| | | | | Exec summary: Technical gremlins sidelined the newsletter last night. Sorry for the delay. Here's a special morning edition... | | The "Today" show's lead: "Rally and reversal." The WashPost's headline in print: "Trump reverses himself on separating families." The lead on CNN.com: "Trump's reversal creates its own chaos."
That's really what today is about: The NEW complications. The NYT's banner headline on the web also captures this uncertainty: "Trump retreats on separation policy, but thousands may remain apart." As CNN's Chris Cuomo tweeted, "Nothing is over or truly better until the kids who are crying are back with their families. We don't know when that happens. Don't be fooled."
Don't be fooled.
Meantime, I'm seeing some major conservatives outlets moving on already. The lead on FoxNews.com is about Tuesday's anti-Kirstjen Nielsen protest. It's a rewrite of a DC Examiner story: "One of the socialist protesters... has been exposed as a DOJ employee."
The Daily Caller's lead is also about the protest. The second headline credits Trump for signing the exec order and says "Surprise! The media and Democrats still aren't satisfied." Same tone on "Fox & Friends" just now: "Democrats still aren't happy in some respects." Odds that the president will adopt similar rhetoric? | | The Trump administration's breakup of migrant families is the biggest story in the country. But we're STILL not seeing the full story.
That's because the child detention centers are still largely out of public view. As Julia Waldow and Emily Kohlman wrote in this new story for CNN, "Journalists have been clamoring for access, but there have only been a handful of tours. During the tours, journalists have been forbidden from recording anything."
So news outlets are relying mostly on government-provided pics. Fox's Jeff Paul pointed this out in a live shot from Tornillo, TX on Wednesday. "We've asked every day that we've been out here," he said. But "we have not been allowed to go inside and view this with our own eyes."
It's part of a broader pattern of problematic secrecy. Here's our full story... | | One partial solution: Aerial photos | | | Drones and airplanes are being employed to get overhead views of these facilities... | | Under the cover of darkness... | | | Lack of access... and handout photos showing only boys... have caused many to ask, "Where are the girls?" "Where are the babies?" Government officials haven't sufficiently answered the questions. But NY1, NYC's cable news channel, came up with a partial answer on Wednesday. Acting on a tip, NY1's Josh Robin staked out a foster agency in East Harlem. Around 12:45am, his crew spotted five girls being escorted by adults. Later in the day, local authorities confirmed that the girls were migrants. My question: Why are these children being moved around in the middle of the night? | | | On MSNBC Wednesday night, Rachel Maddow highlighted the NY1 reporting as well as this photo given to the NYT's Manny Fernandez by a source. It shows a 12-month-old "being held at a Brownsville shelter." | | | Maddow's point: "This stuff is going to get out. You can't do this kind of thing quietly. You can't take literally thousands of kids forcibly away from their parents, including babies, and not have the country notice." Pictures WILL leak. "This is a secret too big to be kept..." | | | CNN's Jake Tapper tweeted last night: "It's not an accident that the US government is making it so difficult for journalists, lawmakers, lawyers and others to bring you images and firsthand accounts from these separated parents and children. They are hiding the truth from you because they fear your reaction." | | "TV was the tipping point" | | | That's what Mike Allen writes in this morning's Axios newsletter. There was, indeed, a surge of coverage over the weekend, prompted by the growing # of separations and significant protests along the border. Networks sent more crews at the start of the workweek. Allen quotes a source who says Trump "experienced an overdose of the outrage and the media frenzy..." | | Back to the media bashing | | Fox News tried something new during Trump's Wednesday night rally. A banner on screen said the rally was "only on Fox News" -- since CNN and MSNBC were not carrying it live on TV. (Of course, countless websites were live streaming it.) Fox's subheadline said "OTHER NETWORKS IGNORE PRESIDENTIAL RALLY."
The Post's takeaway from the rally: "Trump feels wronged." At one point, he said "the media doesn't talk about the American families permanently separated from THEIR loved ones... They don't bring cameras to interview the angel moms whose children were killed by criminal aliens who should have never been here in the first place..." | | -- CNN's Don Lemon on Trump stopping a crisis of his own making: "Just because the arsonist comes back and throws a bucket of water on the fire doesn't mean that he didn't start the fire in the first place..."
-- David Gergen said on "AC360" that this episode "reeks not only of cruelty, but of incompetence... It will leave an indelible stain upon the presidency..."
-- "The slapdash nature of the effort was apparent when the White House released an initial version of the executive order that misspelled the word 'separation,'" the WashPost noted...
-- Vox's Alvin Chang found that Fox's coverage "has often been framed with the decidedly pro-Trump bent that this entire saga is Democrats' fault..."
-- Via Megan Thomas: This is a great column on the media coverage of the crisis by The New Yorker's Troy Patterson. He says "there is an established televisual rhetoric for reporting on natural disasters, but people are less practiced at covering domestic moral emergencies..."
-- Jacob Soboroff, who's been out front covering this story, will lead a special edition of "Dateline," "The Dividing Line," this Sunday... | | -- Will there be a W.H. press briefing today? So far, it's not on the schedule...
-- Today is the Summer Solstice, a/k/a the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere...
-- "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" opens stateside... | | Report: Prosecutors subpoena National Enquirer records in Cohen probe | | Via Hadas Gold: "Federal prosecutors subpoenaed records from the National Enquirer" as part of the probe into Michael Cohen, according to a new WSJ report.
In a statement, American Media Inc. did not address the subpoena directly, but said it "has, and will continue to, comply with any and all requests that do not jeopardize or violate its protected sources or materials pursuant to our first amendment rights..." | | Rupert Murdoch's best day ever? | | The Murdochs originally accepted Disney's $52.4 billion bid for most of 21st Century Fox. NOW the bid is up to $71.3 billion, thanks to Comcast's gate-crashing attempt. Bob Iger announced the new bid Wednesday morning.
Fox is still on board. Still, Rupert "said Fox is open to better offers," Jill Disis writes.
Last week, Comcast offered $65 billion. Will it one-up Disney now? Comcast has no new comment as of this morning. DealBook notes that Comcast shareholders "appear increasingly uneasy about how much debt the cable giant would need to win the bidding war," but that might not stop Brian Roberts... | | Great detail in Edmund Lee's NYT story: "Bad blood between Disney and Comcast goes back to at least 2004, when Comcast tried to swallow Disney whole. The Disney board fought off that attempt, but Mr. Iger and his top lieutenants have not forgotten it. And Comcast apparently does not have the fondest feelings for Disney: The Jurassic Park rides at the company's Universal theme parks include Disney's famous mouse-ears hat floating in the water next to a raft that a dinosaur has destroyed."
--> Lee also notes: "Fox has postponed its scheduled July 10 shareholder vote so that investors will have time to consider the new bid. A new date has not been set..." | | This is certainly eyebrow-raising in light of the DOJ's lawsuit against AT&T-Time Warner and AT&T's hard-fought victory: Bloomberg says Disney is already "close to winning U.S. antitrust approval" for its Fox bid.
"The Justice Department is set to approve the deal in as soon as two weeks," David McLaughlin reported Wednesday, citing an anonymous source. "Disney has agreed to sell some assets to address competition problems stemming from the tie-up, according to the person..." | | -- Daniella Emanuel emails: Facebook is testing something called "subscription Groups" that allows Group admins to charge users between $4.99 and $29.99 per month for access to "exclusive posts..." (TechCrunch)
-- Big new Marisa Guthrie piece on "ESPN's internal political divide," pitting "Bristol tradition vs. 'woke' reformers..." (THR) | | It was a six-second mistake that will have long-lasting effects. Erik Wemple called it a "colossal error."
Daniella Emanuel emails: Some viewers were shocked to see a banner on ABC Wednesday afternoon that read "Manafort pleads guilty to 5 charges of manslaughter." The banner appeared on screen for about six seconds during a special report about Trump's immigration policy change.
So why in the world was that banner in ABC's computer system? Who put it on screen? ABC says it is going to find out. The network issued a statement: "We are investigating how incorrect information was in our system and how and why it was allowed to air. We apologize to our viewers and to Mr. Manafort. There simply is no excuse for this sort of mistake."
Later in the day, POTUS posted a tweet criticizing "fake news ABC..." | | The secret is out: Instagram is "rolling out a new hub for long-form, vertical video," Sara Ashley O'Brien writes. It's reminiscent of Snapchat's Discover page. It exists in the main app AND will be its own standalone app "in the coming days." Anyone will be able to post up to 10 mins of video to IGTV, and "Instagram users with 10,000 followers or more will be able to post videos up to an hour long..."
--> And: "Ads will not be part of IGTV at launch, but we'll be exploring and test ways to help creators monetize after launch," a spokesperson says...
--> Also: "CEO Kevin Systrom announced a company milestone: 1 billion monthly active users..."
--> Insta served foie gras, poke bowls and cotton candy to journos at the press event... | | AT&T offering "WatchTV" next week | | | THR has the details about AT&T's Thursday A.M. news: "Making good on a promise to regulators," AT&T will "debut WatchTV, a skinny, over-the-top service that features more than 30 channels, including recently acquired CNN, TNT and TBS. The service will launch next week..." | | AT&T "plans on acquiring all of Otter Media, the internet video company it currently co-owns with The Chernin Group," Recode's Peter Kafka reports. He says the long-brewing deal "was on hold until AT&T's Time Warner acquisition closed."
Buying Otter "will give AT&T full control of assets including FullScreen, a video company that began life as a YouTube network, and Crunchyroll, a subscription anime service..." | | By David Klein:
-- Univision is offering buyouts to employees from its Gawker Media acquisitions. "The former Gawker Media websites, which include the sports outlet Deadspin and the woman-focused site Jezebel, began offering employees buyout packages last week…" (Bloomberg)
-- Should the NYT have acquiesced to the White House's request not to air audio of its interview with Stephen Miller? Mathew Ingram examined the pushback... (CJR) | | Oliver Darcy emails: Judge George B. Daniels heard oral arguments on Wednesday in Fox News' motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed against the network by the parents of Seth Rich.
The hearing started at 10.30 a.m. ET and lasted all day, until about 5 p.m. ET. Both Joel and Mary Rich were in attendance, in addition to reporters from several news outlets. Daniels spent time grilling the lawyer representing Fox News, but really tore into the attorneys representing Joel and Mary Rich. At several points during the hearing, Daniels told one of the Rich attorneys that his understanding of the law was incorrect. "What you are saying is legally wrong!" Daniels exclaimed during one contentious debate. "It is wrong!"
That said, Daniels did not issue a ruling, allowing for the Rich legal team to submit a brief clarifying one of their arguments. He said that would come later this summer. Neither the attorneys representing Fox News nor Joel or Mary Rich had any comment on the proceedings... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Keep an eye on this: "How should the feds regulate tech? This government watchdog is hitting the road for ideas..." (WashPost)
-- A fun one via Nathaniel Meyersohn: "Stranger Things was a huge help to Kellogg's Eggo waffle sales. Now the show is on hiatus, and sales growth has dropped off..." (CNNMoney) | | Apple and Sesame Workshop make a deal | | Frank Pallotta emails: Apple is teaming up with Sesame Workshop for a brand new slate of children's programming, the tech giant said Wednesday.
This is Apple's first foray into children's programming. The deal will include a live-action series, an animated series and a puppet show, but will not include the nonprofit organization's biggest brand, "Sesame Street." That will continue to air on PBS and HBO...
--> Meanwhile: Netflix and Amazon are bulking up with more shows for kids, and Disney's coming-in-2019 service will be full of Pixar and Disney Animation... | | Oprah and Sesame, what will Apple's next deal be? | | | Your guess is as good as mine... | | Peter Fonda's sick Twitter rant -- and Sony's response | | Actor Peter Fonda was condemned for posting vulgar tweets about the Trump family on Wednesday. He later apologized, saying he was "distraught" over the family breakups, but "I went way too far. It was wrong and I should not have done it."
I have to admit, I'd never heard of Fonda before this. When the tweetstorm blew up, Donald Trump Jr. called out Sony Pictures, saying the studio "has a movie with him dropping in a few days. I wonder if they will apply the same rules to @iamfonda that they did to @therealroseanne."
Re: the film "Boundaries," Sony said, "Peter Fonda's comments are abhorrent, reckless and dangerous, and we condemn them completely. It is important to note that Mr. Fonda plays a very minor role in the film. To pull or alter this film at this point would unfairly penalize the filmmaker Shana Feste's accomplishment, the many actors, crew members and other creative talent that worked hard on the project. We plan to open the film as scheduled this weekend, in a limited release of five theaters." | | Megan Thomas emails: During a performance at his Broadway show on Sunday -- published on his website today -- Bruce Springsteen powerfully summed up what many are feeling this week.
>> Key Springsteen quote: "We are seeing things right now on our American borders that are so shockingly and disgracefully inhumane and un-American that it is simply enraging." More from Sandra Gonzalez... | | AMC vs. MoviePass is here | | | Frank Pallotta emails: AMC is creating a $20 service that will rival MoviePass's $10 service. As a movie buff I'm completely in favor of this fight, since subscribing to movies is a great concept (albeit a costly one since MoviePass is bleeding cash). With more competition usually comes more innovation, and it might help bring people back to the theater more often... Read more here... | | Lowry recommends "This is A.I." | | | Brian Lowry emails: Discovery Channel's "This is A.I." is a two-hour special (OK, 84 minutes, minus ads) that offers a solid primer on the current state of artificial intelligence and where those innovations might be heading -- including the implications for jobs and the sci-fi-like applications, for good or potentially ill... Read the rest here... | | | Brian Lowry emails: LA Times film critic Justin Chang put together a well-argued essay about seeking to diversify the ranks of movie criticism, taking issue with actress Brie Larson's assertion -- made during an awards ceremony as part of a plea for greater diversity -- that when a "40-year-old white dude" reviews a movie like "A Wrinkle in Time," "it wasn't made for him." Chang articulates the case, persuasively, that the question "Who is this movie for?" is the wrong way to frame the conversation... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Lisa Respers France:
-- Eva Longoria has welcomed her first child, a son...
-- "Vida" and other show teams are rallying around the plight of immigrant children...
-- Rapper XXXTentacion was remembered at memorials on both coasts... | | Feedback welcome...
Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts to brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thank you. | | | | | | |
