| | | | | Exec summary: Mark Zuckerberg taped an interview with Ezra Klein... President Trump is going after Amazon again... Laura Ingraham is going on vacation... "Ready Player One" is off to a strong start... | | This just in: "Steven Bochco, a producer whose boundary-pushing series like 'Hill Street Blues' and 'NYPD Blue' helped define the modern TV drama, died Sunday after a battle with leukemia," Brian Lowry writes.
Bochco was 74. He "co-created several of TV's most popular programs, while his large ensemble casts and ambitious storytelling set a benchmark beginning in the early 1980s that he refined and built upon for more than 30 years." Read more...
Disney CEO Bob Iger tweeted: "Today, our industry lost a visionary, a creative force, a risk taker, a witty, urbane story teller with an uncanny ability to know what the world wanted. We were long-term colleagues, and longer term friends., and I am deeply saddened." | | Last month local anchors at Sinclair-owned TV stations were required to record a promo while reading a script about "fake" news last month. As I first reported for CNNMoney, the script is an echo of President Trump's anti-media rhetoric, reflecting the company's conservative politics. NOW the promos are airing... And they've gone VIRAL...
WHAT'S NEW: Deadspin edited dozens of them together, making the anchors in various markets sound like robots. The compilation racked up millions of views over the weekend...
WHAT'S NEXT: Sinclair's corporate mandates are exacerbating tensions between the company's local stations and its management. Will there be more internal resistance? I'm already hearing that some anchors refused to play along... | | I've been talking with staffers at Sinclair-owned stations for several weeks. They described tense conversations in their newsrooms and anger directed at HQ. It's about the promos AND about other edicts that seem politically motivated. Here are some of the choice quotes from staffers who insisted on anonymity:
-- "I try everyday to do fair, local stories, some Trump-related, but it's always washed out by this stuff they do at a national level..."
-- "It sickens me the way this company is encroaching upon trusted news brands in rural markets..."
-- "I feel bad" for viewers "because they're seeing these people they've trusted for decades tell them things they know are essentially propaganda..." | | | The Deadspin vid started "trending" on Saturday. A Sinclair spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday. But in an internal memo last month, a Sinclair SVP said "trust is the fundamental issue with connecting to news consumers," and the "Journalistic Responsibility" promos are in line with that. Here's my full story... | | -- Media investor/former Murdoch deputy Peter Chernin tweeted: "This is insidious. The first key to stopping it is to call on advertisers who support this propaganda and express your objections..."
-- Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden: "Hey Sinclair - George Orwell is calling and wants his plot line back..." | | | -- CNN's Ryan Nobles: "As a former local anchor, I can understand the difficult position many of my colleagues are being put in as it relates to this story. Remember these are real people with jobs they need to support their families. It is not easy to just say no." | | | Brian Lowry emails: As Eric Boehlert noted here, this isn't new behavior for Sinclair. But it feels more concerning with news orgs under siege, the company significantly expanding its station group and the president seemingly seeking to reward and punish corporate entities based on how he perceives their treatment of him... Scroll down for more about that... | | Media week ahead calendar | | -- Monday: ESPN's new morning show "Get Up" premieres...
-- Monday: DOJ vs. AT&T continues...
-- Tuesday: Geraldo Rivera's memoir "The Geraldo Show" is out...
-- Friday: The Pictures of the Year exhibit opens at the Newseum in DC... (hat tip to CBS) | | Monday is International Fact-Checking Day! | | | No, it's not a federal holiday, you don't get the day off work, but journalism advocacy groups are promoting the day after April Fools Day as Fact-Checking Day... A chance to promote fact-checking tools and tech... If you want to celebrate, here are the details... | | Sharing fact-checking skills | | "Fact-checking isn't just for fact-checkers," Alexios Mantzarlis told me the other day. Everyone should be empowered with basic checking skills, "whether as news consumers, as librarians, as teachers."
--> An important reminder from Angie Holan: "We have more tools than ever at our disposal," but more misinformation too... "When I talk to readers or speak at public events, I just get a real sense of frustration from everyday citizens who say, 'I just don't know what to believe.'"
--> Listen to our podcast chat via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or TuneIn... | | -- Ezra Klein sat down with Mark Zuckerberg on Friday... Klein tells me they had "a wide-ranging conversation about Facebook's past year, and future ambitions..." The podcast will come out Monday morning... (Vox)
-- Headline in Monday's NYT: "They Tried to Boycott Facebook, Apple and Google. They Failed." The point: "The tech companies' products are so pervasive that they are difficult to avoid..." (NYT)
-- Ted Koppel's "overload" cover story on "CBS Sunday Morning:" "How technology is bringing us too much information..." (CBS) | | What did Trump and Hannity talk about? | | POTUS dined with Sean Hannity at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, per CNN's Elizabeth Landers and Noah Gray. Hannity did not respond to my request for comment...
--> Per the Palm Beach Post, Hannity joined Trump "on the course for at least a few holes" on Saturday...
--> Maggie Haberman adds: "Trump had Bill Shine, pined for but unlikely to become comms director, at his table with Hannity," per "person close to the president..." | | A thinly veiled attack on the Post... | | That's what Trump's latest tweets about Amazon are. The AP noted that Trump is "misrepresenting Amazon's record on taxes." And The Post itself pointed out that he "incorrectly conflated Amazon with" the paper. Jeff Bezos both owns the Post and runs Amazon.
--> Per the NYT's Katie Rogers, citing a source: "Trump's dislike of Bezos & Washington Post far outweighs his Amazon/postal service gripes, and recurring tweetstorms are often tied to what he sees as unflattering coverage..." | | "Govt by presidential pique" | | The Q on Sunday's "Reliable Sources:" Is Trump using the government to settle personal scores? Amazon might be one example, AT&T-Time Warner might be another.
"This is government by presidential pique rather than policy," Michael Isikoff told me. "The problem is, it undermines whatever legitimate policy goals the president might have in mind, because it comes off as him just attacking his enemies..." | | | CBS News reviewed FEC records and came up with this: "Trump blasts Amazon — but his campaign used it regularly for office supplies." The total: At least $158,000... | | Post and Amazon are declining to comment | | | Reps in DC and Seattle said they had nothing to say about Trump's latest missives... | | Uhhh, this is the new cover of NYMag... | | | The cover story is Jonathan Chait's piece arguing that "corruption, not Russia, is Trump's greatest political liability..." | | -- ICYMI: The Post's latest "Trump unhinged?" story was based on interviews "with 23 senior White House officials and outside advisers..." (Post)
-- Pete Vernon's latest: "Defying doomsday predictions, Fox News continues to dominate..." (CJR)
-- The South China Morning Post's owner Alibaba has given it "a new mission: improving China's image overseas and combating what it sees as anti-Chinese bias in the foreign media..." (NYT)
-- What's the deal with Roseanne Barr and conspiracy theories? Will Sommer has an explainer here. Related: I brought this issue up on Sunday's "Reliable..." (CNN) | | Ingraham is on vacation... but the ad boycott continues | | | The official word from Fox News is that Laura Ingraham is going on a pre-planned spring break vacation with her kids this week. I have no reason to doubt that. But the vacation will double as a cooling-off period... Now that more than a dozen advertisers have withdrawn from "The Ingraham Angle" due to her tweet mocking David Hogg. Ingraham apologized on Thursday, but another advertiser, Bayer, brought new attention to the issue on Saturday, tweeting that "we have stopped advertising on Laura Ingraham and we have no plans to resume any time in the future..." | | Are ad boycotts the right answer? | | I broached this question on Sunday's "Reliable Sources." I said this boycott trend is dangerous... But many others disagreed with me... Including my guest David Zurawik, who said "in the world of commercial media, nothing is more powerful than an advertiser boycott." Read Jackie Wattles' full story here...
--> Zurawik also pointed out that Bill O'Reilly also went on "vacation" exactly one year ago... Amid a scandal over his secret settlement payments... O'Reilly never came back, but this Ingraham case is quite different...
--> Jonathan Alter's response to me: "Everyone has right to free speech but no one has a right to his or her own television show. If you say stupid, hurtful stuff, you may deserve to lose it. Economic pressure from citizens should not be confused with Gov censorship..." | | What it means to "soften the ground" | | Former FBI supervisory special agent Josh Campbell, now a CNN analyst, says many of his former colleagues are "perplexed" by the pro-Trump media's posture against the Russia probe:
"Here is the network that we watch, here is the party of 'law enforcement,' that's now attacking the FBI... And I think the conclusion was, kind of the consensus is, this is an attempt to soften the ground, to discredit Bob Mueller and his people and the men and women of the FBI, so that if something does come down the line and show some type of malfeasance, that they can look back and say, 'Ah-ha, we told you all along that these folks can't be trusted.'"
Here's the video of our conversation... | | "These young kids" from Parkland "have more maturity and purpose than most of the folks who are trying to cover the story..."
--Anthony Atamanuik, star of Comedy Central's "The President Show," on Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." | | If you missed Sunday's show... | | | Here are a few different ways to catch up: You can read the transcript on CNN.com... listen to the podcast via Apple, Stitcher or TuneIn... watch the video clips on CNN.com... or watch the full program on VOD or CNNgo... | | I ran out of time for this on TV, but I wanted to ask journalist Noor Tagouri about what it's like to be a victim of misinformation. Photos of Tagouri were used to illustrate stories about a different Noor, Noor Salman, wife of the Pulse nightclub gunman.
In this web-only clip, Tagouri talks about how she responded -- and how some good might come out of the bad mix-ups... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "Jesus Christ Superstar" aired Sunday night on NBC... I missed it because I was writing this letter... But CNN's Chloe Melas has a full story here...
-- Speaking of Chloe: She'll be on "The Wendy Williams Show" on Monday...
-- And speaking of Wendy: She has landed the first national TV interview with Cynthia Nixon about the NY governors race... It will air on Wednesday, per Variety... | | Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One" "arrived to $53.2 million in ticket sales over the four-day Easter weekend in North America," exceeding expectations, the NYT's Brooks Barnes reports. "Overseas audiences chipped in an additional $128 million, with Chinese ticket buyers turning out in particular force."
Barnes says the film was essentially "resting on Mr. Spielberg's shoulders, a risky proposition even for a filmmaker of his stature..." Read the rest here... | | "Black Panther" is "ultrasuccessful" | | "This year's box office so far has been a story of one completely dominant movie, 'Black Panther,' highlighting a potentially troubling trend for Hollywood in which ticket sales are increasingly concentrated among just a few ultrasuccessful pictures," the WSJ's Ben Fritz writes.
He says "Panther" is "on track to become the third highest grossing movie ever in the U.S. and Canada." It has "left a string of disappointments in its wake, like Jennifer Lawrence's 'Red Sparrow' and the adaptation of the children's book 'A Wrinkle in Time.'" Read more... | | This season in Cumberbatch | | | Brian Lowry emails with his latest review: Benedict Cumberbatch's quaintly nicknamed fans can kick off a busy spring of projects large and small with "The Child in Time," an adaptation he produced and stars in. The movie, about parents dealing with a lost child, aired Sunday night on Masterpiece. Cumberbatch is following it with "Avengers: Infinity War" and a Showtime miniseries, "Patrick Melrose..." Details here... | | New month, new shows to stream | | | Email brian.stelter@turner.com... the feedback helps us improve this newsletter every day... Thanks! | | | | | | |
