| | | | | Hey there! This is Oliver Darcy filling in for Brian Stelter on this Thursday evening. Stelter will be on vacation for the next 10 days, so you'll be stuck with me for a bit. As always, I appreciate feedback (and tips) so do send me an email at oliver.darcy@turner.com or find me on Twitter. Now, let's get to the news... | | 🚨 NYT: Manhattan D.A. weighs pursuing criminal charges over hush money payment | | | The New York Times reported Thursday night that the Manhattan D.A. office is "considering pursuing criminal charges against the Trump Organization and two senior company officials in connection with Michael D. Cohen's hush money payment to an adult film actress." The Times cited two officials with knowledge of the matter... | | Pecker and the Enquirer at the center of headlines | | The NYT's scoop capped off a day in which the National Enquirer and David Pecker dominated headlines across the board. Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman broke news Thursday morning that Pecker, chairman of American Media Inc, the Enquirer's parent company, was granted immunity to provide information about Cohen and Trump's involvement with payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. That news was confirmed by WSJ and NYT.
Sources told CNN that Pecker told prosecutors Trump had knowledge of Cohen's payments to women who had alleged sexual encounters with Trump. The sources also said that Pecker provided investigators with details about the payments Cohen made to the women. | | Fortified in a literal safe | | The Associated Press reported Thursday afternoon that the Enquirer locked documents on hush money payments and documents relating to damaging stories in an actual safe.
>> The story included this line: "Five people familiar with the National Enquirer's parent company, American Media Inc., who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they signed non-disclosure agreements, said the safe was a great source of power for Pecker..." | | Cuomo battles with Kellyanne on payments | | Chris Cuomo confronted Kellyanne Conway on Thursday night over Trump's false claim that he had no knowledge of the payment to Stormy Daniels.
"You should admit he's lying," Cuomo bluntly told Conway. "And you don't. And that's why people don't trust you." Full video of that contentious interview here... | | McDougal's former attorney has three-word response | | | "Told you so." That was the official statement from Peter Stris who formerly represented McDougal. He issued the short statement in a tweet, saying that his firm had been asked by media outlets for comment about Pecker receiving immunity. He stressed, however, that the statement was his and that he does not speak for McDougal... | | Sandy Hook lawyers pen brutal op-ed to Ted Cruz | | Two of the lawyers representing the parents of Sandy Hook victims published on Thursday a blistering open-letter to US Sen. Ted Cruz in the Austin American-Statesman. The lawyers, Mark Bankston and William Ogden, ripped Cruz for having assailed big tech for removing Jones and InfoWars from some platforms. Some key quotes from the piece:
>> "When it comes to Jones, we can only presume that you are speaking from ignorance and that you do not know the nature of the conduct you are now zealously defending, nor the harm that has befallen my clients and many others."
>> "We're not sure what it will take for you to stop defending Jones. Does a Sandy Hook parent need to die before Facebook is allowed to deny this man a platform for his mayhem on their private service?"
>> "Nor is this a political issue, nor a fight between Democrats and Republicans. Jones accused President Bush of staging 9/11, and he attacked your family, claiming your father, Rafael Cruz, killed JFK. Ever since the 2016 campaign, we have never understood why you refused to stand up for your family against the people who spread these lies — and you worked hard to ingratiate yourself to them." | | | I reached out on Thursday evening to Cruz's office to see if he or any of his representatives had a response to the letter. I did not hear back... | | Geraldo zings Fox for coverage of Tibbetts' murder | | Some of the hosts and commentators over at Fox News have seized on the undocumented immigration status of Mollie Tibbetts' alleged killer to push their preferred immigration policies. On Thursday night, Geraldo Rivera pushed back against doing so. "We at this network are putting that spin on the story," Rivera said after host Martha MacCallum brought up the issue of immigration. "This is a murder story, not an immigration story." MacCallum responded, shaking her head, "It's not spin. It's fact." Mediaite has video of the segment here...
>> Related: Some members of Tibbetts' family have spoken out against politicizing Mollie's death. Her aunt told CNN, "I don't want Mollie's memory to get lost amongst politics." Read more here... | | "Somewhere former mob boss John Gotti, rotting in his grave, must be smiling because the President...is now on record attacking a former close associate for cooperating with law enforcement and praising a convicted felon for staying silent."
-- Anderson Cooper on "AC360" Thursday night. | | Another big departure at Condé | | WSJ's Ben Mullin scooped on Thursday that Teen Vogue's CCO Phillip Picardi is leaving Condé Nast to become editor in chief of Out magazine. Mullin noted no successor has been named...
Picardi was profiled earlier this year by NYT's Sydney Ember who described him as "the prince of Condé Nast." Ember noted in a tweet Thursday that she had asked Anna Wintour if she thought Picardi could one day head Condé. Wintour had told her, "For Phill, anything is possible. It's his road to take." | | ...and another departure at Fox News | | Politico's Jason Schwartz scooped Thursday night that Adam Housley has departed Fox News after nearly two decades with the network. A statement from Housley provided to Politico by a Fox News spokesperson confirmed the news.
Two former Fox News employees familiar with the situation told Politico that Housley felt there was "diminished opportunity at the network for reporters and disapproved of tenor of its on-air discussion." One of the people said Housley was "unhappy with the tone of the conversation of the channel."
>> Earlier this month, another Fox News journalist, Conor Powell, departed the network. The Wrap reported at the time that the departure was over frustrations with the channel's editorial direction... | | "Fox & Friends" airs its chat with Trump | | | Well, what did you really expect? "Fox & Friends" aired co-host Ainsley Earhardt's easygoing chat with Trump on Thursday -- and as you may have anticipated, it consisted of her lobbing a series of softballs at the president. Stelter has a list of the 18 questions Earhardt asked here... | | What happened to the Ainsley Earhardt who wanted to be a journalist? | | | In 2017, Earhardt spoke to Business Insider's Eliza Relman for a profile piece. In the piece, Earhardt was quoted saying of the Trump administration, "I do not want to come across as being in the tank for them or kissing their tails. I mean, I want to be a journalist, I want to ask tough questions." So my question for Earhardt: What happened? | | Earhardt walks back earlier comments on Manafort pardon | | On Wednesday night, Earhardt appeared on Sean Hannity's prime time show to preview her Trump interview -- and she made news. Earhardt reported on "Hannity" that Trump said he would "consider" pardoning Paul Manafort. The problem? Trump never actually said that in the interview, as was revealed when it aired.
Earhardt addressed the matter Thursday morning, saying, "He never said he was going to pardon Paul Manafort. But it sounded like to me that he might be considering it. But he never said yes and he never said no." Uhhh... Imagine if ANY other news org got this so wrong. | | The Daily Beast's Asawin Suebsaeng posted a tweet Thursday that resonated with a lot of people. He wrote, "Ding fox all you want for their relentless pro-trump fluffing but I gotta say I'm ok with the softball sitdowns because quite often he's pulled into a sense of comfort with the host/fan where he says some of his most revealing stuff."
>> Brian Lowry emails: Completely agree with Suebsaeng's point about Trump's softball Fox News interviews. Perhaps because the questions are so fluffy, he feels more comfortable and tends to expound on matters that can be unexpectedly newsworthy. Hence Jon Favreau's wry observation that "Trump's favorite place to incriminate himself is on national television." | | -- Tucker Carlson, facing backlash, defends his South Africa commentary... (Mediaite)
-- Fighting fake news with an app? That's what Newsguard aims to do with a browser plug-in... (Wired)
-- Media Matters' Alex Kaplan writes that fake news sites are violating PayPal's terms of service by using the company to raise money... (Media Matters)
-- Axios reports that the House GOP has set a testimony deadline for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey... (Axios)
-- Deadspin's Laura Wagner reports that The Athletic tried and failed to hire away a "significant chunk" of reporters from WaPo's sports desk... (Deadspin)
-- CJR publishes a piece by designer Darrel Frost arguing that the new NYT homepage without bylines is better for readers... (CJR)
-- Rachel Maddow bests Sean Hannity in the ratings for the second night in a row... (Mediaite)
-- Trent Seibert, the journalist who founded the "Texas Watchdog," has died at the age of 47... (Houston Chronicle) | | Politicon drops Milo after criticism | | Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to appear at Politicon this year. But after a firestorm of outrage, organizers announced on Thursday that they had dropped him from their lineup. The Daily Beast's Andrew Kirell and Will Sommer have the story here...
>> For his part, Milo told The Wrap that he "couldn't give a s***" about being dumped... | | Facebook removes suspected Russia intel page. Twitter keeps it online | | Facebook on Tuesday night announced it had removed a page suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence. But CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reported Thursday that Twitter has kept the page up. That's interesting, O'Sullivan notes, because it raises "new questions about the level of coordination among social media platforms as they combat state-sponsored information warfare."
>> Also interesting: Publicly Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says his company is committed to transparency. But when O'Sullivan asked Twitter why it was leaving the page up, a spokesperson declined to say why the company had not removed the account... 🤔 | | By Julia Waldow:
-- Reality Winner, a former government contractor accused of leaking confidential information to the press, has been sentenced to 5 years and 3 months in prison... (CNN)
-- Following the breakout of "AM to DM," BuzzFeed is launching another live Twitter show called "#What2Watch" that reviews the week in TV... Episodes will be based in Britain and hosted by BuzzFeed U.K.'s Scott Bryan and Dionne Grant... (Variety)
-- Vox's Emily Stewart asks eight experts whether Trump could force Twitter to allow all speech... (Vox)
-- And speaking of Twitter: The app is ending support for operating systems iOS 9 and older... (TechCrunch)
-- Puerto Rico's governor is recruiting tech companies to the island... (WIRED) | | The "OutFront" family welcomes a new member! | | Congrats to Erin Burnett! On Monday, August 20, Burnett and her husband David Rubulotta welcomed a baby boy into this world. According to People, Owen weighed 7 lbs. and measured just over 20 inches.
>> Burnett to People: "We are all in awe of our baby boy -- who is already bringing joy (despite a lot less sleep) to our home." | | | For the record, part three | | | By Daniella Emanuel:
-- The #MeToo movement in the US has influenced investigative reporting on sexual abuse at China's top universities... (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
-- NYT's Karen Zraick writes about how the first black female White House reporter, Alice Dunnigan, will be honored with a statue at the Newseum in Washington... (NYT)
-- On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, Redef CEO Jason Hirschhorn discusses "what Netflix got right that everyone else in TV got wrong..." (Recode)
-- Variety's Diane Garrett writes about how the country's political divide has posed a struggle for variety shows... (Variety) | | -- Kari Skogland will direct the first two episodes of Showtime's forthcoming miniseries on Roger Ailes... (THR)
-- Megan Thomas emails: If you're an actor in search of an Emmy, try a guest spot on "SNL" to boost your odds... (Vulture) | | Why "The Big Bang Theory" is ending | | | Brian Lowry emails: According to EW, Emmy-winning star Jim Parsons wound up being the main stumbling block to an additional season of "The Big Bang Theory." Not that any of the stars -- who were reportedly making nearly $1 million an episode -- really need the money, but Parsons will feel its departure less than most, as the producer-narrator of CBS' "Big Bang" spinoff "Young Sheldon." CBS had left open the possibility of a renewal at the TV Critics Assn. tour earlier this month. | | |
Thanks for reading! Email me your feedback... See you tomorrow...
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