Forward

BREAKING

Reuters reporters freed in Myanmar

Here's the alert from Reuters: "Two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar after they were convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act walked free from a prison on the outskirts of Yangon on Tuesday after spending more than 500 days behind bars, witnesses said."

One of the witnesses was Gerry Doyle, who tweeted, "Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are free." He added: "There's a lot left to sort out, but the important part, for now, is that they are free."

Finally. Editor in chief Stephen J. Adler issued the statement that he's been waiting more than a year to send out: "We are enormously pleased that Myanmar has released our courageous reporters..."

"I can't wait to go to my newsroom"

The two men "led an explosive Reuters investigation -- which eventually won a Pulitzer Prize -- into the killing of 10 Rohingya men in the village of Inn Dinn, part of a military-led campaign against the Muslim minority which began in August 2017 after Rohingya militants attacked police posts." Here's the background via CNN's team.

As he left the prison, Wa Lone thanked supporters and said he was "really happy -- excited -- to see my family and colleagues. And I can't wait to go to my newsroom."

Should Dems seek out Fox? Or shun the network?

I think these are fascinating Q's with no easy answers. Fox's talk shows are avowedly anti-Democrat. Some staunch progressives say the network should be shunned altogether. But others say that's poor strategy.

Case in point: "House Democratic leaders are actively encouraging members of their caucus to appear on Fox News, viewing the network as an opportunity to spread their policy goals to a wider audience, especially in Republican-leaning districts that Democrats need to maintain to keep their majority."

Ashley Killough and I wrote this story on Monday... Based on Killough's scoop that "the House Democrats' messaging arm -- formally known as the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC) -- will host a training session in the Capitol to help members prepare for Fox News appearances" on Friday.

"Winning on Fox News: Best practices"

That's what the invitation to the session is titled. Comms strategists John Neffinger and Jess McIntosh, who's also a CNN contributor, will be there. The invite says the training will demonstrate "how to effectively engage anchors, answer tough questions, and develop your own formula for success."

DPCC comms director Michael LaRosa: "Members want to go on Fox, and we encourage them to do so. There are three big cable news networks, and one of the three happens to be Fox. So, our view is, why alienate or ignore all of those viewers?"

Well, lawmakers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would answer that Q by saying Fox damages American society. Groups like Media Matters for America, which is leading a campaign to pressure Fox's advertisers, say Dem town halls on Fox only serve to prop up Fox and lend the network a veneer of legitimacy that it doesn't deserve...

Here's the pro-Fox view

These decisions depend, in part, on each lawmaker's core constituency. "I've been doing Fox News since 2000, and I think it's important that we participate with all the media," said Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Dem from Michigan.

Killough learned that "the center-left think tank Third Way hosted a dinner for Democratic members, encouraging them to go on Fox News," about a month ago. "Not everybody who watches Fox News is a Steve Bannon disciple. There are people out there who are persuadable," Third Way EVP Jim Kessler said. "There should be Democrats on there who can make our case and help sow doubt about the right-wing Republican argument."

"The other advantage of it," he added, "is that this is an opportunity to speak directly to President Trump, as well." Here's our full story...

An "open letter" for the history books...

Cable news commentators are among the "hundreds of former Justice Department officials" who "said in an open letter released Monday that President Donald Trump would be facing multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice stemming from the Russia investigation if he were not president." The DOJ alums "served under presidents from both parties," in many cases for decades. Legal analysts Elie Honig, currently with CNN, and Mimi Rocah, currently with MSNBC, are two of the names I noticed on the LONG list...

"Let Robert Mueller Testify"

That's the headline on the NYT editorial board's big new editorial. "The Watergate hearings demonstrated the public education function of seeing central players in the various Nixon administration scandals appear under oath in televised hearings," the board says. "The broadcast testimony of James Comey, Christine Blasey Ford and Michael Cohen has served a similar function in the Trump era. Mr. Mueller and the American public deserve no less."

Mueller remains tight-lipped...

Via CNN's Adrienne Winston: "A group of journalists trying to relax in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC couldn't escape the news Monday night when Special Counsel Robert Mueller walked in to the restaurant they were in. Mueller walked past the journalists, who were seated at an outdoor table, and in to Martin's Tavern with his wife... After the Muellers wrapped up dinner for the night, and were on their way out, some of the journalists asked him questions about the investigation and potential testimony, but as he's done since the investigation started, he remained tight-lipped."

FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE

-- Craig Melvin taped an interview with Pete Buttigieg in SC... it'll air on Tuesday's "Today" show...

-- Christopher Cadelago tweeted: "Kamala Harris' latest 2020 target: The talking heads who draw sweeping conclusions from their desks in Washington and New York..." (Politico)

-- Google I/O gets underway on Tuesday in Mountain View... (Ars Technica)

-- Facebook is making "a series of changes to the way it ranks videos on its social network, which determines how widely they're distributed. According to the updated guidelines, Facebook will now prioritize videos that focus on original content, those where users are engaged for longer periods of time and those where users return repeatedly to watch more..." (TechCrunch)

"Instagram is reducing the reach of posts debunked by fact-checkers"

That's the headline from Poynter's Daniel Funke... Facebook has been using signals from its fact-checking partners to reduce the spread of false stories for the past two years... And "now, in a test, Facebook-owned Instagram is taking those fact checks and applying them to the same false photos and memes on its platform." Details here...

Zuckerberg's groups and 2020

Donie O'Sullivan emails: Facebook is counting on its "Groups" feature to keep people hooked. The company launched an online and offline ad campaign about Groups last week with slogans such as, "We're more unstoppable together."

Facebook groups are different than Facebook pages — groups are far more like traditional internet forums or message boards. There are millions of FB groups, and some groups dedicated to supporting some 2020 contenders have hundreds of thousands of members.

But they are echo chambers: To join some groups devoted to a particular 2020 candidate, for instance, users have to answer a series of questions, where they normally have to declare their support for the candidate. "Will you vote for candidate X in 2020?" We've talked for years about the effects of Facebook's algorithm as turning the Facebook news feed into a filter bubble. Now, Facebook is encouraging us to join groups full of people who share our point of view.

Check it out for yourself — click on the suggested groups for your category. Would joining what's suggested send you deeper into an echo chamber?

The new battlefield…

Donie adds: We know that Russia ran a ton of Facebook pages with huge reach in 2016. I think it is possible that a lot of the more nefarious stuff in 2020 could go down in Facebook groups where bad actors are running fake personas.

And that brings us to Monday's news: Facebook announced that it has taken down a network of accounts, run from Russia, that had used fake personas to join some Facebook groups. The operation focused on mostly European countries, but an example Facebook provided of a post shared by one of the fake accounts was about a conspiracy theory about the Democratic Party in the United States. Read on...

The enormity of the problem

People create fake accounts on FB for all sorts of reasons, some more malicious than others. But check this out -- just to see the "scale of the challenge facing Facebook" -- per The Guardian, "Richard Allan, the company's VP for public policy, said the company took down 2.8 billion fake accounts between October 2017 and November 2018." And that doesn't count the real users "that are sharing fake news, intentionally spreading disinformation or promoting hate speech..."

When WaPo turns a critical eye on Amazon

Oliver Darcy emails: Trump and his allies regularly refer to WaPo as "the Amazon Washington Post." They do so in an apparent attempt to suggest that Jeff Bezos, who owns WaPo, uses the newspaper to push his own personal/business political agenda. Which is why I think it's noteworthy to point out when WaPo points a critical eye on Amazon. There was one such case on Monday.

When I visited WaPo's website, I noticed one of the top stories featured was about how Alexa and Siri "have been eavesdropping on you." The article, by tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler, asserted that "Amazon tracks you in more ways than you might" realize, and detailed how it had inadvertently captured his family discussing personal sensitive matters. It's a story worth reading. It's also a story from WaPo that I thought was worth pointing out...

The Infowars presidency in action

"YOU are under threat," Alex Jones screamed on Monday's edition of Infowars. That's what Jones constantly tells his fans -- he produces conspiracy-laden content that promotes misinformation and paranoia while selling supplements and survivalist gear. Most political leaders would never lend credence to this type of content -- but President Trump has. I think it's important that we see this clearly for what it is. Here's my write-up...

Chris Cuomo's Monday night lead

It was about Mnuchin v. House Dems: "The President's treasury secretary says he isn't giving over six years of the President's personal tax returns because the president's de facto defense attorney, also known as Attorney General Bill Barr, told him not to," Cuomo said. "What will this do to the contempt vote planned for Wednesday in the House?"

FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO

-- As Jack Crosbie wrote, it "would be great for the Pentagon to hold a press conference right about now..." (Splinter)

-- McClatchy's Franco Ordoñez is joining NPR's White House team...

-- National Journal's Daniel Newhauser is jumping to VICE News as a senior political reporter in DC...

-- A disturbing must-read: "What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right" (Washingtonian)

-- A bonus edition of Poppy Harlow's "Boss Files" podcast: Her guest is Melinda Gates... (Apple Podcasts)

The future of CBS News

Gayle King proudly presented a Matrix Award to Norah O'Donnell on Monday afternoon, just hours after O'Donnell was named the new anchor and managing editor of the "CBS Evening News," replacing Jeff Glor. The timing was a perfect rebuke to the recent Page Six story alleging that King had pushed O'Donnell off the morning show.

"Sometimes what you read isn't even true," King said on Monday morning's show while discussing the anchor shuffle. She said to O'Donnell, "I have no beef with you; you have no beef with me." Per the NYT, "their back-and-forth about the network changes stretched longer than 'CBS This Morning' producers had anticipated; a news segment planned for the 7 a.m. hour had to be pushed back."

Later in the day, Susan Zirinsky celebrated the changes in a newsroom gathering... She presented Donnell "with a gift: the Hermes Rocket manual typewriter Ms. Zirinsky used when she worked at the network's Washington bureau." Read on...

--> Big picture: The changes amount to a total revision of the network's daily newscasts, with big changes both in the morning and at night. John Dickerson will move to "60 Minutes..." O'Donnell will move to 6:30 sometime this summer... And then move her newscast to DC this fall...

Gayle and two Tonys

Anthony Mason and Tony Dokoupil will join King on the morning show on May 20. Here's the new team photo:

The problem with third place...

Nightly news expert Andrew Tyndall told NBC's Claire Atkinson: The third place position of the "CBS Evening News" may seem "to warrant the replacement of anchor Jeff Glor. But such an assumption would not be justified. The under-performance of the newscast in attracting an audience under Glor is no worse than under any of his predecessors, dating all the way back to Dan Rather."

--> Natalie Finn has a detailed story "untangling the drama at CBS News" here...

Still unknown:

-- When will Glor's last day be? Right now it's a "day-by-day" situation, I'm told...

-- Will Glor stay at the network?

-- What will happen to the current "Evening News" producing staff? How much of the show is moving to DC along with O'Donnell?

-- Who will replace Mason on the Saturday edition of the morning show?

-- How much is CBS spending on all of this?

-- Will it rejuvenate the ratings?

Honoring Amy Entelis

Amy Entelis shaped the lives of hundreds of TV journalists, first at ABC and then at CNN. And she redefined CNN by shepherding an award-winning lineup of original series and documentaries. Her impact was celebrated by the UJA Federation of New York on Monday evening... Van Jones took the words out of my mouth when he said "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Amy." Like Jones, I didn't have a TV background when Entelis called me one day in 2013...

Spotted: Jeff Zucker, Allison Gollust, Poppy Harlow, Jeffrey Toobin, Bill Weir, Kate Bolduan, Dana Bash, Izzy Povich, John Avlon, Margaret Hoover, John Berman, Alisyn Camerota, Jim Murphy, Sam Feist, Abby Phillip, Barbara Levin, Eric Sherling, Bianna Golodryga, Peter Orszag, Carole Cooper, Richard Leibner, Lisa Reeves, Chris Licht, Al Roker, Deborah Roberts, Phil Kent, Brian Jacobs, Jay Sures, Michael Glantz, Nancy Duffy, Rebecca Kutler, Ken Jautz, Allie Kleva, Nima Elbagir, Ramon Escobar, Jon Adler, Rachel Adler, Lisa Greene, Robin Garfield, Matthew Hiltzik, and many more...

CNN's new NYC home

Did you notice CNN's new look on Monday? Some of the newscasts are now broadcasting from our new NYC home at Hudson Yards. Other shows are making the move soon.

The new studio officially came online at 4 a.m. ET when Christine Romans and Dave Briggs anchored "Early Start" from Hudson Yards. This launch has been more than a year in the making -- and represents a huge technical upgrade for CNN in NYC. Here are a few of the snapshots from Monday's debut:

Buyouts at CNN

"CNN is the latest division of AT&T's WarnerMedia to feel the effects of company-wide restructuring, with voluntary buyouts being taken by more than 100 seasoned workers at the cable new network," Deadline's Dade Hayes and Lisa de Moraes wrote Monday. "A network spokesperson tells Deadline the exits are purely related to the buyouts and do not involve any layoffs, contrary to a press report earlier on Monday. A WarnerMedia rep said there was no truth to the initial report of layoffs. The buyouts are consistent with similar offerings at HBO and Turner and will see dozens of seasoned employees leave the news brand."

FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE

-- "Stan Collender, a widely published budget expert who entertained readers with witty, conversational analyses of fiscal issues, died Friday at age 68." Jill Lawrence paid tribute to him here... (USA Today)

-- Want a recap of last week's NewFronts? Atlantic Media's The Idea newsletter will catch you up. "In general, the NewFronts are a good reminder that amidst the pivot to subscriptions, ad clients are still vitally important to many publications..." (The Idea)

-- What a small world: "Surprise! Access' Kit Hoover went to her high school prom with Fox News host Bret Baier. Decades later, Bret stopped by Access Live to surprise Kit with a chat about their special night..." (Access)

Why Amazon is in talks with the NYT, BuzzFeed and others...

Peter Kafka's latest: Amazon is "in talks with big American publishers, including the New York Times and BuzzFeed, about deals that would reward them for expanding their international presence, specifically in consumer-oriented shopping sites."

Here's the idea: "Amazon already pays internet publishers that refer shoppers to the company via 'affiliate links' embedded on their site, but it thinks that business could grow significantly if US publishers had more readers outside of America." So it is proposing to "give publishers money up front in order to expand their international sites or open up new markets."

Why it matters: "If any of the deals get finalized, they will mark a new chapter for Amazon: While other tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter, have paid publishers in advance to make specific kinds of videos or other content, Amazon hasn't been in that business before." Read on...

How to announce a royal birth...

On Instagram, of course!

The royal baby is a boy... Maybe we'll find out more on Tuesday...

Met Ball highlights

Click over to CNN Style for the best fashion from the red carpet and much more...

E! cancels Busy Philipps' talk show

Yet another sign of just how hard it is to launch a new chat-fest, especially in this environment: E! is ending Busy Philipps' talk show "Busy Tonight" on May 16. Philipps broke the news overnight on social media. "I'm beyond proud of what we've built in such a short period of time and I'm hopeful we can find the right place for the show to live on," she wrote.

Then on Monday, some bittersweet news, Sandra Gonzalez noted here: "Philipps was nominated for a Critics' Choice Real TV Award for best show host. She will compete in the category against RuPaul Charles, Stephen Colbert, James Corden and Jerry Seinfeld."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR

By Lisa Respers France:

-- Heads up: Don't watch the new "Spider-Man" trailer if you haven't seen "Avengers: Endgame" yet...

-- Missandei and that "Game of Thrones" scene made Nathalie Emmanuel happy...

-- Here's why you may have missed Amy Schumer's baby gender reveal...

-- "When Calls the Heart" has returned to the Hallmark Channel without Lori Loughlin...

-- Adele embraced self-love while celebrating her birthday...

Congrats to the Daytime Emmy winners

Here is the complete winners list... For me, the highlight was seeing Alex Trebek win his FIRST Daytime Emmy. Here's what he said:

"Ever since the nominations came out I have worried about this moment. Let me explain... You were worried about winning? Yeah, I was concerned that sympathy might play a big role in the voting this year. I'm not a big fan of sympathy votes. We should be judged on the merits of our work. However, last year, I had just had major surgery to remove two life-threatening blood clots. You think that would elicit a certain amount of sympathy. But I didn't win!"

The crowd roared.

"So maybe I've been worrying about the wrong thing. Maybe I should just do what Sally Field did in a different venue many, many years ago and look at this as a sign that you guys like me and that you value my work. I tell you, if that's the case, I can live with that."

FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE

-- Per Variety, "Tribeca Film Festival's 2019 edition closed out Saturday night with the world premiere of Danny Boyle's highly anticipated 'Yesterday...'"

-- Via Chloe Melas: "Jane the Virgin" star Gina Rodriguez married Joe LoCicero on Saturday...

Best "Game of Thrones" gaffe ever?

The presence of a stray coffee cup (maybe a Starbucks cup?) in a very brief scene "handed Starbucks a big share of the voluminous 'Game of Thrones' social-media conversation that follows every episode," the WSJ's Nat Ives wrote Monday.

To the network's credit, HBO came out with a fun statement: "The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake. Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea." CNN's AJ Willingham has more here...

"RELIABLE SOURCES" HIGHLIGHTS

If you missed this week's show...

Catch up by reading the transcript, listening to the podcast, watching the video clips, or watching the full program via CNNgo or VOD!

Trump needs this fight?

Progressive writer Judd Legum, reacting to Trump's rallying cry about social media "censorship," said this on Sunday's "Reliable:"

He's "doing this because he needs people to believe that Facebook is against him." Legum said Trump 2020 is running a "whole series of ads that are misleading." So "he can't let them draw a distinction between what Infowars is doing and what NBC or CNN or any mainstream media organization is doing..."

The FB debate

On Sunday's show, Oliver Darcy, Irin Carmon, Kmele Foster and Judd Legum discussed Facebook's rules, freedom of speech objections and conservative politicians' claims about social media "censorship." Watch the 🔥segment here...

Ben Shapiro's view about the bans

"I'm troubled by the fact that Facebook can't articulate a clear standard by which it decides who gets to stay and who gets to go," conservative host and editor Ben Shapiro told me. He supports bans when people incite violence, but is concerned about the company's definition of "organized hate." Watch...

--> Here's a bit more from my interview with Shapiro: What's being lost when faith is left out of the conversation?

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