EXEC SUMMARY: Here's the latest on E. Jean Carroll, Col Allan, Ann Sarnoff, Adam Mosseri, Nick Clegg, Lil Nas X, Emma Thompson, and more...
The back-scratching
Want to see how the Murdoch media empire is at work for President Trump? Look around -- you can't miss it. In the past week:
-- The NY Post published and then mysteriously deleted a story about Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll.
-- Archived texts revealed that Sean Hannity texted Paul Manafort like he's a PR agent.
-- WaPo came out with new reporting about Jeanine Pirro using her Fox perch to trash Jeff Sessions after he blocked her from a job at DOJ.
-- Fox announced that Tucker Carlson will have an exclusive sit-down with Trump at the G20 this weekend.
Yes, Murdoch's WSJ does fantastic reporting and even publishes op-eds from the NYT. Yes, Murdoch's other outlets employ excellent journalists. But the back-scratching never stops... Much of it happens in public, but some happens in private, and is only uncovered through dogged reporting...
📺 🔌: I'll be talking more about this on "CNN Tonight" with Don Lemon...
CNN EXCLUSIVE
Murdoch lieutenant ordered removal of NY Post story about Carroll's assault allegation
Oliver Darcy emails: Wondering what happened to the New York Post's story on Jean Carroll's sexual assault allegation against Trump? Well, Marianne Garvey and I got to the bottom of it. Sources told us that Murdoch lieutenant Col Allan ordered the story to be removed from the Post's website.
Allan is, of course, the longtime former Post editor who Murdoch brought back as an adviser to the tabloid. He's a self-professed supporter of Trump. People inside the Post suspect Murdoch brought Allan back to the Post to steer it in a pro-Trump direction. I asked one source why Allan would direct the story to be removed, and the person told me, "Nobody needs to explain why. We already know." More details here…
Silence from the Post
Darcy adds: Since Friday, I have been trying to get an explanation about what happened from the Post. On Sunday, I was told there would be no comment. But the Post spokeswoman did not dispute the account of events that I presented to her...
"The Loudest Voice" premiere
For further evidence of Fox and Murdoch's influence, look no further than the red carpet outside the Paris Theatre in NYC on Monday night... Showtime was throwing a premiere screening and party for "The Loudest Voice," a seven-part miniseries about Fox News and Roger Ailes... The series will debut on TV this Sunday...
Spotted: Cast members Russell Crowe, Naomi Watts, Sienna Miller, Seth MacFarlane and many more... Plus David Nevins, Gary Levine, Jana Winograde, Jason Blum, Kari Skogland, Alex Metcalf, Gabriel Sherman, Jennifer Stahl, Tom McCarthy, Gretchen Carlson, Huma Abedin, Jeff Flake, Juan Williams, Chris Pine, RZA, John Stossel, Chris Licht, Dana McClintock, Chris Ender, Johanna Fuentes, Karen Barragan, Matthew Blank, Amy Chozick, Joanna Coles, Dan Abrams, Mark McKinnon, Gail Ross, Jim Rutenberg, Lauren Starke, Lawrence O'Donnell, Ari Melber, Anne Burrell, Lorne Manly, Samantha Barry, Matthew Weiner, more...
TUESDAY PLANNER
-- Via CBS PR: "Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, just sat down with 'CBS This Morning' co-host Gayle King for his first wide-ranging U.S. TV interview since taking over last year." Highlights will air on Tuesday's morning show...
-- NYT reporter Carl Hulse's book "Confirmation Bias," about the fight to fill Scalia's SCOTUS seat, hits bookshelves...
-- A bill to establish a Fallen Journalists Memorial in DC will be introduced in the House and Senate...
Tuesday is Bourdain Day
Anthony Bourdain would have turned 63 years old on Tuesday. Some of his friends, including Eric Ripert and Jose Andres, are marking the birthday by celebrating his life and asking others to do the same.
"Everybody can be part of this huge celebration," Andres told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Sunday. He asked viewers to record a video at "their favorite place, cocktail bar, restaurant, food truck -- whatever they want to do to celebrate Tony. And we are asking people to put a video with the hashtag #BourdainDay."
Ripert, Andres and pals toasted Bourdain in Singapore on Tuesday: | |
"A viralizing engine" for progressives
Joseph Romm of ThinkProgress is starting a progressive news aggregation site called FrontPageLive.com. He says it's a "viralizing engine" for the left, the way The Drudge Report is on the right. And one of Romm's collaborators is... former Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron.
Cameron told WaPo's Erik Wemple that he has some "unfinished business." He has "an equity stake in the operation," Wemple reports, and he will "be contributing videos, reporting and expertise..."
Carl Cameron's critique of Fox
"I was one of Fox's first hires. The idea of fair and balanced news appealed to me," Cameron said in his video for the new site. "But over the years, the right-wing hosts drowned out straight journalism with partisan misinformation. I left."
>> Cameron told Wemple, "I have a lot of respect for the people that try to do journalism there..."
The warping power of partisan media
The group More in Common is out with a new study that asserts "Americans have a deeply distorted understanding of each other." The group says "Americans are less divided than most of us think," but there is a "Perception Gap" that's hurting all of us. And the news media doesn't help: "We found that the more news people consumed, the larger their Perception Gap."
--> Key finding: "Not every media outlet is the same... Some news sources are associated with larger Perception Gaps, in particular Breitbart, Drudge Report and popular talk radio programs such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. But large Perception Gaps are also associated with liberal sources such as Huffington Post and the Daily Kos. Only one media source is associated with better understanding other Americans' views: the traditional television networks of ABC, NBC and CBS. Overall, these findings suggest that media is adding to a polarization ecosystem that is driving Americans apart." Read the study here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- The Hill's Jordan Fabian and Saagar Enjeti interviewed Trump on Monday... (The Hill)
-- "At the request of CNN, a federal judge in DC on Monday released about 230 pages of data from the court showing new details about the scope and speed of Robert Mueller's investigation..." (CNN)
-- Mueller watch: "Negotiations between Nadler-Mueller team continue for his public testimony, but Dems say patience is wearing thin and decision to subpoena is imminent," Manu Raju tweeted Monday. "But if Nadler schedules a committee vote for a subpoena, it would require notice, meaning it may not be issued until after July 4..." (Twitter)
A setback for First Amendment advocates...
In Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader, the Supreme Court sided with the trade group over the newspaper, "ruling that the term 'confidential' can be interpreted broadly to allow the government to withhold from disclosure under FOIA private businesses' financial or commercial data in the government's possession, even if the disclosure of that information would not cause any harm to the businesses," CNN's Ariane de Vogue and Steve Vladeck wrote.
As the Argus Leader recounts here, this case began eight years ago. The paper's news director Cory Myers called the ruling a "massive blow to the public's right to know how its tax dollars are being spent, and who is benefiting..."
...But here's a First Amendment victory
SCOTUS struck down a "provision of federal law that prohibits the registration of 'immoral' or 'scandalous' trademarks as a violation of the First Amendment." Details here from CNN's team...
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST...
Ben Jacobs joining JI to cover 2020
Oliver Darcy emails: Ben Jacobs, who covered the 2016 and 2018 campaigns for the Guardian, is joining Jewish Insider as a senior political reporter covering the 2020 election. "JI will now be in a position to deliver even stronger coverage of the race to our readers," founder and publisher Max Neuberger says...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- CNN's S. Mitra Kalita writes: "Congratulations to Marcus Mabry on his elevation to Vice President, Global Programming for CNN Digital..." (Twitter)
-- This Chrome change will weaken paywalls: "A growing number of news sites block incognito readers, figuring they're probably trying to get around a paywall. But a change from Google will again let people reset their meter with a keystroke," Christine Schmidt writes... (NiemanLab)
-- The New Republic put out a job posting for an "inequality deputy editor." And it was listed as a part-time job without benefits. The mag was called out on social media... And now all part-time positions WILL include benefits... (Twitter)
-- This column by former Fox exec John Ellis got a lot of Twitter attention on Monday: "How the Media Will Pick the Next Democratic Presidential Candidate" (Common Dreams)
E. Jean Carroll speaks | | The advice columnist spoke with Alisyn Camerota on CNN's "New Day" and Anderson Cooper on "AC360." Trump says she is "totally lying." Carroll says she expected him to say that. "He denies it, he turns it around, he attacks, and he threatens and everybody forgets it and the next woman comes along and I am sick of it," she told Camerota... "Think how many women have come forward, nothing happens..."
The view from St. Martin's Press
CNN's Sara Murray spoke with Carroll's book editor, Elisabeth Dyssegaard, an exec editor at St. Martin's Press. The book, "What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal," comes out July 2. Dyssegaard said the publisher was confident about its legal footing -- confident about identifying Trump by name -- but the author and editor didn't want the allegation against Trump to consume the book. "The book is so much bigger than that," Dyssegaard said.
Murray writes: "Dyssegaard said they decided to release the excerpt about the Trump encounter to NYMag so readers could first grapple with that alleged incident and then turn to the book's larger theme."
Dyssegaard described the larger theme this way: "I don't think there's any woman on the planet who hasn't had something happen to her as a result of bad behavior from men. That's why publishing books like E. Jean's is so important. We have to acknowledge and talk about it. It also helps if you can laugh about it once in a while, otherwise it's too hard and too dark."
Baquet: "We were overly cautious"
Why was the NYT's Friday story about Carroll's allegation published in the books section on the website? Why wasn't the story carried anywhere in print on Saturday? Amid widespread criticism of the paper's approach, the NYT Reader Center spoke with exec editor Dean Baquet... And he said the news should been given more prominent placement... "We were overly cautious," he said. More here...
Correction
In last night's letter, we included the Washington Post in a list of newspapers that did not report on Carroll's accusation on the Saturday front page. But The Post did -- in fact, it was the only paper in its competitive set that did so.
Meanwhile, the press criticism continues -- "most media barely covered the story," Salon's Amanda Marcotte wrote Monday evening -- but my impression is that Carroll's account IS starting to get more attention...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- David Streitfeld's must-read about the Amazon bookstore's "lawlessness" was on Page One on Monday. He explains that Amazon "takes a hands-off approach to what goes on in its bookstore, never checking the authenticity, much less the quality, of what it sells..." Here are the impacts... (NYT)
-- Kurt Wagner's new look at FB's proposed "Supreme Court:" Facebook "is building an oversight board. Can that fix its problems?" (Bloomberg)
"The DASHBOARD Act"
Mark Warner went on "Axios on HBO" to launch his new bill, co-sponsored by his GOP counterpart Josh Hawley, that would "require Facebook, Google, Amazon and other major platforms to disclose the value of their users' data." It's the DASHBOARD Act. CNN's Brian Fung has all the details here...
>> Hawley said tech companies "do their best to hide how much consumer data is worth and to whom it is sold..."
Clegg's newest comments
At a speech in Berlin, FB head of global policy and comms Nick Clegg argued against breaking up the company and said this: "If we in Europe and America don't turn off the white noise and begin to work together, we will sleepwalk into a new era where... different countries set their own rules and authoritarian regimes soak up their citizens' data while restricting their freedom." Fung has a recap here...
ICYMI: My interview with a former FB moderator
On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," Shawn Speagle described his harrowing experience as a former content moderator. He says he had to review content showing the "sexual abuse and torture of animals" every day. And "nobody ever asked me how I was feeling." Casey Newton, who first interviewed Speagle for The Verge, also joined us... Here's the video...
Catch up on Sunday's show
If you missed the telecast on Sunday, you can listen to the podcast edition... Read the transcript... Watch the video clips on CNN.com... Or watch the full episode via CNNgo or VOD...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- "With no end in sight to the impasse between Hollywood's writers and talent agencies over the practice of taking packaging fees from studios, William Morris Endeavor filed an antitrust lawsuit on Monday in California federal court alleging that the Writers Guild of America has organized an unlawful group boycott..." (THR)
-- "Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road,' featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, dominates the Billboard Hot 100 for a 12th week. The single is just the 20th in the Hot 100's six-decade history to reign for at least that long..." (Billboard)
-- "Old Town Road" holding steady No. 1 also means Taylor Swift has been blocked out of the top spot "by the same song again." First Swift's "Me!" debuted at No. 2 in May, now "You Need to Calm Down" is at No. 2... (Complex)
Ann Sarnoff will run Warner Bros.
Monday's biggest news in Hollywood: BBC exec Ann Sarnoff is about to become the new chair and CEO of Warner Bros. -- and the first female chief in the studio's nearly 100-year history. THR called her a "surprise pick." Variety: "Unexpected choice."
"Sarnoff's selection was alternately stunning and comforting," Variety's Brett Lang and Joe Otterson wrote, citing employees. She will start work later this summer. Here's my full story...
Taking over an "amazing institution"
In an interview with Deadline's Dade Hayes, she said the studio's main challenge is to "emotionally connect with our audiences and build a connection that can last into future generations." Her point about the audience: "They're experiencing entertainment differently than any generation previously." She described Warner as an "amazing institution" and a "solid base" to grow from...
>> In case you're wondering: Yes, she has a famous last name, one that calls to mind David Sarnoff, a broadcasting pioneer who has been called the "father of American television." David Sarnoff is a great-uncle of Ann's husband Richard, a top exec at KKR... | | "Years and Years" begins in the US
The first episode debuted Monday night on HBO. If you tuned in, lemme know what you thought of the premiere!
Brian Lowry emails with his review: Having already aired in the United Kingdom, "Years and Years" is likely to generate considerable talk in the United States as well, charting the chaotic nature of the world as it imagines a dystopian near-future — including tumult in Britain, and an imagined second term of a Trump presidency — through the experiences of one extended fictional family. The miniseries, which features Emma Thompson as a political demagogue who, among other things, doesn't understand tariffs, was created by Russell T Davies, whose credits include "Doctor Who" and "Queer as Folk." Read on...
How high-flying were the Wallendas?
Joe Adalian tweeted: "ABC's 'Highwire LIVE' did strong summer Sunday numbers, notching a 0.8 A18-49 and ranking as the No. 1 b'cast show in the demo. Overall audience: 5.2M from 8-10 -- peaking at an eye-popping 7.2M viewers from 9:30-10 p.m."
Yes, but... "those Nielsen numbers are way down from his last one" on broadcast TV, TheWrap's Tony Maglio wrote. Wallenda's Niagara Falls special on ABC in 2012 averaged 10.3 million viewers. I think this says more about broadcast TV than about Wallenda...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Janet Jackson says Michael's legacy will live on...
-- Beyoncé and Donald Glover have us feeling the "Lion King" love...
-- The BET Awards tribute to Nipsey Hussle wasn't the only win for the late rapper...
-- Lizzo saw Rihanna jamming to her at the BET Awards, too...
| | | Thank you for reading! See you tomorrow... | | | |
