What happened?
BuzzFeed News says its sources are rock-solid. "We stand by the reporting in this story."
And Robert Mueller's office says the story contained info that is "not accurate."
That's just about all we know, 24 hours after BuzzFeed rocked the worlds of politics, media and law with its report that Trump told Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.
The special counsel -- taking an extremely rare step -- is disputing the story, purposefully casting doubt on it, without specifying what is inaccurate.
And BuzzFeed is frustrated. "We really urge the special counsel to make it clear what he's disputing," EIC Ben Smith said on "AC360" Friday night.
Needless to say, the special counsel has not cleared anything up. And now the onus is on BuzzFeed...
What now?
Smith said on "AC360" that he knows the identities of the two sources in Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold's story. "We're really confident in these specific sources," he said. Now BuzzFeed is going back to the "two federal law enforcement officials" to try to glean more info. "Obviously these facts are true or they're false, and we will all get to the bottom of this," Smith said. Here's my recap for CNN.com. | |
Keep in mind: All of BuzzFeed's rivals spent the day Friday trying to match the reporting. And no one did. Come dinnertime, there were rumblings that the special counsel might issue a statement. "Inside the Justice Department," the WaPo reported, "the statement was viewed as a huge step, and one that would have been taken only if the special counsel's office viewed the story as almost entirely incorrect."
BuzzFeed's credibility is being tested
BuzzFeed's credibility is on the line in a big way, but this extends beyond BuzzFeed. As the NYT's Michael Barbaro said Friday night, "The stakes could not be higher or room for error lower."
I'm a strong believer that people should judge journalists individually and brands independently. The "news media" shouldn't be painted with a broad brush. But it's been proven that individual controversies impact the reputation of the media writ large. I'm less concerned with how President Trump will weaponize this -- he's tweeting predictable attacks to a relatively small Twitter crowd -- and more concerned with what casual news consumers take away.
"This is a bad day for us," Jeffrey Toobin said on "AC360." It reinforces every bad stereotype about the news media." My response on the air: Yes it does, but let's push back against the politicians that try to exploit this. "They want you to think we're all crooked. We're not."
--> John Podhoretz tweeted, "The people who should be angriest about the BuzzFeed story are the mainstream media pursuing the Mueller story who now have a harder job when it comes to convincing Russia skeptics that they are not simply out to get Trump by any means necessary."
"If true"
"If true" are two of the most dangerous words in journalism. I must have heard those words a hundred times in the coverage of BuzzFeed's story.
In the wake of the special counsel's statement, I heard from many people -- including some veteran journalists and TV execs -- who said news outlets made a big mistake by running with BuzzFeed's story.
There was, of course, a rush to pass along and process the story on Thursday night. And it was the lead story practically everywhere except "Fox & Friends" on Friday morning. Why? Partly because BuzzFeed has had a solid track record for these Trump/Russia stories. And partly, I think, it's because the media environment has changed so profoundly. I'm not trying to make excuses here -- I'm trying to get a conversation going. Email me with your thoughts!
Try to imagine: BuzzFeed breaks a huge story about the President telling his longtime lawyer to lie to Congress. The story lights up social media. Left-wing websites and podcasts run with it. Democratic lawmakers step up their calls for answers. And national news organizations just... pretend the story doesn't exist? Is that realistic in this hyper-connected world? Is that the best way to serve the audience? I don't think it is. I think the audience wants and needs analysis and context from other news outlets. So what's the middle path news outlets should follow?
Tapper and Trump Jr.
The middle path entails a high degree of skepticism. When Donald Trump, Jr. called out CNN in a tweet about "The Lead," Jake Tapper pointed out that he and his guests were quite skeptical of the report, Jr. responded, "If you're skeptical about the accuracy of a story, how about NOT giving it non-stop, wall to wall coverage on your network? You just can't help yourselves!!!"
Tapper's answer: "Your father, the White House and congressional leaders were talking about it and reacting to it so of course we covered it. Given the many lies you told the American people about the meeting at Trump Tower I don't really care to be lectured about anything by you."
A simple response to Trump
POTUS posted one of his "Fake News is truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" broadsides on Twitter Friday night.
Lots of people chimed in, but to my knowledge only one husband of a White House aide responded. It was George Conway, who said, "In light of the fact that you are a pathological liar, you should not be heard to complain about inaccurate media reports."
About the BuzzFeed reporters
Earlier on Friday, before Mueller's office shared the statement, Oliver Darcy wrote that the "Trump told Cohen to lie" story could irrevocably change the course of the Trump presidency. And he put BuzzFeed co-author Jason Leopold's career into context. Leopold has been lauded for his scoops and sleuthing at BuzzFeed. But he was involved in several major scandals earlier in his career. By his own account, he has a "checkered past."
The RNC unfairly attacked him on Friday as a journalist with a "history of false reporting." So read Darcy's story for the full context...
Smart quotes from three CNNers | | -- CNN's Chris Cuomo: "There's been a lot of stories about what's going on with the probe and what the president may have known." The special counsel has remained silent about those. "I wonder if it means that they had no problem with any of those other reports."
-- Shimon Prokupecz: "If Mueller has evidence that Cohen lied at the direction of the Trump, you'd think it would have come out."
-- Susan Hennessey: "The good news about the BuzzFeed story mystery is we won't have to wait long to find out. The very first question Michael Cohen will be asked in his congressional testimony is 'Did the President ever instruct or encourage you to lie to Congress or federal investigators?'" Will he answer the Q? The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 7... | |
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- "Gizmodo Media Group has settled defamation lawsuits brought by clients of lawyer Charles J. Harder, litigation that the blog publisher has claimed were meant to intimidate journalists..." (WSJ)
-- Will the FTC follow through? "U.S. regulators have met to discuss imposing a record-setting fine against Facebook for some of its privacy violations..." (WaPo)
-- Kara Swisher writes that Jeff Bezos' steamy sexts serve as the latest example of our loss of privacy. It's not a new trend, but what happened to Bezos shows that it "has accelerated in the last few years, as means of communication have mutated and proliferated..." (NYT)
"Nearly three-quarters of Republicans say the news media don't understand people like them"
Important point from Pew: "58% of U.S. adults feel the news media do not understand people like them, while 40% feel they are understood. Republicans, however, are nearly three times as likely to feel that news organizations don't understand them." This data comes from previous Pew work in 2018, but the organization highlighted it in a new blog post on Friday... | |
This Sunday on "Reliable Sources"
More TBD, but I know I'll be joined by Carl Bernstein, Jeffrey Goldberg, Olivia Nuzzi, Tony Schwartz, David Zurawik... See you Sunday at 11 a.m. ET on CNN!
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
By Daniella Emanuel:
-- BuzzFeed UK's editor-in-chief, Janine Gibson, is leaving the publication after three stellar years... (FT)
-- A UK merger: Two of Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers, the Times and the Sunday Times, are requesting permission from the government to be able "to share resources, including journalists, between the two titles..." (BBC)
-- Quartz Africa details the impact that the death of journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale has on Ghana -- a country with the best ranking in Africa for press freedom...(Quartz)
-- There's a Russian startup that wants to put advertisements in outer space. Experts aren't pleased with the idea for a variety of reasons... (NBC News)
AT&T back on YouTube
Katie Pellico emails: AT&T will run ads on YouTube again, apparently convinced that the platform has made sufficient changes to offer a "brand safe" space, the NYT reported Friday. It's been almost two years since AT&T (and others) pulled their ads after finding them linked alongside offensive content...
New from Bill Adair's team...
"A Duke University team expects to have a product available for election year that will allow television networks to offer real-time fact checks onscreen when a politician makes a questionable claim during a speech or debate," the AP's David Bauder wrote Friday. "The mystery is whether any network will choose to use it." Read on... | |
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Maureen Farrell reports: "Snap in recent weeks pushed out two senior executives after an investigation found that one of them had allegedly engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an outside contractor..." (WSJ)
-- "Six weeks after Bustle bought the digital website Mic and fired all of its staff, many of the former employees are seething and ready to wage a publicity battle on the site's new ownership." Maxwell Tani explains it all here... (Beast)
-- Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer's smart piece for WaPo: "The demise of the Fairness Doctrine played an underappreciated role in fomenting media tribalism..."
-- Correction: Last night I linked to Avi Asher-Schapiro's piece for CPJ (not CJR!) but failed to include his co-author Lucy Westcott. My apologies. Read it here! (CPJ)
Want to "Report for America?" | | Report for America co-founder Charles Sennott describes the project as a "call to service for a new generation of journalists" to help communities by "doing reporting that otherwise isn't getting done." Co-founder Steven Waldman says the project is trying to address both the "economic crisis" in journalism, and the "spiritual crisis."
Here's what he means... Read my recap of the podcast conversation here... Or listen via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or Spotify...
-- Related: Tow Center Director of Digital Journalism Emily Bell on Facebook's $$ support for local journalism efforts: "Facebook should treat the cause, not the symptoms, of journalism's plight..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Katie Pellico:
-- The Television Academy is going digital. Chairman Frank Scherma explained the decision to eliminate DVD screeners in a Friday statement, saying the move was a "first step to move the industry forward in an area of great concern... reducing costs and delivering a tremendous positive impact for the environment." (The Wrap)
-- The production company behind "Roma" has won the film rights to Shane Bauer's book "American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment." Bauer told Deadline he trusted Participant Media for their "strong track record of producing films about serious social issues based on real-life stories..." (Deadline)
-- Showtime acquired the docuseries "Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men," with plans to air it in the spring. The first two (of four) installments will premiere at Sundance next week... (Deadline)
-- Poynter's Kristen Hare: "Did we just experience the hardest decade in journalism?" (Poynter)
Facebook is building "LOL"
Katie Pellico emails: "Facebook is secretly building LOL, a cringey teen meme hub," TechCruch's Josh Constine reported Friday. The special feed of memes and "GIF-like clips" is currently in beta testing with "around 100 high school students who signed non-disclosure agreements with parental consent to do focus groups and one-on-one testing with Facebook staff."
Pallotta on the problem with Netflix's viewership #'s
Frank Pallotta emails: Netflix typically keeps its viewership numbers a secret, so color me surprised when the company offered the public a rare glimpse of how some of its original programming fared in its earnings report on Thursday. But what do the #'s really mean? It's hard to know since what Netflix's viewership data lacks is nuance and third party verification. On the other hand, "if you put something in an investor letter that gets filed with the SEC, you're not going to lie," Michael Nathanson, media analyst and founding partner at MoffettNathanson, pointed out...
Lowry's take
Brian Lowry adds: Netflix appears to be slowly pulling back the curtain on some of its metrics, releasing data on "Bird Box," "You," "Sex Education" and now its interactive "Black Mirror" episode, "Bandersnatch." More info is always welcome, but add me to the list of skeptics about what it actually means. As Frank's piece notes, it's hard to escape the fact that the service is spooning out data points that reflect favorably on its model, when ratings for more traditional TV outlets (and for that matter, movie studios) are readily available, including their flops as well as their hits; and it's virtually impossible to directly compare these claims with anyone else's performance...
| | Best wishes to Wendy Williams Wendy Williams "has experienced complications regarding her Graves' Disease that will require treatment," so she is taking a "necessary, extended break from her show to focus on her personal and physical well-being." People mag has details here...
"SNL" is back this weekend
Katie Pellico emails: "SNL" will return from its month-long holiday with host Rachel Brosnahan and musical guest Greta Van Fleet. Watch the "Marvelous" promo here...
Lowry reviews season two of "The Punisher"
Brian Lowry emails: The Punisher was created in the 1970s as a villain for Spider-Man, and the latest version of the Marvel character, Netflix's "The Punisher," returns for its second season this weekend. The first season notably postponed its Comic-Con premiere because of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, an indication of the complicated 30-year history of screen carnage, often with uncomfortable levels of violence, associated with the vigilante antihero...
Showtime's "Black Monday" comes out Sunday
Brian Lowry emails: Showtime has a first-rate series about high finance in "Billions," but misfires with "Black Monday" -- a comedy built around the Wall Street crash of 1987 -- which, despite a cast that includes Don Cheadle and Regina Hall, yields a poor return on investment...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Lisa Respers France:
-- R. Kelly's former manager, James Mason, surrendered to sheriffs Friday in Georgia. Mason was wanted on an outstanding warrant issued over the summer after he was accused of threatening the father of one of Kelly's alleged victims...
-- Marie Kondo doesn't really want you to throw away your books when you clear out your household clutter...
-- Gladys Knight is being criticized for agreeing to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl in light of some NFL fans' boycott over Colin Kaepernick...
| | That's a wrap. Send me your feedback anytime! It always makes the letter better. See you Sunday...
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