| | | | | After a "powerful, political opening performance," Kendrick Lamar won two of the night's first awards... And that's after winning three awards during the pre-telecast... | | Record of the Year goes to... | | The show is still going on... The telecast started out slow, but turned much more interesting about two hours in... Here are some of the standout moments so far...
-- Kesha's performance of "Praying" was emotional and sensational. Frank Pallotta says "MSG was as quiet as I've ever heard it..."
-- Camila Cabello on stage: "This country was built by dreamers, for dreamers, chasing the American dream." She introduced U2...
-- U2 had a pre-recorded performance on a barge near the Statue of Liberty. (It was taped on Friday evening.) The pro-immigration messages were anything but subtle...
-- Maren Morris, Brothers Osborne and Eric Church paid tribute to the Las Vegas shooting victims...
-- Earlier in the day, Carrie Fisher was awarded her first Grammy, posthumously...
🔌: I'll be on CNN's "New Day" in the 6am hour recapping the night's news... | | How Hillary's cameo happened | | A pre-taped bit full of celebs recording the "Fire and Fury" audiobook ended with Hillary Clinton reading a passage. Twitter lit up. I hear the Grammys producers reached out to Clinton's camp a couple of weeks ago... Per a person who was involved with the taping, they toyed with a couple of different passages from the book... And then settled on the part about Trump's McDonald's habit. Clinton filmed it with James Corden in NYC last week...
--> Nikki Haley didn't laugh: "I have always loved the Grammys," she tweeted, "but to have artists read the Fire and Fury book killed it. Don't ruin great music with trash. Some of us love music without the politics thrown in it..."
--> Here's a full story by Chloe Melas... | | For the latest updates... | | | Here's Frank Pallotta's dispatch: This is one of the craziest and fun experiences I've taken part in. The whole arena is black tie (which is hilarious to see when someone tries to eat a hot dog in a $1,000 dress), the crowd is pumped up, and the acoustics are pitch perfect here at the World's Most Famous Arena. Many attendees are wearing white roses to support the Time's Up initiative... | | "We come in peace, but we mean business" | | | Before Janelle Monae introduced Kesha, she said: "I am proud to stand in solidarity as not just an artist but a young woman with my fellow sisters in this room who make up the music industry... We come in peace, but we mean business. And to those who would dare try and silence us, we offer you two words: Time's up... It's not just going on in Hollywood, it's not just going on in Washington -- it's right here in our industry as well. And just as we have the power to shake culture, we also have the power to undo the culture that does not serve us well." Here are her remarks in full... | | Chloe is on the red carpet | | | Chloe Melas emails: The carpet was electric. Celebs kept saying how much they liked having the awards back in New York after 15 years! Host James Corden spoke with me about the #MeToo movement, saying "It's about pay equality. It's about an equal respect, a mutual respect..." | | Gayle's new comment about Oprah 2020 | | More from Chloe Melas: Gayle King spoke with me on the red carpet before the show... I asked her if Oprah Winfrey is still thinking about 2020 despite the newly published InStyle interview... And King immediately said: "That interview was done before," meaning, before the Golden Globes.
King added: "I am her best friend and I think she'd be a great president but only she can make that decision. Not me! I saw the Oprah show, you always have the right to change your mind. But that's something that she has to decide, not me..." | | Omarosa on "Celebrity Big Brother" | | Omarosa Manigault's career has included stints on Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" and in President Trump's "The White House." Up next? "Celebrity Big Brother" on CBS. I mean, we should have expected this, right?! Her role was announced during the Grammys. The new season starts on Feb. 7... It's Winter Olympics counter-programming...
--> Here's the thing: Omarosa's presence on a CBS reality show might cause some heartburn in the West Wing. There's been a lot of speculation about what Manigault might share from her stint in the Trump admin... | | Saturday afternoon: Van Jones interviewed Jay-Z. Saturday evening: The premiere episode of "The Van Jones Show" aired on CNN. Sunday morning: Trump saw a clip on... I don't know... I'm guessing Fox or CNN. (In the clip I showed on CNN's "New Day," Jay-Z implied that Trump is the "superbug" of racism.) Trump tweeted: "Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!"
Well, Jones actually brought up the black unemployment rate to Jay-Z. So I asked Jones to come on "Reliable Sources" to respond... You can watch our conversation here, or read the highlights on CNN.com... | | | Any discussion of unemployment rates is incomplete without this chart. It shows the unemployment rate among whites (in blue) and blacks (in red) since the 70s. There's been a steady decline since 2010... Obama-era progress is now Trump-era progress... But the racial unemployment gap remains wide. That's the story... | | | Jones' advice to POTUS: "Follow Jay-Z's model." On CNN, the hip hop mogul candidly spoke about the struggles in his marriage, among other subjects. Jones to Trump: "He's a strong guy, he's a rich guy, but he's willing to be confessional. He's willing to grow in public. If you do the same thing, America would be a lot better off." | | A truly hard-hitting interview? Or a chat between two friends with a few tough Q's as a facade? Sounds like Piers Morgan's sit-down with President Trump was the latter.
A veteran TV exec emails: "In London. Just watched #TrumpMorgan. When you look up softballs in the dictionary you see this interview. And he pulled the oldest trick in the book...used his teasers and VO's to suggest how tough he was going to be...then wasn't. Massive disappointment."
Takeaways: Morgan got Trump to say that he "feels British," but he "would have negotiated" Brexit differently... He almost apologized for RTing racist videos... Said he wouldn't call himself a feminist... And admitted he "perhaps" tweets in bed... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Tuesday: All-day coverage on cable leading up to Trump's first SOTU... After the speech, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Jordan Klepper will all be live... and Jimmy Kimmel will have Stormy Daniels as a special guest...
-- Wednesday: Facebook, MIcrosoft, AT&T earnings...
-- Wednesday evening: I'll be speaking at this Canadian Journalism Foundation event in Toronto...
-- Thursday: Time Warner, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple earnings...
-- Friday: Groundhog Day... And Justin Timberlake's album drops just in time for his Super Bowl performance...
-- Saturday: The Directors Guild of America awards...
-- Sunday: Patriots v. Eagles! | | -- Important new CNN report: "Asia's strongmen follow Trump's lead on fake news..." (CNN)
-- NYT op-ed columnist David Leonhardt is ready to write the first "article of impeachment" against Trump... (NYT)
-- Nancy Cordes hosted "Face the Nation" on Sunday... CBS hasn't named a replacement for John Dickerson yet... CNN's Dana Bash tweeted that Cordes was "looking so at ease in that chair..."
-- Jonathan Swan's latest scoop: "Trump team considers nationalizing 5G network..." (Axios)
-- John Koblin's 💯 profile of Reese Witherspoon includes some new details re: the Apple drama about morning TV that I'm involved with... (NYT) | | | That's the challenge for all of us as journalists and consumers: "Refuse to be confused" by the pro-Trump media's escalating war on Robert Mueller. On Sunday's show, I tried to demonstrate how the campaign of confusion works. The worse it seems to get for Trump, the WILDER the conspiracy theories and counter-narratives get. Watch the essay or read Mediaite's recap... | | This Twitter back-and-forth is directly related to the point I was making on Sunday's "Reliable:" Fox's Laura Ingraham tweeted out, "The American media is 90 percent so in the tank for Leftist policies they simply cannot fairly assess @realDonaldTrump no matter what he does."
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace responded to her: "The right wing media is so 100 percent in the tank for a president who lies, pays porn stars hush money, smears the Intelligence community, the FBI and the judiciary that it can't fairly assess the debasement of the presidency | | Bernstein: "This McGahn story has shocked people to their core" | | | "The story that he tried to fire Mueller and that his White House counsel threatened to resign" sent "shock waves through the White House," Carl Bernstein said on Sunday's "Reliable." "Most people I talk to in the White House do not believe that Trump is untouched by this investigation... This McGahn story has shocked people to their core because they understand -- in the White House -- how vulnerable now their president is..." | | Catch up on Sunday's show | | | Other guests included Rep. Eric Swalwell and Amy Goodman. You can watch all the segments on CNN.com... listen to the pod via Apple Podcasts... or read the transcript here... | | So many bots, so many RTs | | | Donie O'Sullivan emails his latest: According to new data Twitter handed over to the Senate Judiciary Committee, 50,000 Russian Twitter bots retweeted Donald Trump almost 500,000 times in the last two months of the 2016 election campaign -- ten times more than they retweeted Clinton. The more pertinent question: what are Russian bots doing on their platform now? | | | -- More from Donie: Facebook, in written answers to the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Russian government-linked trolls, many posing as American activists, created 129 Facebook events between 2015 and 2017... | | NYT's must-read feature about fakers | | "The Follower Factory." People buying and selling social media followers by the 1000s? This story names names, including media types.
--> Why it matters: Nick Confessore, who helped lead the NYT's investigation, tweeted this: "More and more of our lives are moving onto or mediated by social media platforms... But there's a lot of evidence that these platforms are riddled with an almost unfathomable amount of fraud and manipulation. It is an altered reality. Most of us have little idea..." | | -- Emily Bell tweeted: "Perhaps in the light of this week's bot-fest (Russian bot stats release, NYT story) newsrooms will think twice before commissioning or reporting stories based on volume of social activity -- eg RTs or trending data..."
-- Mark Cuban: "It's time for Twitter to confirm a real name and real person behind every account, and for Facebook to to get far more stringent on the same..." | | | For the record, books edition | | | -- Howard Kurtz's "Media Madness" comes out on Tuesday. Margaret Sullivan says the book has a "pro-Trump tone" and is based on a "false premise..."
-- April Ryan just announced she is writing another book, "Under Fire," about covering the Trump W.H. It will come out in September...
-- For the first time in 3+ weeks, "Fire and Fury" is NOT #1 on Amazon's best sellers list. It's been supplanted by psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's "12 Rules for Life." But it's still #2... | | "Fitness tracking app's map reveals movement patterns on remote military bases" | | | Strava's new heat map of user activity is mesmerizing... You can check it out here... But the media honed in on a specific issue on Sunday: The heat map "appears to be lighting up the location patterns of soldiers working out at military bases in remote locations around the world..." | | This is the Q for Hollywood | | | Brian Lowry emails: In this piece for the NYT, Amanda Hess pretty neatly sums up the awkward nature of addressing the #MeToo movement in the context of awards season. She asks: "Is it possible for Hollywood to truly reckon with its issues while it's so busy celebrating itself?" While there have been memorable moments, as I've noted in reviews of the Golden Globes and SAG Awards, it's hardly a natural fit... | | | In the wake of Friday's detailed WSJ story about misconduct allegations against Steve Wynn, GOP leaders are distancing themselves from him... He resigned as RNC finance chair on Saturday... But I was struck by something the WSJ's Rebecca Ballhaus tweeted out on Sunday. She said it's a letter posted to employees at the Wynn Las Vegas: "We are all supportive of Mr. Wynn and his leadership, and while it is unfortunate that the news media has been used to assail Mr. Wynn and us in this way, we are doing everything we can to protect our employees from these types of attacks and publicity." | | Two stories I missed on Friday... | | They're important enough to include now:
-- WNYC, by its own account, "has been reeling after allegations of harassment" and other inappropriate behavior. Now New York Public Radio CEO Laura Walker is moving the station's chief content officer Dean Cappello into "an advisory role, with no direct reports." The criticism of Walker continues...
-- NYDN managing editor Rob Moore is under investigation by Tronc. Why? HuffPost has details about the allegations against him... | | | Notable details in this story: WYNC "has brought in the law firm Proskauer Rose to investigate workplace conduct, including sexual harassment, racial bias and bullying. Madhulika Sikka, the former Executive Editor of News at NPR and the current Public Editor at PBS, is reviewing editorial content and structure, and will assist staff in shaping a new show in the former Lopate slot at midday." (For now, a placeholder show called "Midday" is on the air.) "The station has already begun mandatory in-person harassment training, launched a workgroup to improve diversity, and will review pay practices..." | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "Reporter rushes to Kentucky school shooting -- and learns the alleged gunman is her son..." (Courier Journal)
-- David Beard says some local libraries are helping bring "small-town news back to life..." (The Atlantic)
-- Heads up! The deadline for the 2018 Hillman Prizes for Journalism is on Tuesday...
-- The LA Times Guild's latest whack at management: "Why a communications company built on the idea of publishing the truth wouldn't be truthful with its employees is beyond comprehension..." (LATGuild)
-- Sean Hannity's Twitter account was "briefly compromised" early Saturday morning... (The Daily Beast) | | Kyle Pope on the "Reliable" pod | | | I discussed/debated the state of Trump coverage with Columbia Journalism Review editor Kyle Pope. Here's the pod on Apple and TuneIn... Read Julia Waldow's recap right here! | | Stories by and about women dominated the winner's list at the Sundance Film Festival, NYT's Peter Libbey reports. "Desiree Akhavan's film 'The Miseducation of Cameron Post,' about a young woman sent to a gay conversion therapy camp, won the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. dramatic competition. The film's star, Chloë Grace Moretz, dedicated the award to survivors of the discredited practice... Sara Colangelo was the recipient of the U.S. Dramatic Directing Prize for her film 'The Kindergarten Teacher...' Another woman, Iceland's Isold Uggadottir, won the directing prize in the world cinema division for her film 'And Breathe Normally.'"
More: "The U.S. Documentary Directing prize went to Alexandria Bombach for her film 'On Her Shoulders,' about Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist and sexual-assault survivor who endured years of captivity at the hands of ISIS in northern Iraq. Christina Choe won this year's Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for 'Nancy,' a psychological drama about a woman who misrepresents herself on the internet..."
--> Here's the complete winners list... | | Brian Lowry emails: "SNL," hosted by Will Ferrell, posted its highest overnight rating since May...
--> If you missed the Aziz Ansari-related sketch, check it out here... Plus Ferrell's cold open as George W. Bush... | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... I love the feedback, corrections, suggestions, and tips. Thank you... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
