will be known as the Party of Great HealtCare." Presidential typos are a sign of carelessness... or worse. But I digress. The president is drawing attention to health care concerns, and that's a good thing. The national news media does not dedicate enough time to this topic. The more attention, the better!

--> CNN's Kyle Feldscher: "There is no evidence that there is another health care reform proposal coming from the GOP..."

--> A view from the left: Jon Favreau of "Pod Save America" tweeted, "Trump just made sure another election will be about health care. Amazing."

Kushner's deflection

Senior WH adviser Jared Kushner gave a very, very rare interview to Fox on Monday... On the same day that the House Oversight Committee upped its scrutiny of the WH's security clearance process, due to info provided by a WH insider. Kushner is one of the people ensnared by the scandal.

Kushner was on Fox to talk about the "First Step Act." So his interviewer, Laura Ingraham, broached the security clearance issue as gently as possible. "The left is going crazy about this security clearance issue," she said, knowing that she'd be incensed if the shoes were on the other feet.

Kushner said he "couldn't comment on the White House process" but said he'd been "accused of all kinds of things" that turned out to be false during his tenure at the WH. Ingraham then mocked the issue by asking Kushner if he poses a "grave national security concern to the country."

--> The NYT's Maggie Haberman tweeted that Ingraham noticeably did NOT "follow up by asking him if his father-in-law overruled security officials to grant him his clearance..."

A White House whistleblower

The big picture, via CNN's Alex Marquardt: "A White House whistleblower is alleging the Trump administration's handling of security clearances is threatening U.S. national security."

Her name is Tricia Newbold. She remains on the job. "In a White House where aggressive leak investigations are conducted in service of President Trump, who has aides sign nondisclosure agreements," her account "represents the rarest of developments: a damning on-the-record account from a current employee inside his ranks," the NYT's Katie Rogers writes...

IN OTHER NEWS...

Coming soon to Facebook?

Oliver Darcy emails: Mark Zuckerberg surprised everyone on Monday with the announcement that Facebook is developing a new section on the site devoted to curating "high quality" and "trustworthy" news.

Zuckerberg, who dropped the news during a recorded conversation with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, said the new section would be modeled after Facebook's existing "Watch" tab, which hosts videos and original programming. Some details:

>> Executives have discussed possibly launching the feature by the end of 2019, a source familiar with the convos told me...

>> Zuckerberg said Facebook "should be thinking" about the possibility of paying publishers license fees. He stressed that he wants to improve monetization for publishers...

FB may hire editors

More from Darcy: Zuckerberg said the new section will be a mix between curated and personalized content. To accomplish the former, there are already internal conversations about potentially hiring a small team of journalists to curate news for the section, per my source...

Zuckerberg also said he wants to build the new section in a "consultive way," allowing "experts in the field" to provide feedback...

Behind the scenes...

Facebook execs "have been discussing and tinkering with" a News tab "for months," Recode's Peter Kafka reported Monday. "Both outgoing product boss Chris Cox and Campbell Brown, the company's head of news partnerships, have championed the project." Zuckerberg's comments to Döpfner have brought the project into public view for the first time...

News Corp hopes for "concrete steps"

News Corp CEO Robert Thomson -- who compared Google and FB to Big Tobacco just last year -- said Monday "we welcome the comments" from Zuckerberg about a news tab and a possible licensing fee for news sources. Thomson: "We hope Mark's words are followed by concrete steps towards actually creating a new business model that recognizes and compensates the work of quality journalism."

>> Flashback: Rupert Murdoch said last year, "If Facebook wants to recognize 'trusted' publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee..."

Zuckerberg's European tour

Zuckerberg had a busy day in Berlin. After his session at the HQ of Axel Springer, he had several meetings and a big dinner with politicians such as Dorothee Bär and journalists such as Kai Diekmann, the former EIC of Bild. He's using the trip to reiterate what he wrote in his op-ed over the weekend. "Next stop on my trip is Dublin," he wrote on FB Monday night...

Warner responds to the op-ed

Via Donie O'Sullivan: Senator Mark Warner responded to Zuck's op-ed by saying, "I'm glad to see that Mr. Zuckerberg is finally acknowledging what I've been saying for past two years: the era of the social media Wild West is over. Facebook needs to work with Congress to pass effective legislative guardrails, recognizing that the largest platforms, like Facebook, are going to need to be subject to a higher level of regulation in keeping with their enormous power." Stay tuned...

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- On Page One of Tuesday's NYT: "Flood of Fake Posts Tests Facebook as India Votes..." (NYT)

-- Cuomo at the border: CNN's Chris Cuomo brought his 9 p.m. program to Hidalgo, Texas on Monday... He pressured elected officials from both parties to take action... Watch the highlights via his social media feeds... (Twitter)

-- Two moves at Newsweek are being announced on Tuesday: Hank Gilman is returning in a newly created role, editorial director, and Melissa Jewsbury is being promoted to managing editor...

WSJ: "Politico Considers Naming Editor to Succeed Harris"

That's the headline in Tuesday's paper, courtesy Ben Mullin and Lukas Alpert. "Politico is discussing a plan to install a new editor in chief to replace John Harris," they report, citing people familiar with the matter. "Matthew Kaminski, currently Politico's global editor, would become the outlet's new top editor under the plan being discussed, the people said." And Harris would "remain at Politico in a leadership role." Harris co-founded the site twelve years ago, so this has an end-of-an-era feel to it...

--> The big Q: Why is Politico owner Robert Allbritton passing over Politico's top newsroom editor Carrie Budoff Brown?

The Biden conundrum

One of the headlines on CNN.com's homepage right now: "Second woman accuses Joe Biden of unwanted touching."

Amid all the Biden coverage on Monday, this commentary by BuzzFeed's Katherine Miller stood out to me.

"You already know what you think about Joe Biden touching people in public," she tweeted, "which is why everyone sounds so weird talking and writing about it." She continued: "Is the way Biden comports himself bad? Bad but minor? Overblown? A natural thing for an effusive politician? Depends on the situation? You already know your own heart on this subject, so it's not like the existence of one photo changes it..."

Buttigieg's spike

Biden is almost always in the top five when it comes to Google search interest rankings of confirmed and likely 2020 Dems. But there's something else going on in this chart that Google Trends shared on Monday. Look at Pete Buttigieg's rise... Starting in January, and continuing in March...

ICYMI, here's my interview with Buttigieg's comms adviser Lis Smith, from Sunday's "Reliable Sources..."

El Salvador's president-elect is trolling Fox

Nayib Bukele, the president-elect of El Salvador, had some fun at Fox's expense. Since Sunday's "Fox & Friends Weekend" went viral due to a banner about the United States cutting aid to "3 MEXICAN COUNTRIES," Bukele posted a photo with Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and wrote, "The Presidents of 2 mexican countries." He tagged it #FoxandFriends...

"It's been six months..."

"Six months ago today, a man on the brink of his greatest happiness walked into Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul while his wife-to-be watched from the gate," WaPo publisher and CEO Fred Ryan writes in Tuesday's paper.

Ryan and his colleagues are still seeking justice for Jamal Khashoggi. In Tuesday's piece, he says members of the U.S. intelligence community "have done their jobs," and so have lawmakers. "But the Trump administration is a far different story." Read on...

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- The Cleveland Plain Dealer on Monday "laid off 14 newsroom employees as part of a staff reduction first announced in December..." (Plain Dealer)

-- Two new additions at NBC News/MSNBC: Brett McGurk is a senior foreign affairs analyst and Neal Katyal is a legal analyst with a recurring series on "The Beat with Ari Melber..." (MSNBC)

-- David Marchese's latest profile: "Robert A. Caro on the means and ends of power..." (NYT)

-- With the president advocating for the WaPo and NYT's Pulitzers for Trump-Russia coverage to be "taken away," Erik Wemple points out that the prizes credit stories that he and Sean Hannity have used to advance their agendas... (WaPo)

What leadership looks like

Zuzana Caputova is the newly elected President of Slovakia. She is the country's first-ever female head of state. CNN's story notes that Caputova's anti-corruption campaign "struck a chord in a country still grappling with the murder in February last year of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova." The murder and ensuing trial "triggered some of the biggest protests seen in post-communist Slovakia" and motivated her to run for office.

Which brings us to last Saturday -- election day in Slovakia.

☝️ This photo is by Tomas Halasz. On Saturday night, according to Slovak media reporter Filip Struhárik, Caputova went and lit a candle for Kuciak and Kušnírová. "It was first thing she did after elections," Struhárik said.

"It's anyone's guess"

This reporting from CNN's Pamela Brown is specifically about the president's threat to close the southern border (which means closing the ports of entry), but it could apply to any number of stories and controversies.

"It's anyone's guess," an anonymous W.H. official told Brown. Will Trump follow through on the threat? "You never know. It's anyone's guess..."

My impression is that some government officials are using the press to warn Trump about the dangers of his threat. Brown quoted an admin official later in the day who said border closures would be "catastrophic." The official noted that this is the third time POTUS has threatened to close the border, and "this time seems more real." Keep an eye on what Trump's Fox friends are advising him to do...

"He lives in the moment"

CNN's Lauren Fox is out with a great story about Trump's relationship with GOP lawmakers. Sure, "Trump's erratic behavior can at times be maddening," Republicans on Capitol Hill admit, but he's "accessible." Likeable. "Hard to stay mad at." Always just a phone call away.

This quote from Sen. Lamar Alexander stood out to me: "Even people who don't like him, when they are with him, are impressed with how easily he works a room. I think he likes people. He lives in the moment. He's not thinking of the next day or even the next hour or the next person ... he's that kind of personality."

Let's all be more like Walker

Emily Badger and Claire Cain Miller of the NYT are out with a rich new story titled "How the Trump Era Is Molding the Next Generation of Voters." My favorite quote in the story came from 15-year-old Walker Haber, a Trump supporter who lives in Sioux Falls, S.D. He "said his views were shaped by church and a wide variety of media, 'from Vox to Fox.'"

"From Vox to Fox!"

That's a great line, but this is even better: "We're in one of the best times in history to be alive, but this divisive politics makes it feel like the world's ending every day." Well said, Walker!

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- It's been one week since the Apple News+ launch: VF's Joe Pompeo took a closer look at publishers' calculations about whether to be a partner... (VF)

-- Frederic Filloux's new critique of News+: "A terrible deal for the news industry. No wonder most newspaper publishers won't join..." (Monday Note)

-- Joshua Benton's counter to Filloux: "All these mags have years of real-world revenue and readership data from Texture — they ain't flying blind..." (Twitter)

-- David Pierce's review of News+ for the WSJ has a prominent disclosure about the paper's partnership with Apple. He says the bundle is "great for magazine lovers," but there are "serious limitations..." (WSJ)

-- Have you tried out the subscription service? What do you think? Let me know via email...

Discovery's streaming strategy

Discovery CEO David Zaslav told the WSJ's Ben Mullin that "he is, in effect, operating two companies: a traditional cable TV business and a nascent direct-to-consumer digital one."

The news in Mullin's story: Discovery "plans to slice and package its content into streaming plans catering to everyone from foodies to home-improvement junkies." A natural-history streaming service, announced on Monday, "includes content from the BBC, creating a combined library with titles such as 'Planet Earth' and 'Blue Planet.' Discovery didn't disclose the price, but expects it will cost a few dollars a month." And the company is "planning to launch other services..." One centered around Chip and Joanna Gaines... Details here...

Irin Carmon challenges Washington Post

Think back one year, to the spring of 2018. Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain were working on a followup to their first story about Charlie Rose's behavior. They were uncovering more -- a lot more -- about the culture inside CBS News. One focus of the reporting was "60 Minutes" executive producer Jeff Fager.

But when the story was published in May, Fager was barely mentioned. Why? What happened?

In this new piece for NYMag, Carmon says the story was "gutted" and describes the editorial process in detail. She points a finger at WaPo executive editor Marty Baron. She notes that Fager's time atop "60" did come to an end after Ronan Farrow published a story that "confirmed what we had found."

And she concludes, "I don't believe there is just one reason the Post rejected the Fager story. I think it was a little of everything. The legal squeeze. The close relationship between the paper and '60 Minutes.' The easy identification with a powerful executive in our industry as opposed to the people complaining about him. #MeToo fatigue, a growing sense in journalistic circles that the movement might be going too far. I doubt I'll ever really know...."

A WaPo spokeswoman responded: "The New York Magazine piece is an incomplete story of The Post's investigation of sexual harassment allegations at CBS, and it sidesteps an essential truth: certain aspects of that reporting did not meet our standards for publication. The suggestion that The Post's decision-making -- made in agreement by five senior editors -- was influenced by anything other than established journalistic standards is baseless and reprehensible."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

-- Axios has a space reporter now: Miriam Kramer, formerly Mashable's science editor and space reporter, will be the author "of the new Axios Space Newsletter, launching on April 9..." (Talking Biz News)

-- Did you know that "Dateline" is the longest running primetime show on NBC? The newsmag is marking its 27th birthday... (Twitter)

Norville undergoing surgery

Television icon Deborah Norville will be away from "Inside Edition" while she's having a cancerous thyroid nodule removed. The surgery will take place on Tuesday. Here's what she shared with viewers:

"We live in a world of 'see something, say something,' and I'm really glad we do. When you work on television, viewers comment on everything – your hair, your makeup, the dress you wear, and a long time ago an 'Inside Edition' viewer reached out to say she'd seen something on my neck. It was a lump. Well, I'd never noticed the thing, but I did have it checked out and the doctor said it was nothing, a thyroid nodule. And for years, it was nothing. Until recently, it was something. The doctor says it's a very localized form of cancer, which tomorrow I'll have surgery to have removed. There'll be no chemo, I'm told no radiation, but I will have surgery and I'll be away for a bit." Weekend anchor Diane McInerney will be filling in...

"Ladies Who Punch" is out on Tuesday

Ramin Setoodeh's book "Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of 'The View'" is out on Tuesday! Look for him on CNN's "New Day" in the A.M. One place he won't be appearing: The set of "The View." The book is full of behind-the-scenes tales from the show's stars, past and present...

Spotted at Setoodeh's Monday night book party on the UWS: Liza Persky, Marlow Stern, Gillian Telling, Meghan McCain, Margaret Hoover, Janice Dean, Oli Coleman, Julie Townsend, Barbara Fedida, Bevy Smith, Carlos Greer, Elizabeth Wagmeister, Bonnie Fuller, Brian Steinberg, Katherine Barna, Charles Glover, Bernadette Piccolomini, Marcus Mabry, Jeffrey Schneider, Seth Adam, and more...

Skipper and Simmons 'back in business'

John Skipper and Bill Simmons, who had a VERY complicated relationship back at ESPN, "are back in business together. Well, kind of," John Ourand of Sports Business Daily reports. "I'm told that Skipper's DAZN bought a three-month sponsorship of Simmons' eponymous Ringer podcast and actually sat down for an interview that will post later this week."

>> Sign up for Ourand's SBJ Media newsletter here... It's a gem...

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- A preview of next week's THR Most Powerful People in Media party: "The bash will be hosted by the Hollywood Reporter editorial director Matthew Belloni, as well as the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press..." (Page Six)

-- Lisa Respers France writes: Sophie Turner is cool with Kit Harington making more money than she does on "Game of Thrones..." (CNN)

-- Megan Thomas emails: As CinemaCon kicks off in Las Vegas, Variety looks at the questions theater owners and studios will be grappling with this week... from release windows to the ever-growing influence of Netflix... (Variety)

RIP Nipsey Hussle

CNN's Eliott McLaughlin writes: "Hours after Nipsey Hussle was gunned down in the Hyde Park neighborhood, LAPD commissioner Steve Soboroff announced that he had been scheduled to meet with the rapper. The Grammy-nominated rhymesmith, a member of the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips, had requested the meeting, along with Jay-Z's Roc Nation, the commissioner said. The reason? They wanted to speak with Soboroff and L.A. Police Chief Michel Moore 'about ways he could help stop gang violence and help us help kids,' Soboroff tweeted. 'I'm so very sad.' Anyone familiar with Nipsey's woke brand of gangbanging wasn't surprised. While Crips and Bloods have provided great gangland fodder for Hollywood and other storytellers, Nipsey bucked the conventional trappings of gang life." Read on...

The love he left behind

Lisa Respers France emails: Music wasn't just Nipsey Hussle's love, it also helped him find it. The rapper, who was slain Sunday in Los Angeles, was in a five-year relationship with actress Lauren London. Theirs was a hip-hop fairytale romance that produced a son and one of the most stable relationships in the industry...

Mark Boal's next series

Mark Boal "is returning to the espionage arena and dipping his toe into television for the first time," Variety's Will Thorne wrote Monday. "Showtime has made a series commitment for 'Intelligence,' a spy thriller series which Boal will write, direct and executive produce."

Intriguing: "The first season will dramatize the behind-the-scenes history leading up to the 2016 U.S. election, with each potential subsequent season looking at a major world event through the lens of covert operations..."

A comedy set in the world of... true-crime podcasts!

Love this podcast-centric conceit for a film! Awkwafina and Ike Barinholtz "have signed to star in 'Crime After Crime,' a caper comedy that they also will produce for STXfilms," Deadline's Amanda N'Duka reported Monday. "Dan Gurewitch and David Young are writing the script, which is about a millennial podcast host who agrees to help the convict she's devoted her true-crime podcast to prove his innocence after he escapes jail and turns up at her house..."

What Kevin Hart is asking for

Megan Thomas emails: The Oscars have come and gone, but this is actually the most detailed explanation of Kevin Hart's thinking around the hosting debacle, as told by the comedian to Vulture.

This section in particular stood out: "Right now we live in a time where it's cool to be angry, where it's cool to just be irate. And what this showed me about comedy is, Wow, it is real easy to be insensitive onstage. Wow, it is real easy to say some hurtful s--- onstage. It is real easy to do something for a laugh that can affect somebody else's life. Oh, s---! Whoa. When I read [the jokes again] I thought, Oh, ooh, f---! That's bad. That's extremely bad. Which is why I said I'll never do it again. And then I didn't. So, for this period, and this time, and this particular incident, I'm not asking for the emotions to be buried behind the statement for others that that may have hit close. I'm asking for the understanding and acknowledgement of someone being ignorant to what is going on and to simply think that his apology from old should have been good enough."

RELIABLE SOURCES HIGHLIGHTS

Catch up on Sunday's show

Watch the video clips from Sunday's "Reliable Sources" on CNN.com... Read the transcript... Or hear the podcast via Apple Podcasts or your favorite pod app...

The Post-Mueller media landscape

Elaina Plott, Jane Coaston, Farhad Manjoo, and Alice Stewart all joined me on Sunday's show. Plott said "a tonal shift is in order" now that the special counsel has completed his work... Manjoo explained his belief that "collusion" was a "seductive delusion..." Watch parts one, two and three of the segment here...

--> "Serious newsrooms and journalists did the job they are supposed to do," The New Yorker's Steve Coll writes...

My interview with Lis Smith

Lis Smith has been advising Mayor Pete Buttigieg for more than two years. Now, as he explores a run for president, she is his top comms adviser. On Sunday's show, I asked Smith about Buttigieg's media strategy, since something is clearly working -- he's been rising in the polls and getting tons of attention.

"You do see this trend of Democrats just going to talk on MSNBC, Republicans just going to talk on Fox, and then maybe some cross-pollination at CNN. What's important to us is to go and talk to people everywhere," she said. Watch...

Knight's next investment

The Knight Foundation, which recently announced a $300 million, five-year commitment to the news biz, with a focus on local, is getting more detailed about how it is allocating the money. On Sunday, when the foundation's CEO Alberto Ibargüen joined me on "Reliable Sources," Knight announced grants for three groups: $1 million to the Local Independent Online News Publishers, $1.5 million to the News Revenue Hub, and $3.5 million to the Institute for Nonprofit News.

On air, Ibargüen said the $300 million investment has two aims: To "reimagine local news in a way that is sustainable" and ultimately to "regain trust." I also asked him about the role of Big Tech in this equation... Here's the segment...

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