| | | | In Anniston, Alabama, a reader dropped off pizzas at the Anniston Star. "He just wanted us to know that some people do care about what we do," a reporter said.
In Portland, it was donuts at the Press Herald. The reader's note read: "For the people who put out the newspaper every #*!@ day!"
And in Annapolis, the memorials to the five slain Capital Gazette employees are growing every hour.
The best of humanity always follows the worst. And that's what we're seeing now -- an outpouring of support for the Capital Gazette and for journalism. | | -- Friday's special edition of The Capital sold out at many retail outlets...
-- The paper WILL come out on Saturday and Sunday, as scheduled...
-- Surviving staffers worked out of The Baltimore Sun's office space on Friday, since that's the corporate parent... Here's my full story...
-- There's already talk about finding new office space in Annapolis...
-- There's a big vigil going on right now in downtown Annapolis...
-- Another vigil is scheduled outside The Sun's N. Calvert Street office on Saturday night...
-- The suspect appeared in court Friday morning... He was denied bail...
-- Here are the latest updates via CNN.com... | | Hadas Gold emails: In the hours after the shooting, Bloomberg reporter Madi Alexander wanted to do something to help. She didn't know anyone at Capital Gazette but once worked at a small local paper herself. So she started a GoFundMe page that took off. As of this writing, it has raised more than $159,000...
More: On Friday Tronc announced a fund to help the victims. Michael Ferro, Tronc's former chair and its largest stakeholder, announced his family foundation will match donations up to $1 million. More info here, plus links to donate.. | | Newsrooms are re-assessing security | | | Tronc said on Thursday that it was stepping up security at its papers. Others are doing the same. This is part of McClatchy CEO Craig Forman's memo to staff on Friday: "We are reviewing the security at all of our offices across the country and are working quickly to strengthen it where we determine there are weaknesses." | | | >> Hadas Gold emails: Nearly every journalist I know, including myself, has received threatening messages. And nearly every journalist has thought about what would happen if those threats became real. Thursday's attack renewed conversations about newsroom safety... An unfortunate reality we all live in now... | | -- Former Capital Gazette reporter Christina Jedra's tribute: "I learned how to be a reporter in that newsroom, and my fallen former colleagues shaped me as a journalist and as a person..."
-- The WashPost compiled reactions to Thursday's tragedy from foreign correspondents...
-- The NYT is asking readers to share what their local newspapers mean to them... | | Trump says journalists should be "free from fear" | | Trump commented on the shooting at the start of an event about tax reform. Brian Karem tweeted this reaction:
"On Monday POTUS called us the enemy of the people. Today he said 'Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.' Which is it? Well when a growling dog wags its tail, I look at the teeth."
Later in the day, speaking with reporters on AF1, Trump said "I have a lot of respect for the press. Some of the greatest people I know are reporters." Two things. 1) I'm not surprised by this answer at all. Trump consistently drives a wedge between the Foxs of the world and the so-called "fake news," allowing him to simultaneously praise some media outlets while bashing others. 2) His AF1 comments show how much he actually likes talking with reporters... | | On the right, there's been a full day of criticism that "the media" rushed to judgment and "blamed Trump" for sparking the shooting. In fact, most members of "the media" were very careful not to invoke Trump's name or assume a motive when the attack took place. Some individual journalists and "resistance" activists DID make that mistake, and they were called out for it. Nevertheless, sites like The Federalist ran with stories like "Journalists Blame Trump For Annapolis Shooting Despite Complete Lack Of Evidence."
On Twitter, I'm getting hit for pointing out, during our Thursday breaking news coverage, that there's been a sharp rise in threats against journalists in recent years. The verbal abuse was even worse than usual today... Which just reinforces why it's important to call out this dark strain of anti-media sentiment, apart from the attack in Annapolis... | | Margaret Sullivan's latest | | I think Margaret Sullivan said it really well in her newest WashPost column, titled "Trump's press attacks didn't cause the Annapolis tragedy. But there is a connection: the wrong-headed attitude about the role of journalism."
With apologies to Sullivan, I'm going to give away the kicker: "Trump can't, and shouldn't, be blamed for the Annapolis massacre. But that doesn't make his contempt for the press any less dangerous." | | "Will you stop calling the press the enemy?" | | As the aforementioned tax event was ending on Friday, CNN's Jim Acosta shouted a question three times from the back of the room. "Mr. President, will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people, sir?"
One man turned around and shushed him. Others seemed to cheer more loudly to drown out the Q's. Acosta's critics pounced, saying he was acting inappropriately. Well, it just so happens that we'd already booked Acosta for this Sunday's "Reliable Sources" program... Now there's even more to ask him about... | | | >> CNN's Abby Phillip raised the same issue with Kellyanne Conway: "Is it time for the president to stop calling journalists 'the enemy of the people?'" Conway did not answer... | | -- RTDNA president Dan Shelley: "Watch your backs, but don't back down..."
-- Student Press Law Center: "We are all affected by these events. The recent anti-media rhetoric creates an enabling environment for violence against journalists..."
-- CJR's Kyle Pope tweeted: "My fear, that in our focus on Trump's war on big media, we may have missed the fact that it's local reporters who are most at risk..."
-- CPJ's Joel Simon wrote a CNN.com op-ed making a similar point...
-- Dave Barry's "corny-but-true" message to readers: Journalists "do it for you. Every time they write a story, they're hoping you'll read it, maybe learn something new, maybe smile, maybe get mad and want to do something..." | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- Politico's Jack Shafer examines the history of violence in journalism, and raises the question, "How safe are American newsrooms?" (Politico)
-- "No notoriety" in effect: In this Twitter thread, Lois Beckett compares how different outlets handled photos and info about the alleged gunman... (Twitter)
-- Dave Uberti tries to understand the story of Zack Stoner, a Chicago journalist known for covering the city's black community who was shot and killed on May 30th while driving away from a rap concert... (Splinter) | | Trump, on AF1, previewing his SCOTUS plans: "I will be announcing it the Monday after July 4. Is that the 11th? We're going to announce it specifically on the 11th."
A reporter responded: "That would be the 9th."
Trump: "What is the Monday after July 4?"
A reporter: "The 9th."
Trump: "I'll be announcing the 9th." | | The prank call heard 'round the world | | Strangest story of the day, by a mile. Here's the lead via CNN.com: "A comedian pretending to be Sen. Bob Menendez for a bit says he got through to the President, who called him back from Air Force One." And John Melendez, better known as Stuttering John, posted it all on a podcast. Oy...
--> Maggie Haberman tweeted: "There are few things Trump hates more than being made to look foolish..." | | Trump back on Fox this weekend... | | | He taped an interview with one of his biggest boosters, Maria Bartiromo, and it's set to air Sunday morning on Fox News and Monday morning on Fox Biz... Don't hold your breath for hardball Q's, I don't want you to pass out... | | Lesson of the upset victory in NY-14? "Listen hard" | | | I'm one of the subjects of Rebecca Traister's latest column... And it stings a bit... but I highly recommend reading what she wrote. The key point: The press and the powerful "should listen hard to the women (and men) who are doing everything in their power to express their wholly righteous rage on behalf of Americans who've been crushed by minority rule..." | | The end of "civility week" | | | A week of conversations about "civility" (which I civilly tried to avoid) came to a fitting conclusion on Friday when the Trump campaign sent out a fund-raising letter saying "it's time for civility -- support the MAGA agenda!" | | Booting bad-faith pundits? | | | Brian Lowry emails: In a WashPost op-ed on civility, or the lack thereof, Tom Nichols' list of suggested remedies includes "demanding that the media stop giving voice to Trump defenders who exist in the public sphere only to be Trump defenders." Nichols asks, in regard to booking pro-Trump pundits, "Is there no point at which we can say that people who argue in bad faith are not welcome in the studio or in our living rooms?" | | | For the record, part three | | | -- "Journalists and editors at BuzzFeed, HuffPost, NYT Magazine, Daily Beast, The New Yorker, and WaPo all spread a conspiracy theory claiming there was a secret Nazi code in a DHS press release," Alex Griswold writes... (Free Beacon)
-- Comcast is recovering from a massive outage that left customers without internet, cable TV, and phone service... (CNNMoney) | | | -- Daniella Emanuel emails: In a dispute in which 20th Century Fox accused Netflix of "poaching two employees," an appeals court has ruled against Fox, "allowing rival Netflix to proceed with a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate Fox's fixed-term employment agreements..." (Variety) | | | -- Julia Waldow emails: The 21-year-olds behind NewsBot and Botcheck.me are releasing a free browser extension called SurfSafe that they say will "allow its users to identify websites they find reliable as their own 'source of truth...'" (The Atlantic) | | NEW podcast with Marty Baron | | (Photo via the Aspen Daily News.) This week's "Reliable" podcast is with WashPost exec editor Marty Baron. It was taped on stage at Aspen Ideas earlier this week.
"I think the public is looking for a press that stands for something, that stands for telling the truth [and] will do it regardless of the pressures," Baron told me. Read Julia Waldow's recap here... And listen to the pod via Apple, Stitcher, or TuneIn... | | Michelle Wolf: "I am unhinged!" | | Check out Michelle Wolf's response to the RNC's new ad showing lots of liberal celebs, Wolf included, titled "The Left in 2018: Unhinged:"
"Yeah, like a screen door installed by a blind lesbian, I am unhinged! Expecting people not to be unhinged right now is like expecting someone whose house is on fire to just keep calmly rearranging their bookshelf."
She added: "Right now, there are two things that should be unhinged. People and those doors to the child cages." | | Lowry's weekend viewing recs | | Brian Lowry emails: Two big recommendations, both true stories, one in theaters, the other premiering on Amazon.
First: "Three Identical Strangers," a jaw-dropping documentary about triplets separated at birth, and the strange story surrounding them, starting with the media frenzy they triggered. Read more...
And: "A Very English Scandal," a three-part miniseries starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw, about the Liberal Party leader accused of trying to have his lover murdered in the 1970s... | | How Netflix is everything to everyone | | | Frank Pallotta took a big picture look at how Netflix got to where it is today. Naturally, it's in the form of a video! Here it is... | | | Brian Lowry emails: The second season of Netflix's "GLOW" -- streaming now -- feels urgent and timely, with race and #MeToo filtered through the prism of the show's 1980s-era female wrestling show. Details here... | | | For the record, part four | | | By Chloe Melas:
-- I spoke with Paul Rudd about his new movie "Ant-Man and the Wasp," in theaters this weekend..
-- Jane Krakowski talked with me about her new partnership with AARP's dementia research campaign and why the cause hits close to home...
-- Terry Crews has a message for those who question his #MeToo story... | | | Hope you have a great weekend. Email your likes, dislikes, thoughts straight to me: brian.stelter@turner.com. Thank you! | | | | | | |
