EXEC SUMMARY: I'm about to touch down at SFO. Heading to Cupertino for Apple's Monday morning show. Scroll down for a peek behind the curtain... But first...
The Barr Report
So far, we know very little about what's in Robert Mueller's report, but we know, from A.G. Bill Barr, that Mueller did not find collusion. On the issue of obstruction, Barr and Rod Rosenstein determined that the evidence was "not sufficient" to support prosecution. Trump, true to form, went too far and said he had been completely exonerated. Sunday was just day one of a multi-day story... | |
Team Trump plans to "slam and shame the media"
CNN's Jim Acosta says Trumpworld is going to go after the press hard in the coming days. The RNC is already blasting out emails with titles like "The Media Was Obsessed With The Democrat Lie." And many of Fox's talk show hosts are blasting CNN and MSNBC.
A Trump adviser who speaks to the president regularly told Acosta to expect Trump and his team to "slam and shame the media" over Mueller's no-collusion conclusion. "This is like Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault all over again," the adviser said.
The WaPo's W.H. team expects the same thing: "Aides say Trump plans to highlight the cost of the probe and call for organizations to fire members of the media and former government officials who he believes made false accusations about him." | |
Oliver Darcy's analysis
Oliver Darcy emails: That Sean Hannity tweet, above, tells you everything you need to know about Fox's programming plan for Monday. Right-wing pundits and members of Trump's inner circle are pushing journalists to apologize for the media's coverage of the Mueller probe. The reasoning seems to be that by covering the investigation, which ultimately did not indict anyone for conspiring with Russia, journalists hyped a baseless probe. Some critics are going further and saying the press "lied" and "colluded" to take down Trump. But I don't seem to recall these same pundits demanding journalists apologize for aggressively covering the Hillary Clinton email probe after James Comey decided not to bring charges. While the two aren't perfectly identical scenarios, they were similar situations, and I don't remember a rush to declare that Fox's credibility -- or any other news organization's -- was tarnished for coverage of it.
Oliver is right. And yet the press is going to get hammered in the hours and days to come. I have a few thoughts...
-- We live in a big wild world of "media." Ignore the partisans who paint with a broad brush, who cherry-pick individual errors and try to punish the press as a whole. The rhetoric from folks like Donald Trump Jr. is predictable and cynical -- they just want the "media" to be the enemy.
-- The federal probes of Trumpworld were and still are BIG stories, period. And Trump's daily deceptions and strange actions gave Americans ample reason to be suspicious about his Russia ties.
-- But: There were mistakes made in the course of the Trump-Russia coverage. And there were newsroom choices that merit reflection now. What did the sheer volume of the coverage signal to viewers? Take Rachel Maddow's fans, for example. On Sunday Glenn Greenwald accused her of feeding "millions of people conspiratorial garbage." Do Maddow's viewers feel misled right about now?
-- News versus noise: There's been so much solid reporting about the Trump-Russia mystery, but the media ecosystem tends to reward speculation over straight news. Are there ways to change this?
-- Mostly I agree with Emily Bell's tweet: "If the main story coming out of Mueller is a media story -- that cannot be right. Y'all need to get off Twitter for a couple of days."
Views from the left and right
-- Want to get a feel for right-wing reactions against the press? Take a look at Mollie Hemingway or Brit Hume's Twitter feeds.
-- Matt Taibbi's piece is being widely shared: He said news that Mueller "is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media" and called Russiagate "this generation's WMD..."
-- Franklin Foer's rebuttal to Taibbi: "Mueller has apparently endorsed the fundamental underlying case emanating from the intelligence community: The Russians were actively working to secure Trump's victory..."
-- Rich Lowry's post for NRO: "The media coverage of the Russia investigation was abysmal and self-discrediting —obsessive and hysterical, often suggesting that the smoking gun was right around the corner, sometimes supporting its hoped-for result with erroneous, too-good-to check reporting. Never has so little come of so many screaming chyrons."
-- Counterpoint from Ryan Lizza: "Contra a lot of commentary: given the issues, stakes, and seriousness with which special counsel treated all of this, the media's coverage of Russia-Trump connection and possible obstruction over the last two years was somewhere between about right and not quite aggressive enough."
NYT editor doesn't have regrets
NYT exec editor Dean Baquet to WaPo's Paul Farhi: "I'm comfortable with our coverage. It is never our job to determine illegality, but to expose the actions of people in power. And that's what we and others have done and will continue to do." Here's more from Baquet...
More notes and quotes
-- Michael Calderone's headline for Politico: "Media stares down 'reckoning' after Mueller report underwhelms..."
-- THR's Jeremy Barr says all this chatter is premature: "No need to write these stories yet," he tweeted. "Without all the info, we are essentially ~speculating~ that the media messed up by speculating too much about Russia."
-- Matt Lewis writing for The Daily Beast: "Regular viewers of liberal-leaning cable news outlets may have an especially hard time grappling with the fact that the narrative has suddenly gone bust..."
-- Julia Ioffe: "I'm old enough to remember when the President said we shouldn't believe anything Mueller said..."
-- The bottom line, from Chuck Todd, speaking on MSNBC: "This isn't getting resolved in this country until November 2020." | | The right's reversal on Mueller
Oliver Darcy emails: For the better part of the last two years, members of the pro-Trump media have argued that the probe into Russian election interference was a "witch hunt" and suggested Mueller was a "deep state" dirty cop. Now we know that Mueller's report has cleared Trump on conspiracy with Russia. So either Mueller was a lousy dirty cop, or everything these right-wing talking heads have been shouting on Fox News prime time was false. In fact, Mueller arrived at a conclusion where the facts took him. His conclusion proves that this was no rigged witch hunt. As Joe Walsh tweeted, "All those 'witch hunt/deep state' folks who maligned Mueller's character for 22 months owe Robert Mueller an apology. He did his job and did it well."
Don't expect to hear from the man himself...
Mueller achieved almost mythical status in America. As one of the characters in this national drama, his name came to mean so many different things to so many different people. Hopefully, in the end, his name will mean "truth." Now that he's leaving the playing field, don't expect to see Mueller sit down for a TV interview or anything like that. But the other characters are still playing... Republicans are accusing Democrats of moving the goalposts... and journalists are trying to keep up with the game... | |
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Before Barr's letter came out, POTUS played golf with a group of men, including Fox News contributor Trey Gowdy...
-- Noted Mueller watcher Garrett Graff says he has "a million questions" now...
-- NPR produced special editions of its politics podcast about the Mueller report on Friday night and again Sunday night...
Sunday's TV coverage
-- NBC was the first of the broadcast networks to break in, at 3:36 p.m., with Kate Snow anchoring and Pete Williams doing an outstanding job of reading the letter aloud and analyzing it in real time...
-- George Stephanopoulos anchored on ABC when the news came down... David Muir came in for "World News Tonight..."
-- CBS aired four news cut-ins during CBS Sports' March Madness coverage...
-- Wolf Blitzer was in the anchor chair on CNN when the letter came in, joined by Dana Bash and a full house... Ana Cabrera picked up at 7 p.m., then Anderson Cooper at 8 and Don Lemon at 10...
-- Katy Tur (who happens to be nine months pregnant right now!) anchored MSNBC's coverage from 3 until 6 p.m. ET... Then Ari Melber took over... Kasie Hunt anchored her usual show at 7, and Melber came back at 9...
-- Ed Henry and Dana Perino co-anchored on Fox when the news broke... Shannon Bream at 5... Jon Scott from 6 until 8... Then Bret Baier at 8, Steve Hilton's show at its usual time, and Bream again at 10...
Coming up on Monday...
-- CNN's "Early Start" starts an hour early, at 3 a.m. ET, and "New Day" starts at 5...
-- Fox says Tucker Carlson will have an exclusive interview with Donald Trump Jr. on Monday night...
-- CBS is pre-empting an episode of "Bull" to air "The Mueller Report: A Turning Point," a one-hour special, Monday at 10 p.m. ET... Jeff Glor will anchor... Scott Pelley, Norah O'Donnell, John Dickerson, Major Garrett, Paula Reid, Nancy Cordes, Jeff Pegues, and Elizabeth Palmer will contribute...
This almost never happens:
Every story on the front page of Monday's NYT is about the same subject. The banner: "MUELLER FINDS NO TRUMP-RUSSIA CONSPIRACY." In the bottom left corner: "Democrats vow to push ahead and investigate..." | | More to come...
Brian Lowry emails: After two days of wild speculation and spin, the fourth of the WaPo's key takeaways seemed to sum up the main point to keep in mind from Sunday's preliminary announcement regarding the Mueller report: "There is more to come."
What do you think?
On days like this, I especially like to hear from viewers and readers who are digesting this news. What are your impressions of the news media coverage? Do you think the press helped or hurt its reputation through its coverage of the Trump-Russia puzzle? Email me...
IN OTHER NEWS... | | It's show time
That's what the invites to Apple's Monday morning event said. The big show begins at 10 a.m. PT at Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino. As Brian Lowry wrote here, Apple is about to formally join the tech wave sweeping over Hollywood.
Expect a three-parter: "Apple is set to unveil its plans for a launching of a revved up Apple TV offering aggregating channels and apps, its plan for original content and a subscription news service," Variety's Joe Otterson. and Janko Roettgers wrote in this walk-up story.
So the TV app on your iPhone is about to get souped-up. So is the News app.
The big reveal
Consider this, via the Variety story: "Nearly two years after Apple recruited former Sony TV presidents Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, not a single frame of footage from any of Apple's shows has been publicly released." Monday's big reveal has been a LONG time coming...
-- Full disclosure: I'm a consultant on one of Apple's many shows, a drama set in the world of morning television. But I don't know when or how the show is being released. I hope we'll all find out on Monday morning...
Managing expectations
Peter Kafka said it really well last week: Apple is NOT unveiling "a serious competitor to Netflix, Hulu, Disney, or any other entertainment giant trying to sell streaming video subscriptions to consumers."
The company clearly wants to beef up its services business. The WSJ's Tripp Mickle has a big new story all about this. Tim Cook, he writes, "is betting on a suite of services—marking the company's biggest shift in more than a decade."
Cook and Eddy Cue want you to wake up with the News app and fall asleep to a Steven Spielberg show. But Apple is about curation -- not about making more shows than Netflix, if such a thing is even possible...
Follow our live coverage
Apple will be live-streaming the event on its web site right here.
CNN's Heather Kelly and Sandra Gonzalez will be with me at Apple HQ... Along with video journalists: Zach Wasser and Gabe Ramirez... Here's the link for our live blog!
Lowry's column finally came true 😉
Brian Lowry emails: Prepping an advance on Apple's big Monday announcement, I ran across a column I wrote that wondered aloud about whether the next logical step for the company would be to capitalize on all the content being funneled through its devices by getting into that business. "Is Apple thinking beyond mere gadgetry, wondering how entertainment and news content might adapt to capitalize on how the company's gizmos handle media consumption?" I asked regarding the prospect of "iContent." It'll be interesting to see how right the prediction was, even if it was off by nearly seven years...
YouTube pulling back from its tentpole TV show plans
While most eyes are on Apple, Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw looked at YouTube... He says "YouTube has canceled plans for high-end dramas and comedies, people with knowledge of the matter said, a pullback from its grand ambitions for a paid service with Hollywood-quality shows." THR wrote about this strategy change a while back.
Shaw also reports that Susanne Daniels, YouTube's head of original productions since 2015, is "looking to move on," though she said in a statement that she's "committed to YouTube." Read on...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Sending best wishes to Norah O'Donnell, who had to have an emergency appendectomy while she was on spring break in Charleston... (People)
-- Samir Husni spoke with GQ's new editor Will Welch... (Mr. Magazine)
-- Here's the latest in an ongoing legal battle: "Trump wants appeals court to let him block critics on Twitter..." (Bloomberg)
Media week ahead calendar
Tuesday: "The Chief," CNN Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic's book about John Roberts, hits bookshelves...
Tuesday night: HBO is throwing a premiere party for the final season of "Veep..."
Thursday: MLB Opening Day!
Saturday: The NAACP Image Awards ceremony takes place in Hollywood...
| |
Explosion kills a driver working for NBC News in Syria
While Trump admin officials were touting the defeat of the ISIS caliphate in Syria, bombs were still going off.
On Saturday, a driver working with NBC News was killed during a reporting trip in the country. "A device exploded in the vicinity of a group from NBC News in Syria," NBC News President Noah Oppenheim said. Correspondent Matt Bradley and his crew members "escaped unharmed," but "one of the local drivers working with them was tragically killed."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Read John Herrman on "the internet's endless appetite for death video:" He says the Facebook video of the Christchurch mosque killings "showed that people, not algorithms, want to share murder, gore and violence..." (NYT)
FROM SUNDAY'S SHOW...
The Dem race: Are women candidates covered differently?
Perhaps the better headline here is YES, and WHY, and WHAT should be done to fix it? As a historically diverse field of Democrats run for prez, critics are pointing out lots of double standards in the news coverage, especially along gender lines. I really enjoyed this conversation with Jess McIntosh and Alexandra Rojas on Sunday's show... Here's the video link! | |
Inside the California Reporting Project
Hopefully by now you've heard about the 33 California newsrooms that are working together to request and report on police misconduct records. On Sunday's show I spoke with LA Times executive editor Norm Pearlstine and KQED reporter Sukey Lewis about the genesis of the collaboration and next steps for the newsrooms. "It's really amazing to see all these different news organizations even within competing markets working together," Lewis said. Watch...
More collaborations to come?
"I think certainly, within California, that this kind of collaboration makes great sense," Pearlstine said. "And if the issues are right, such as climate change, you could imagine a number of news organizations coming together and pooling their reporting..."
He added: This is about "serving the public. And if you begin by thinking about what the audience needs, then collaboration comes together very quickly..."
| | Jordan Peele's "Us" makes a killing
Frank Pallotta emails: "Us," the latest horror film from director Jordan Peele, made $70 million this weekend — a huge opening that shattered expectations and made more than triple the film's budget.
Say all you want about originality being dead in Hollywood (which, ok, fair), but "Us" shows audiences will show up if you give them a well-made film made by a director who has something to say.
A lot of praise should be heaped on Universal, the film's studio, for its roll out of "Us." The studio used an old school playbook to sell the film by rightfully promoting Peele as a brand. There's a reason why it's "Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'" and why this was "'Us,' a new nightmare from Jordan Peele..."
Lowry's take
Brian Lowry emails: One footnote on "Us" and its big opening: The so-so Cinemascore grade -- a "B," which by Cinemascore standards is pretty lousy -- suggests that there was huge interest in what Jordan Peele would do after "Get Out," and that Universal did a sensational job in marketing a movie that wasn't as pleasing to audiences, ultimately, as his debut...
| | | Thanks for reading! Email me feedback anytime. Hope you had a great weekend... see you tomorrow... | | | |
