Exec summary: Stay warm everyone! Here's the latest on Super Bowl media day, Apple's FaceTime bug, BuzzFeed's about face, ABC's "GMA day" reboot, and possibly permanent snaps...
Why you should care about "deepfakes"
The 2016 election was full of fake Facebook pages and Twitter troll operations. 2020 could be a lot worse.
Donie O'Sullivan emails: The release of the Access Hollywood tape in the late stages of the 2016 campaign was one of the few times Donald Trump has ever apologized. The evidence, it seemed, was irrefutable. But Trump may soon have "fake audio" and "fake video" to add to his cries of "fake news." Deepfakes technology is developing at a worryingly fast rate. It allows people to create super real-looking fake videos (and there's fake audio tech too). | | More from Donie: The tech couldn't come at a worse time. Imagine, in the waning days of the 2020 election, an audio tape drops damaging to one of the candidates. The tape could be amplified by bots and trolls that feed into hyper partisan sites, blogs, and TV networks. But it could be all fake. (Or it could be real, but the candidate could convincingly claim that it's fake!) The intelligence community is concerned. For my new CNN.com feature, I gained access to a program sponsored by the Pentagon. Read/watch here...
Lawmakers are growing worried, too
Donie adds: Lawmakers on the intelligence committees have been briefed on the threat — and some of them are sounding the alarm. Rep. Adam Schiff and other members of Congress have requested a report from the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats on the dangers of deepfakes. Multiple lawmakers we heard from said they are concerned about how fakes could be used by a foreign nation state during the 2020 campaign.
--> The question: Will newsrooms, that have been tricked by viral tweets and false news stories in the past, be ready for deepfakes?
Permanent posts on Snapchat?
What's the opposite of a snap? A permanent public post. And that's what Snap is thinking about offering. The company is "considering changes to its Snapchat app, known for disappearing photos and videos, that could make users' public posts longer lasting or even permanent," Reuters' Angela Moon and Sheila Dang reported Monday, citing "people familiar with the matter."
--> Plus: "The company is also weighing an option to reveal the identities of Snapchat users who make public posts, a person familiar with Snap's plans said..."
NBC says Brokaw's comments were 'inappropriate'
NBC News, facing mounting backlash stemming from Tom Brokaw's comments that Hispanics should "work harder at assimilation" into American culture, distanced the network from his "inappropriate" commentary. "Tom's comments were inaccurate and inappropriate and we're glad he apologized," an NBC spokesperson said Monday evening. Here's our updated story...
Latino groups want more
On Monday an alliance of Latino advocacy groups wrote an open letter to NBC demanding more than just an apology. "Mr. Brokaw's comments are more than just out-of-touch musings," they're "part of a legacy of anti-Latino sentiment that is spreading freely in 2019," the letter said.
The groups called on NBC to improve the diversity of bookings on "Meet the Press;" make a "significant" donation to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists; and produce a series about the Hispanic community in the United States...
--> Brokaw elaborated on his comments in an email exchange with Erik Wemple on Monday... Read on...
Roger Stone will be arraigned on Tuesday
Will the judge order him to stop talking to the press while he awaits trial? We'll see... In the meantime, he went on Sean Hannity's show Monday night and praised the president and said "I'm not going to testify about him because I possess no negative information..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Coming Tuesday: Earnings reports from Apple and Verizon...
-- On "Data Privacy Day:" Apple customers "discovered a software bug on Monday that lets people listen in on other users by way of the company's FaceTime video chat service..." (Bloomberg)
-- "Apple said in a statement Monday night that it has identified a fix for the problem and will release it in a software update later this week..." (CNN)
-- The Ringer in "year three" has "barely just started," but it is profitable, Bill Simmons says in this WSJ story. "Its podcast ad sales exceeded $15 million in 2018, according to people familiar with the matter..." (WSJ)
-- Ben Thompson's latest is about the lesson of the BuzzFeed layoffs… (Stratechery)
After backlash, BuzzFeed says it will pay out earned PTO to laid off employees
Oliver Darcy emails: BuzzFeed on Monday evening announced it would pay out PTO to laid off employees, after previously having declined to do so. The about face came after BuzzFeed's leadership, most namely founder and CEO Jonah Peretti, faced swelling backlash from his employees.
On BuzzFeed's "AM2DM" morning show, for instance, hosts Isaac Fitzgerald and Saeed Jones excoriated BuzzFeed leadership, saying the move was "shameful" and "embarrassing." And over the weekend, an open letter was written to Peretti and other company leaders demanding BuzzFeed pay the PTO to laid off employees. That letter was ultimately signed by hundreds of current and former staffers, applying pressure that just couldn't be ignored...
THE 2020 RACE
CNN's town hall with Kamala Harris
"The all-important Iowa caucuses are just over one year away," Jake Tapper said as he introduced Sen. Kamala Harris at Drake University in Des Moines on Monday evening. The town hall is on while I'm writing this... Check CNN.com for a complete recap...
How it works: "Kamala Harris isn't the only candidate who's been invited by CNN to do a town hall, which is just starting now -- but she made sure to be the first one to accept it, rolling out big on national TV for her first Iowa trip," Edward-Isaac Dovere tweeted...
Counterprogramming: MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell led his 10 p.m. show with an Elizabeth Warren interview...
Howard Schultz's rocky rollout
Howard Schultz is ostensibly on a book tour for "From the Ground Up," which comes out Tuesday. But the tour is getting lots of attention -- most of it negative -- because he is exploring a third party bid for president. At a Barnes & Noble event where he was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin on Monday, he was heckled by a protester. "Go back to getting ratioed!" Schultz was told.
Jason Zengerle, referencing Sunday's "60 Minutes" story, responded on Twitter: "Something tells me that Schultz will happily go back to getting ratioed on Twitter in exchange for 10 minutes of soft-focus puffery on a weekly TV news magazine that's watched by 10 million Americans, many of whom are presumably senior citizens who definitely vote..." | | Bill Burton, a former aide to President Obama, also came under harsh criticism on Monday when it was revealed that he is helping Schultz explore a bid. Burton's response to Jeff Zeleny: "The criticism of this effort right out of the box has been extraordinarily lazy." Read more from CNN's team here...
--> Schultz's rollout: "60" and the NYT and The Goop podcast... "CBS This Morning" and "The View" on Tuesday... Plus an interview with CNN's Poppy Harlow, airing Wednesday... And "Morning Joe" on Wednesday...
--> BTW: His book just cracked the top 20 on Amazon...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- All of his hits paid off: Dan Bongino, a near-daily presence on Fox News who was appearing for free, is now a paid contributor... (Mediaite)
-- NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures have struck a deal with Acorns, "a financial app aimed at millennials..." (FierceVideo)
-- The BBC's Amol Rajan has the first interview with Sir Nick Clegg in his new Facebook comms role... Clegg says it is "no longer sustainable" for tech giants to resist regulation... (BBC)
How "close to being completed?"
Did acting A.G. Matt Whitaker intend to make news when he said, at an unrelated presser on Monday, that Robert Mueller's probe is "close to being completed?" People immediately began parsing Whitaker's words and wondering how "close" is close...
-- CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz tweeted: "I sense people around Whitaker were surprised by his comments. But I don't know that they would dispute it..."
-- CNN legal analyst Elie Honig opined: "It's inappropriate to comment publicly about the status of any ongoing investigation -- not to mention a rookie-level tactical giveaway…"
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I just think the president cares way too much about people in the media. He is president. He is not a candidate... he has got to make some tough decisions and he is not an absolute monarch."
--Brian Kilmeade on Monday's "Fox & Friends."
| | The Super Bowl Sunday interview is on
I broke this bit of news on Monday evening: One year after snubbing NBC's Super Bowl broadcast, President Trump has agreed to sit down with CBS for a Super Bowl Sunday interview... "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan will speak with Trump on Friday, and portions of the interview will air Sunday both on her program and on the Super Bowl pre-game show. Trump might use the forum to push his pro-wall-funding case...
SOTU rescheduled
After all the drama, the State of the Union will just take place one week later than originally scheduled -- now it'll be on February 5 -- still on a Tuesday, which minimizes the disruption to the broadcast networks...
Over to you, Lou...
Oliver Darcy emails: At Monday's W.H. briefing, Sarah Sanders knocked right-wing media personalities who have been critical of Trump's decision to re-open the government without securing border wall funding. Sanders said that conservatives who "actually have influence" are supportive of the president. To some degree, Sanders is correct. The most influential right-wing media personalities, like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, expressed support for Trump's move to temporarily re-open government. They say Trump will ultimately secure wall funding. But, that said, I can't imagine right-wing media personalities like Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, and Lou Dobbs -- all of whom were critical of the move -- will be too happy with Sanders' comments...
Trump thinks Obama spent too much time watching TV?!
MSNBC's Steve Benen zoomed in on one telling detail from WaPo's story about Trump giving W.H. tours to guests.
It was Trump's claim to a recent group of guests that Obama sat in the private dining room "and watched basketball all day."
Benen: "But what I find especially interesting about the anecdote is the underlying point: Trump wants his visitors to think Barack Obama spent too much time in the White House watching television. A staple of the Trump presidency is a tactic known as 'projection': he identifies his faults, and then projects them onto his perceived foes..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- NBC News chief Noah Oppenheim: "We see every minute of every day as a test for the national media. We are under intense scrutiny, and appropriately so…" (NYT)
-- Facebook Watch "isn't living up to its name," Sarah Frier reports: "The company's lackluster video tab still has a lot to prove to both viewers and advertisers…" (Bloomberg)
-- Super Bowl countdown: Jill Martin has this dispatch from Monday's Opening Night event in Atlanta... (CNN)
HBO's expansion
VF's Joy Press interviewed Richard Plepler and Casey Bloys for this deep dive into HBO's strategy. With AT&T seeking a "turbocharged HBO," the network "expects to expand to 150 hours of original scripted series and movies over the course of this year, which translates into three hours' worth of fresh scripted fare for every week of the year," Press reports.
In 2017 and 2018, the # was just over 100 hours. So this is a serious increase... And HBO "plans to continue ramping up original programming hours in coming years..."
FIRST LOOK
"The Empire Strikes Back" on the cover of Variety | | Variety's business editor Cynthia Littleton has an in-depth look at the stream of questions facing Disney as it prepares to launch its direct-to-consumer venture, Disney +, later this year... The story will be up on Variety.com on Tuesday morning...
"GMA Day" becomes "Strahan and Sara"
"GMA Day" is weaker than the show that it replaced, "The Chew," so ABC is rebooting the 1 p.m. talk show as "Strahan and Sara," Variety's Brian Steinberg wrote Monday.
The new title places "more significance on hosts Michael Strahan and Sara Haines." I tuned in for Monday's episode, and I thought it was... fine...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Anna Wiener is joining The New Yorker as a contributing writer with a "regular column for Silicon Valley..." (Twitter)
-- Henry Olsen is joining WaPo as a daily Opinions columnist... (WaPo)
-- Haley Byrd is the latest Weekly Standard alum to be hired by CNN. Her tweet made me smile: "When I went in for my first interview with CNN they asked me what I wanted to cover on Capitol Hill and I said the very exciting stuff like Section 232 tariffs and NAFTA. And they're letting me do it!!! Excited to be joining the team." (Twitter)
"Breslin and Hamill" available on demand
"Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists" had its premiere on HBO on Monday night... And that means it will be available on demand starting Tuesday.
If you haven't seen the documentary yet, check out John Avlon's CNN.com column about what makes it -- and them -- special. He says Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill "wrote literature in real time, on deadline. It's the highest possible bar, and I'm willing to bet that the best of their work will still read fresh decades from now..."
"If you're waiting for a sign..."
Through the WaPo's Press Freedom Partnership, established in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi's killing, the newspaper is running full-page ads and using other methods to draw attention to free press threats.
This is the newest example... It appeared in Monday's paper... An ad by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press that lists all of the different reasons why the group believes this sacred right is at risk in the United States. The list includes "news vans set on fire," "death threats," "dangerous packages," "kicked out of public meetings," and much more: | | "Black Panther" back in theaters
Megan Thomas emails: Wakanda for everyone. Disney is offering free screenings of "Black Panther" at more than 200 AMC theaters the first week of February as part of Black History Month. Sandra Gonzalez has more...
Low "Rent"
Brian Lowry emails: Some followups on Sunday night's two big events: "Rent" -- which ended up not being live for the most part -- also wasn't much of a ratings draw, attracting the smallest audience (3.4 million viewers) of any live musical since Fox began airing them. The 1.4 rating among adults 18-49 was enough to carry the night in that key demo, but it suggests A) this might not be the right title for the transfer and B) there may be some fatigue with these manufactured "events."
Elsewhere, as I observed late Sunday, the Screen Actors Guild Awards had the kind of night the Oscars would envy, at least in the broad strokes: Scant talk about politics, little focus on the host, and most of the excitement circling around the winners, which included a number of high-profile, widely seen titles, including "Black Panther," "This is Us"and "Bohemian Rhapsody's" Rami Malek. How well that formula translates into ratings could be another matter, but one suspects after its sloppy host search, the organization would welcome a night like that...
How is the Oscars race looking now?
Lowry adds: THR's Scott Feinberg has a pretty good breakdown of what the SAG Awards helped clear up in terms of the Oscar race, and what it didn't...
The latest from Park City
Megan Thomas emails: This is a great roundup of the Sundance films "people will be talking about for the rest of 2019" from The Atlantic's David Sims.
I found this data from the festival's executive director, Keri Putman, promising: "Some 40 percent of this year's movies were directed by a woman, and 36 percent were made by people of color. Meanwhile, 63 percent of the accredited press come from 'underrepresented groups,'" according to Putman...
Michael Jackson's family responds to "Leaving Neverland"
Lisa Respers France emails: Michael Jackson's family released a statement Monday calling the new documentary -- which has reignited talk about pedophilia allegations -- a "public lynching." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Lisa Respers France:
-- It didn't take some viewers five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes to figure out they didn't love Fox's live version of "Rent," which ended up not being live after all...
-- "Black Panther's" win at the SAG Awards has us ready for a sequel...
-- The Fiji Water Girls were at SAG. You just might not have seen them... | |
ICYMI...
How to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable Sources"
Read the transcript... Listen to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or TuneIn... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the entire show via CNNgo or VOD...
| | That's a wrap. Send me your feedback anytime -- I'm always trying to make this newsletter more useful for all of you. See you tomorrow!
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