Exec summary: TGIF! Scroll down for Jussie Smollett updates, CBS earnings, Valentine's Day highlights, Nickelodeon's "All That" reboot, The Economist's new cover, and much more...
"My weirdometer is broken"
Maybe this is what we need as a navigational aide in this age of nonstop news: a "weirdometer."
The idea is inspired by NPR's Susan Davis, who tweeted on Thursday, "How weird is it that the president hasn't nominated a new Defense Secretary yet? Not that weird? Super weird? My weirdometer is broken."
I think my meter is broken too. But Thursday was pretty, pretty weird. And Friday is shaping up to be weird, too.
-- As KFILE pointed out here, Trump "once called executive action on immigration dangerous, unconstitutional and impeachable..." But now he's taking executive action on immigration to the tune of $8 billion. It's "national emergency" time.
-- Truth-tellers on the left, the right and the sidelines are pointing out that there is no "national emergency" at the border, but Trump is going ahead anyway. He will hold a Rose Garden event at 10 a.m. Friday...
-- The NYT's Charlie Savage says this is "likely to go down as an extraordinary violation of constitutional norms — setting a precedent that future presidents of both parties may emulate to unilaterally achieve their own policy goals."
-- In other weird news, a new book by Andrew McCabe says Trump didn't believe US intel reports about a North Korean missile launch because "he thought that N.K. did not have the capability to launch such missiles. He said he knew this because Vladimir Putin had told him so."
-- Every day is weird: McCabe's book says "people do not appreciate how far we have fallen from normal standards of presidential accountability." | | The real emergency: Trump's "political difficulties"
Anderson Cooper began Thursday night's "AC360" by reading from the Constitution. (Video here.)
The president "today turned his back" on the Constitution and his own words. "Whether you want to call it his inability to fulfill a campaign promise, that Mexico would pay for the wall; or to negotiate with Congress; or merely dissatisfaction with the outcome; he's just made his own political difficulties over the border and the budget into a national emergency..."
Emergency footing?
CNN's Manu Raju tweeted, "Trump tomorrow: Declares national emergency in the morning, heads to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon." David Tabacoff, formerly the longtime exec producer of Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show, replied, "That is some kind of emergency. Eighteen holes of golf scheduled for the week-end in the midst of the emergency, no doubt!"
Conservatives sounding the alarm
Cool heads are looking pretty hot right now. Case in point, Bush speechwriter turned Javelin co-partner Matt Latimer's column for Politico Mag.
"By now," he wrote, "we've all become numb, alarmingly so, to the nutty ideas the president of the United States has floated or in some cases enacted to undermine the basic norms of our democratic institutions: firing FBI personnel on various pretexts, discounting election results he doesn't like, befriending vicious dictators, claiming judges are biased based on their ethnicity, alleging massive voter fraud without evidence, ignoring intelligence findings he doesn't agree with, and on and on and on. But as bizarre and dangerous as these have been, his plan to declare a national emergency is by far the absolute worst."
Seriously, read the rest...
More weird things that happened today
-- The W.H. put out some basic info about Trump's recent physical, but didn't disclose many of the details that medical experts would like to know. "The public deserves greater transparency," Dr. Jonathan Reiner told Erin Burnett...
-- Matt Schlapp tweeted that Friday "will be the first day that President Trump will have a fully operational confirmed Attorney General. Let that sink in. Mueller will be gone soon." What does he know that we don't know? His wife Mercedes is a top W.H. aide...
McCabe's book tour is beginning | | "The Threat" comes out next Tuesday. CBS released clips from Scott Pelley's "60 Minutes" sit-down with McCabe on Thursday's "CBS This Morning." The first adaptation from McCabe's book came out on The Atlantic website at the same time.
"The president has stepped over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he has encountered them," McCabe asserts. "Every day brings a new low, with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants."
All day long, cable news commentators pointed out that McCabe's credibility has been questioned. But the honest ones also pointed out that McCabe's main claims line up with previous reporting about Trumpworld. For example, McCabe confirmed the NYT's story from last September about 25th Amendment talk within the DOJ.
>> Greg Miller reviewed "The Threat" for WaPo... He said one of his takeaways is that the Trump admin's reputation "for baseness and dysfunction has, if anything, been understated and too narrowly attributed to the president."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- One day after the NYT published its story about Ryan Adams, a law enforcement source told the paper that the FBI "is looking into" whether the singer-songwriter "committed a crime by engaging in sexually explicit communications with an underage fan..." (NYT)
-- "Prosecutors investigating R. Kelly are looking into a newly surfaced video featuring the R&B superstar, lawyer Michael Avenatti told CNN." Sara Sidner viewed the VHS tape, and describes it here... (CNN)
-- A few hours later, this story by Jim DeRogatis: Prosecutors "are moving to indict R. Kelly, after the discovery of another video tape..." (The New Yorker)
Bezos in the middle of two big stories
One week after Jeff Bezos published his blog post accusing the National Enquirer of blackmail, the aftershocks continue...
And here in NYC, his decision to abandon plans for HQ2 in Long Island City is shaking local and state politics. The NY Daily News front page is against the "AMAZON KILLERS" -- calling out "so-called progressives" who rejected jobs and tax $$. I haven't seen the Post's front page yet. | | Meanwhile, in the scandal surrounding Bezos's personal life, Lauren Sanchez's brother Michael told VF's Gabriel Sherman that Bezos talked about buying the Enquirer's parent company. "We discussed the possibility to buy AMI -- not to kill the story, but to find out the source. They said that's not a bad idea," Michael Sanchez said. "We discussed numbers and the name of the LLC that we'd use. It would be called BOBO LCC -- short for Lauren's helicopter filming company, Black Ops, and Bezos's space company, Blue Origin -- that's the level of detail we went into."
An Amazon rep for Bezos declined to comment...
Security scare at Netflix Hollywood
Parts of Netflix's Hollywood base of operations were evacuated on Thursday after an employee "who had been recently fired called in a threat to a former coworker," KTLA reported Thursday night.
KTLA is right next door; staffers at the TV station were placed on lockdown while the incident transpired. The fired employee said he "had a gun and was on the company's Hollywood studio lot," according to lot security. But "the suspect, who was taken into custody, was never actually on the lot." Details here...
Competing narratives about Jussie Smollett
Victim or hoaxer? Both narratives lit up on Thursday. In the morning, Jussie Smollett spoke out about the alleged attack on ABC's "GMA." In the evening, ABC's affiliate in Chicago, citing anonymous sources, said police are probing whether Smollett "staged" the attack with the help of others.
ABC7's reporting said Smollett might have been motivated to make it up because he was being written off his Fox show "Empire." This claim prompted the Fox studio to say that "the idea that Jussie Smollett has been, or would be, written off of 'Empire' is patently ridiculous. He remains a core player on this very successful series and we continue to stand behind him." And the Chicago PD denied the "hoax" assertion: "We have no evidence to support their reporting and their supposed CPD sources are uninformed and inaccurate." But Smollett's detractors, including Donald Trump Jr., ran with the ABC7 reporting anyway. Here's the latest from CNN's team...
-- Plus, Lisa Respers France has more about what Smollett said on "GMA..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Maria Ressa is back in the Rappler newsroom after posting bail on Thursday. She says the law in The Philippines "is being weaponized against perceived critics." She will join me on Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." (CNN)
-- Which newsrooms should sign up for Apple's news subscription service, and which should say no? Here are Ben Thompson's answers... (Stratechery)
-- CNN anchor Jim Sciutto revealed the cover for his new book "The Shadow War" on Thursday's "Newsroom..." The book comes out in May... (Amazon)
The first two Dem debates
This year's DNC-sanctioned debates are starting to come into view. Comcast's NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo will broadcast the first debate in June... And CNN will host the second debate in July... Each event will be spread over "two consecutive nights in anticipation of a large field of candidates," David Wright explains here...
>> Dates and moderators will be announced later...
WaPo: FTC to fine Facebook
WaPo's Tony Romm reports: "The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook are negotiating over a multi-billion dollar fine that would settle the agency's investigation into the social media giant's privacy practices." The historic fine would finalize the FTC's probe, which began last March after the Cambridge Analytica fallout...
More on the Facebook front...
Via Katie Pellico:
-- This CNBC report reveals that FB uses its data and apps to track the locations of users who pose threats to the company. "More than a dozen former Facebook security employees described the company's tactics to CNBC, with several questioning the ethics of the company's practices..."
-- After much outcry, Facebook will explore "additional measures" to combat the spread of anti-vaccination misinformation...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- UK news orgs are getting word their licenses for Lexis Nexis' Trace IQ are being revoked because of changing data protection laws. The "indispensable" tool is used to look up basic contact info... (BuzzFeed News)
-- Fox News marketing exec and part-time entertainment reporter Michael Tammero is now SVP of event marketing and "host of on-air entertainment programming..." (Deadline)
-- Mike Nelson is the new EVP and CFO for Fox Television Stations, replacing Joe Dorrego, who has been promoted at Fox Corporation... (21CF)
-- Dawn Ennis is the new managing editor of Outsports, a new position for the site, which has been managed by its founders Jim Buzinski and Cyd Zeigler for the past twenty years. They will continue to write, edit and strike deals... (Outsports)
-- Kenneth Turan tweeted Thursday: "Could this be an omen? First confirmed sighting of a real life Black Panther in a century. Wow." Rebecca Keegan quipped: "Disney is really going overboard with this Oscar campaign..." (Twitter)
CBS raises streaming subscription targets
CBS revenues and profits fell short in Q4... But Thursday's earnings call was focused on the future... Namely, the growth of CBS All Access and the continuation of the network's deal with the NFL.
Sean McManus "said he expects the company to 'do what is necessary' to hold on to the NFL," the WSJ's Joe Flint and Micah Maidenberg wrote...
--> Important: "CBS raised its subscription target" for CBS All Access and its Showtime streaming platform "to 25 million by 2022 from an earlier forecast of 16 million, a spokesman said. The company said eight million people now subscribe to both services..."
New exec in charge of news at CNBC
"Dan Colarusso, executive editor at Reuters Digital, is shifting to CNBC, where he'll be senior VP of business news, overseeing television news content, coverage and production," B&C's Michael Malone reported Thursday. Colarusso will report to Mark Hoffman...
| | Tense situation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tom Kludt emails: Brief update to the wild situation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where the newspaper's union has called on its publisher to stay away from the newsroom after a bizarre and unnerving incident last weekend. Well, that publisher, John Robinson Block, was back in the office again on Thursday -- though he has yet to address the matter.
Read Tom's full story here...
Measuring the damage done in 2018
Kate Trafecante flagged this: Media industry job cuts in 2018 were the worst since the great recession, with the majority coming from news organizations. And this year is already off to a rough start, the report from Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. notes. WWD has the details here...
FOR THE RECORD, V-DAY EDITION
By Katie Pellico
-- The obligatory but still adorable live local news proposal, out of CBS4 Indianapolis... (IndyStar)
--- "How love sparks better heart health..." (CNN)
-- Dating app Coffee Meets Bagel is dealing with a data breach, and decided to tip off its user base on Thursday morning... (The Verge)
-- Don't be a sucker for love: "Romance scams cost Americans $143 million last year..." (WaPo)
-- How one "ring of romance scammers" got the job done... (The Verge)
-- A Valentine's/tax season crossover: When H&R Block gave CNN's Betsy Klein... dating tips... (Twitter)
-- NPR's "crowdsourced Valentine's Day poem..." (NPR)
-- And here's a little love note from Turner and Wolf Blitzer... | |
ICYMI: Jamie interviewed Brian...
...On this week's Valentine-themed edition of the "Reliable Sources" podcast. Check it out via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, or your preferred app... | |
NBA and Sky accuse Saudi Arabia of harboring media pirates
Hadas Gold's latest: The NBA, the US Tennis Association and a group representing the NFL, MLB and the NHL "have filed complaints with the US government" over alleged piracy violations in Saudi Arabia. Read all about it here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Katie Pellico:
-- Alexandra Alter's latest: Dan Mallory, two starkly similar novels "and the puzzle of plagiarism..." (NYT)
-- Kerry Flynn noticed that The New York Times "quietly paused its Snapchat channel" nearly two months ago... (Digiday)
-- InterviewHer is the Nobel Women's Initiative's new database hoping to help "connect media to a wide range of women experts on conflict, peace and security from around the world..." (InterviewHer)
-- Why "Fortnite's appropriation issue isn't about copyright law, it's about ethics..." (Waypoint)
AOC replacing Pelosi as the GOP's "new boogeyman for 2020"
"The days of using the House Speaker as a campaign punching bag are over," BI's Joe Perticone writes. Well, partially over. "Republicans have found a fresh, new face they can paint as an existential threat to the United States... Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."
Per Perticone, AOC's Green New Deal is being invoked in negative ads against "vulnerable Democrats" who haven't even sponsored the bill. His story cites Media Matters data showing conservative outlets are borderline "obsessive" about AOC...
| | He says "right-leaning publications still place a premium on Pelosi-related articles, but Ocasio-Cortez coverage is at a level that's disproportionate with each of their actual influence on Capitol Hill..."
| | The Economist's new cover
 "THE RISE OF MILLENNIAL SOCIALISM" is this week's cover story...
"Socialism is storming back because it has formed an incisive critique of what has gone wrong in Western societies," the story says.
But -- no surprise given the source -- the mag says the left's "pessimism about the modern world goes too far. Its policies suffer from naivety about budgets, bureaucracies and businesses..."
| | Elliot Tebele is still at it...
Katie Pellico writes: VICE News reports that Jerry Media founder Elliot Tebele's tequila startup "Jaja" is using a familiar "formula of memes, copyrighted photos, and unlabeled ads" on Instagram. The hopeful booze brand had enlisted the unwitting help of celebs like Anderson Cooper, Amy Poehler, Idris Elba and Will Smith, who are shown "endorsing" the product in variably altered photos. Some "celebrity photos were taken down hours after VICE News sought comment."
For context: It's been less than two weeks since comedians like Amy Schumer and Billy Eichner joined the "#F**kF**kJerry" campaign, which called for a mass unfollowing of Tebele's flagship "F**kJerry" account. Tebele had since changed the content policy there to ensure proper credit was given for content.
He admitted, "I simply didn't give any thought to the idea that reposting content could be damaging in any way."
| | Inside the heads of Oscar voters
Frank Pallotta emails: I'm good at three things: Journalism, bar trivia and predicting who's going to win Best Picture. However, the Oscars are next week and I have no living idea who's going to win.
Brooks Barnes over at the New York Times is here to help by talking to 20 anonymous voters. The big takeaways? Voters think "Roma" is great, but if you give it an award then Netflix's dominance grows. They love "Black Panther," but they don't want everything in Hollywood to become a big budget superhero sequel; and "Green Book" pulls at the heartstrings, but comes with some problematic political narratives.
So, actually, after all of that I still don't know who's going to win, but hey it's a fun read...
Michael Jackson bio-musical moonwalks its way straight to Broadway
Justin Freiman emails: Playbill reports the new Michael Jackson bio-musical "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" will skip its previously announced pre-Broadway engagement in Chicago and hold its world premiere in New York City in the summer of 2020. It's common for new Broadway shows to debut out of town before hitting the great white way.
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- It's official: Nickelodeon is rebooting "All That." Veteran Kenan Thompson will EP, and Variety reports the kids' channel "expects some former cast members to make appearances in the series" too... (Variety)
-- Lisa Respers France emails: Kristoff St. John's ex-wife has revealed his heartbreaking final words to her. (CNN)
Warm reception for "Frozen II"
Frank Pallotta emails: The trailer for "Frozen II" has been viewed 116.4 million times in 24 hours, according to Disney. That makes it the most viewed animation trailer of all time.
Disney has a huge year in front of it with big hits like "Avengers: End Game," "The Lion King" and "Star Wars: Episode IX" all on the docket, but DO NOT sleep on "Frozen II." It's a franchise that has spawned hit records, countless merchandising, a theme park ride, a Broadway show, oh and an original film that made more than $1.2 billion in 2013...
Last but not least... | | Hulu sent this Fyre Festival-themed Valentine to Netflix on Thursday. 🔥🔥🔥🔥
If you haven't watched the two Fyre documentaries yet, set aside three hours this weekend! It's worth it. | | | |
