| | | | | Exec summary: This week was defined by a trio of media scandals... I have updates about all three of them, but first... | | | I love what CNN's Amanda Katz tweeted just now: "If you're reading this, you've survived this mostly appalling week and made it to June! Congrats, everyone, and have yourself a good weekend." | | Here's what's happening this weekend | | -- President Trump is at Camp David, and it's expected to be a rainy weekend. News forecast: Cloudy with a high chance of tweeting...
-- A pair of Friday night scoops: Kate Snow scored Andrea Constand's first interview in 13 years about Bill Cosby... It's airing on "Dateline NBC..."
-- And Fareed Zakaria's exclusive interview with Steve Bannon aired on CNN... It will re-air Sunday at 10am...
-- "Adrift" is new in theaters...
-- Rudy Giuliani is on "Meet the Press..." So is Justin Trudeau, in an apparent attempt to communicate to a U.S. audience about Trump's "insulting" tariffs...
-- "Succession" premieres on HBO Sunday night... And "Pose" premieres on FX... Here's Brian Lowry's review...
-- Game 2 of the NBA Finals Sunday night on ABC... | | | The three-day Governors Ball began Friday afternoon on Randall's Island... Twitter and DirecTV Now are live-streaming many of the acts... Engadget and Billboard have details... | | Clinton and Patterson's book tour | | | Bill Clinton and James Patterson's novel "The President Is Missing" comes out on Tuesday... But the TV tour is already underway... Clinton is on "CBS Sunday Morning" this weekend... He gave a wide-ranging interview to Mo Rocca, touching on his impeachment, the Russian attack on the 2016 election, and much more... | | What "Succession" is all about | | Brian Lowry emails: Despite the obvious parallels in "Succession" to Rupert Murdoch and his kids -- including a reference to its fictional media mogul, played by Brian Cox, being a "pal to prime ministers" -- and creator Jesse Armstrong's renown for an unproduced Murdoch screenplay, the producers note that they weren't lacking for family media dynasties to use as inspiration.
Check out Lowry's interviews with Armstrong and Frank Rich here... | | This Sunday on "Reliable Sources" | | | We're taking Sunny on a road trip this weekend... so I'll be in DC on Sunday, joined by David Zurawik, Olivia Nuzzi, Matt Lewis, Julia Ioffe, and "Succession" E.P. Frank Rich, among others... Join us at 11am ET on CNN... | | -- Happy birthday, CNN! The original cable news network was born 38 years ago Friday...
-- The WashPost's Trump-check has been updated: "President Trump has made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days..." (WashPost)
-- One of Chris Cillizza's takeaways from the new Post data: "Donald Trump said 35 things that weren't true in his Nashville rally. 35!" (CNN)
-- A great read: Andrew Kirrell and Max Tani chronicle the "strange trip" Maria Bartiromo took from a serious journalist at CNBC to a conspiratorial Trump booster on Fox Biz... (The Daily Beast) | | Joy Reid apologizes for offensive posts | | Will Joy Reid's viewers forgive and forget? "After months of scrutiny and questions surrounding her now-shuttered blog," the MSNBC host "offered an unconditional apology on Friday, saying she is a better person today than when she wrote a number of incendiary blog posts more than a decade ago," Tom Kludt writes. MSNBC expressed strong support for her.
People evolve, people change. We all do. But what about Reid's claim in April that some of the material on her old blog was "fabricated" and placed there by hackers to harm her reputation? She admitted later in April that she couldn't prove that. And Friday's apology made no mention of any hacking. Still, the hack excuse lingers in the air.
"MSNBC declined to comment Friday on follow up inquiries about the status of Reid's hacking claim or the FBI investigation" into it, Kludt notes... | | This hacking issue seems like a real blow to Reid's credibility -- but she also won praise for her apology statement on Friday. Most of the feedback I'm getting from her fans boils down to "focus on Trump, he's the real threat, not Reid!"
--> 🔌: I'll be talking more about this on "CNN Tonight" in the 11pm hour... | | ABC is talking about a Barr-less "Roseanne" reboot | | We alluded to this earlier in the week... And on Friday afternoon TMZ reported that talks are underway: "The powers that be at ABC are exploring the possibility of re-branding the show and focusing on the character Darlene instead of Roseanne."
Two sources confirmed to me that preliminary talks are underway with production company Carsey-Werner, which owns the show. The spin-off idea is definitely enticing to ABC... partly because a re-reboot could help keep many of the "Roseanne" cast and crew members employed. One of the sources said ABC execs would regroup next week to talk about the options... In the meantime, here's our full story... | | Barr stayed out of the news today | | Oliver Darcy emails: Roseanne's much-anticipated appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast did not materialize on Friday. There had been some skepticism the interview would take place since it was announced earlier this week, and on Friday afternoon Rogan announced on Twitter that it was "not happening today" and that Barr had "gone radio silent" on him. Rogan added, "The whole thing has been pretty brutal on her, and I hope she can find some peace..."
--> She also tweeted on Thursday evening that she was "signing off twitter for a while..." | | -- The pro-Trump media in action: Embattled EPA boss Scott Pruitt has given his first interview in weeks, and it was with Sinclair's pro-Trump analyst Boris Epshteyn... Media Matters pointed out this "friendly platform" for Pruitt... (MMFA)
-- Hulu chief content officer Joel Stillerman is leaving after less than a year on the job..."His sudden exit was part of a broader reorganization..." (NYT)
-- Congratulations to CNN exec Matt Dornic and Air Force Maj. Kyle Clarke Volpe... They're tying the knot in Colorado on Saturday! (Wash Examiner)
-- This week's unfortunate theme: "The decay of public discourse." CNN's David Chalian invited me on his Daily DC podcast to talk about Barr, Bee, etc... (CNN) | | TBS shrugs off Trump's anti-Bee tweet | | Oliver Darcy emails: We entered the second day of the Samantha Bee news cycle on Friday. POTUS weighed in on the controversy, wondering in an early-morning tweet why TBS had not fired "no talent" Bee for "the horrible language" she employed on her show. Trump said it was a "total double standard," likely alluding to the cancelation of "Roseanne."
So how did TBS react? It didn't... The network just ignored Trump... | | The ad boycott doesn't seem to be growing | | | So far only two advertisers have publicly distanced themselves from Bee's show: Autotrader and State Farm. AdAge's Anthony Crupi pointed out something interesting on Friday: Autotrader "hasn't advertised in the show in nearly two-and-a-half years." The company said its announcement "referred to an existing digital advertising deal with the show that it discontinued in the wake of Bee's incendiary comments..." | | Journalists were uninvited from Thursday's Television Academy Honors event in Hollywood... apparently because Bee was speaking and accepting an award... but her remarks still leaked out afterward. Key quotes:
>> "Every week I strive to show the world as I see it, unfiltered. Sometimes I should probably have a filter. I accept that. I take it seriously when I get it right and I do take responsibility when I get it wrong..."
>> Re: Thursday's controversy: "We spent the day wrestling with the repercussions of one bad word, when we all should have spent the day incensed that as a nation we are wrenching children from their parents and treating people legally seeking asylum as criminals... If we are OK with that then really, who are we?" | | | Oliver Darcy emails: During a "Fox & Friends" segment Friday morning on Bee's crass remark, co-host Ainsley Earhardt abruptly referenced the supposed "deep state." The comment came when David Bossie claimed "the left" hates Trump "more than they love this country." Earhardt replied, "What is it? Is it the deep state? Anything that a conservative does, they want to go after their love life, their background, their money, their children." Uhh, what? You can check out the clip on Mediaite… | | Lowry's take on this week's media scandals | | | Brian Lowry emails: ABC and TBS seem to be testing an interesting PR strategy: Can you treat the president's tweets like he's the loudmouth at the end of the bar, and just ignore him? If so, I suspect others will follow suit. And I thought CNBC's Christina Wilkie neatly summed up the "double standard" argument: "Conflating racism and profanity is dangerous. One is a worldview, the other is a word choice. Big difference..." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- The director of "Carrie" is working on a horror film based on the Harvey Weinstein scandal... (Variety)
-- Speaking of... A new class action lawsuit says Weinstein's lawyers "used deceptive tactics" to obtain footage of the producer "sexually harassing a woman he later is alleged to have raped in a New York hotel room..." (Deadline)
-- Plus: This is an excellent profile of Michael Sitrick, the man whose PR firm repped Weinstein until recently... (NYT)
-- Laura Hazard Owen reports on the "collaborative election reporting and fact-checking initiative" trying to fix the WhatsApp "fake news" problem... (NiemanLab)
-- New data will tell us about how many news deserts there are, and the speed at which they're spreading...(Poynter) | | Trump's meeting with Kim is back on | | The news cycle suddenly turned in the 2pm hour when POTUS left a meeting with a North Korean rep and said the summit in Singapore is back on. He walked over to the press pool and seemed to enjoy fielding Q's.
But he made a "host of inaccurate or puzzling statements," the NYT notes, including this: He "falsely claimed the Korean War was the 'longest war' in history..." | | | One of Trump's other answers contradicted an earlier comment. This banner on CNN summed it up: "Trump says the hand-delivered letter from Kim Jong Un was 'very nice,' then admits he hadn't opened it yet..." | | Bannon: "Trump's second presidential race will be on Nov. 6 of this year" | | There were many headlines from Fareed Zakaria's aforementioned interview with Steve Bannon...
-- The midterms are going to be "emotional," he said. "You're either with Nancy Pelosi or you're with Donald Trump." His key point: "Trump's second presidential race will be on Nov. 6 of this year."
-- He said "I believe the government will actually shut down in the run-up to the election." Over the wall...
-- Zakaria wrote more about the interview in his weekly WashPost column... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Facebook is shutting down its "trending" section next week, four years after the official launch... (CNNMoney)
-- Gabriel Snyder sat down with Kurt Andersen, Erica Cerulo, Choire Sicha, and Elizabeth Spiers -- all of whom have started their own businesses -- to ask if "journalists make good entrepreneurs..." (CJR)
-- Google won't renew its contract for "its controversial work providing artificial intelligence to the U.S. Department of Defense for analyzing drone footage," Kate Conger reports... (Gizmodo)
-- Curious about Instagram's feed ranking algorithm? TechCrunch's Josh Constine explains exactly how it works... (TechCrunch) | | "The death toll could be as high as 4,600. Period." | | Was the new Harvard study about the estimated Hurricane Maria death toll in Puerto Rico short-changed by the press? We talked about that on this week's podcast... My guest was CBS News correspondent David Begnaud, who covered the aftermath in Puerto Rico and was back on the island this week.
"There is a sense here that I've gotten that the people of Puerto Rico don't really ever feel like their story has been told," Begnaud said.
There's been some standout reporting, for sure -- but not enough of it. Read Julia Waldow's recap of the conversation here... And check it out via Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast app... | | "Kanye West's first album since going MAGA isn't MAGA at all" | | "Kanye West released his new album, "Ye," at a live-streamed listening event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Thursday night. The seven-track mini-album is no My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or The Life of Pablo, but it's good, a worthy addition to the Kanye canon. Missing from the album, though, is any trace of MAGA," CNN's Hunter Schwarz writes. "West's embrace of President Donald Trump defined the lead-up to his eighth studio album... But the closest Ye comes to Trump is a line about Stormy Daniels, and even then, it's used not as a comment on or about the 45th president, but because it rhymes..."
In case you're curious, here's the line: "If I pull up with a Kerry Washington that's gonna be an enormous scandal / I could have a Naomi Campbell and still might want me a Stormy Daniels..."
--> More from Lisa Respers France: Here are some of the most controversial lyrics on "Ye..." | | "This Is America" has been certified platinum | | | Per Variety: "Childish Gambino's 'This Is America' has gone platinum." The track "continues to hold the No. 1 spot on the overall streaming chart for three weeks in a row." It's also No. 1 on YouTube's "U.S. top music videos and U.S. top songs charts..." | | | Brian Lowry emails: Ryan Murphy is eventually bound for Netflix, but he continues to be very busy on FX. His latest series, "Pose," claims to feature the largest assemblage of LGBTQ talent ever in regular or recurring roles, and it's one of his strongest -- taking a look back at the ball culture of the late '80s. Read more... | | "Adrift" in theaters this weekend | | | One more from Lowry: Studios largely stayed away from releasing big movies this weekend, figuring Disney would still be totaling "Solo" receipts. That might create slightly clearer sailing for a smaller film, "Adrift," a solid fact-based survival drama starring and produced by Shailene Woodley... | | The Golden Trailer Awards | | | Via Lisa Respers France, "Black Panther" won big at the Golden Trailer Awards... | | | HEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS LETTER? Email your feedback and thoughts to brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thank you! | | | | | | |
