EXEC SUMMARY: The St. Louis Blues just won their first-ever Stanley Cup... Here's the latest on KKR's bid for Axel Springer, Netflix's stats for "When They See Us," Fortnite plus Houseparty, "Men in Black" reviews, and much more...
"I'm actually a very honest guy." | | Of all the quotes from President Trump's interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, this is the one I want to highlight. The context: Weeks ago the NYT's Maggie Haberman reported on Trump 2020's internal polling, showing the president losing to Joe Biden. Then the NYT reported on his anger *about* the polling. And that spurred his tweets on Wednesday, calling the media "fake" and "corrupt" and claiming the poll #'s were "made up." The #'s were real, of course. So Stephanopoulos asked Trump: "Why does it bother you so much?"
"Because it's untrue," Trump claimed. "I like the truth. You know, I'm actually a very honest guy. If I thought they were correct, I wouldn't be complaining at all."
I like the truth! Alright, now to the biggest news from the interview...
Trump: "I think I'd take" info from foreigners
Trump told Stephanopoulos that he'd listen if, say, Russia or China offered up dirt on his political rivals. ABC aired the clip on Wednesday's "World News Tonight." And now this assertion is the headline on many major news websites right now, from ABC to CNN to Fox.
-- Anderson Cooper: "It bears repeating, this is not normal behavior of a president..."
-- James Clapper said on "AC360" that "I've run out of adjectives." He called it "incredible, amazing, stunning and disturbing that the president would advocate the use of accepting info provided by a foreign country..."
-- Samantha Vinograd's column for CNN.com: "By putting a 'for sale' sign on his forehead -- and indicating that he's open for business when it comes to receiving dirt on his political rivals -- President Trump is encouraging foreign governments to attack his political opponents…"
Another Stephanopoulos scoop
"Trump had an unusual entourage this week" as G.S. and an ABC News crew "followed him to Iowa and met him at the W.H. for the president's first network news interview in more than four months, a sign that Trump may be hoping to reach beyond his base ahead of his formal 2020 campaign launch next week," Politico's Michael Calderone and Nancy Cook wrote Wednesday. More bites from the interview will air on Thursday's "GMA."
"It was an extraordinary 48 hours," Stephanopoulos said Wednesday. His travels with Trump will form the basis of a prime time special on ABC, airing either Sunday night, if there's no Game 7 of the NBA Finals, or Tuesday night, if there is...
--> ABC's enviable access sparked some grumbling on Wednesday -- with rivals pointing out that ABC News president James Goldston dined with Trump during the UK state visit just last week. They asked: Is this interview timing a coincidence? Yes, an ABC source responded -- Stephanopoulos has been seeking this type of sit-down interview for about a year...
These FOIAed documents prove Trump wrong
"I don't think in my whole life I've ever called the FBI. In my whole life," Trump told Stephanopoulos while explaining why he wouldn't necessarily report foreign election interference to the FBI.
"The FBI director says that's what should happen," G.S. noted. "The FBI director is wrong," Trump said.
Well, for the record, Trump is wrong when he says he's never called the bureau. BuzzFeed's Jason Leopold tweeted this out: "In 1981, Trump personally reached out to FBI proposing that FBI agents work undercover in a casino he was considering opening in AC." AND "Trump called the FBI in 1982 during a dispute with the NYC Housing Commissioner."
All of this info came courtesy of Leopold's past FOIA requests...
Ingraham's reaction: Why was he talking to ABC?!
Here's what Laura Ingraham said on her show Wednesday night, per Mediaite: "Setting aside the question of why you would have George Stephanopoulos standing over the president in the Oval Office – I don't know who approved that – what about this notion of accepting foreign intel about an opponent? Is that a risk for President Trump, getting pulled back into Mueller? Again, why he was put in that situation is beyond me."
Of course, that's the same thing people wondered last week when Fox and Ingraham interviewed Trump with the graves of WWII soldiers right behind his shoulder, and he proceeded to attack Robert Mueller and Nancy Pelosi. Maybe the president is NOT his own best communications director, after all. The job has been vacant for more than three months...
Is Trump a "liar?"
It's a divisive question that delineates the president's supporters and critics. Which is why it was surprising to see Trump Org's recently departed chief compliance counsel George Sorial refuse to tell CNN's Cristina Alesci that Trump does NOT lie. Her interview with Sorial aired on "New Day" Wednesday... | |
THURSDAY PLANNER
-- The Mirror Awards, celebrating media reporting, will be announced at a luncheon in midtown Manhattan. Jeff Zucker will receive the Fred Dressler Leadership Award...
-- Susan Zirinsky, Alicia Menendez, Elaine Welteroth, Elisabeth Bumiller, and Maggie Haberman are a few of the speakers at the NYT's New Rules Summit in Brooklyn...
-- Fox News has a 6:30 p.m. ET town hall with Julián Castro...
-- Game 6 of the NBA Finals tips off at 9 p.m. ET...
400 detained during Moscow protest over journalist arrest
Russian police detained more than 400 people participating in a protest in Moscow on Wednesday, Reuters reports. The protest was "calling for punishment for police officers involved in the alleged framing" of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov. Among those reportedly arrested was a prominent opposition politician, Alexei Navalny.
>> Reuters' Anton Zverev and Andrew Osborn give some more context: "The crude way supporters said Golunov was set up and detained triggered an unusual show of media unity and an uncharacteristically swift reversal from authorities nervous about social unrest at a time when President Vladimir Putin already faces disquiet over living standards."
>> ICYMI: "Authorities reversed course" and dropped the case against Golunov "because a lack of evidence" on Tuesday...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- "The Daily Show" is airing ads on Fox News in the DC market... Trying to reach Trump and generate publicity... Inviting Trump to its pop-up "Trump Presidential Twitter Library" exhibition in the nation's capital... (THR)
-- CBS News exec Kim Godwin "will launch the 'CBS Evening News' with Norah O'Donnell next month from New York." She'll be the EP until the newscast moves to DC in the fall, "when Godwin will hand the broadcast off to a new EP..." (TVNewser)
-- Gayle King's new deal is "worth $11 million annually, doubling her previous pay," and it comes with "the privilege — and responsibility — of a role as the de facto face of CBS News," Marisa Guthrie writes. This is a great read... (THR)
-- TheStreet, the financial info company founded by "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, was just purchased for $16.5 million... (NY Post)
Reporter who criticized "Code Red" is out of a job
Joe Crain, the meteorologist at WICS in Springfield, Illinois, who called out station management for mandating over-the-top "Code Red" weather alerts, is officially out of a job. A spokesman for the station's parent, Sinclair, confirmed to me Wednesday night that "Joe was let go."
Crain has been declining to comment on the matter, ever since he spoke out on the air back on June 5. Viewers and advertisers supported him en masse. "People are still livid" in the community, a Sinclair source told me on Wednesday. WICS tried to calm things down by retiring the ridiculous "Code Red" branding and replacing it with "Weather Warn," the same jargon that other Sinclair stations use. Meanwhile, there's now a job listing for Crain's former job...
Fox's Britt McHenry hints that she has "proof"
On Tuesday The Daily Beast broke the news that Tyrus, a former pro wrestler and a commentator at Fox, was moved off his Fox Nation show "Un-PC" after co-host Britt McHenry accused him of sexual harassment. Now he has his own show on Fox's streaming service. Both hosts declined to comment on the Beast's report... But McHenry said this on Twitter on Wednesday: | | McHenry later deleted the tweet, and her lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Earlier in the day, in response to requests for comment about the allegation published by the Beast, Fox News issued a statement that didn't mention either host by name -- but emphasized how seriously it takes allegations like this. I read it as Fox saying "the Ailes era really is over."
"While we are not at liberty to discuss the details of any employee matter, we follow strict protocols when matters such as these are brought to our attention, and we make no exceptions," the network said. "The process works because of the extensive systems and measures we have instituted. This situation was independently investigated and we consider the matter resolved. We respect the confidentiality of all involved." Here's my full story...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- You heard it here first: Kelsey McKinney, a prolific feature writer, is joining the staff of Deadspin, where she'll focus on women's sports...
-- Christine Schmidt spoke with Mandy Jenkins, who is charged with building McClatchy's Google-funded new local sites... (NiemanLab)
-- Mic laid off virtually all of its staff last November... Then the bones of the website were sold to Bustle... And now "the brand is gearing up to relaunch in a big way," with Shanté Cosme coming aboard as Mic's exec editor... (AdWeek)
-- "Facebook is out with some new numbers that show just how much its YouTube competitor, Facebook Watch, has grown in recent months..." But "advertisers say they want more specifics..." (CNBC)
-- CNN is moving "Anderson Cooper Full Circle" from Facebook to its own digital properties "starting in September," and starting a new Facebook Watch show called "Go There..." (Variety)
| | KKR pursues takeover of BI owner
Hadas Gold emails: The private equity firm KKR wants to buy Axel Springer, the owner of one of Germany's largest papers; Business Insider; and a 50% stake in Politico Europe. The offer values Axel Springer at $7.7 billion...
Deepfake detection for newsrooms
Donie O'Sullivan writes: We had some new reporting Wednesday on a system researchers in CA are building that aims to detect deepfakes of 2020 candidates. They plan to make the system available to newsrooms – but not publicly available, because they fear if they do, people could reverse engineer the system to make deepfakes that evade detection.
>> Hany Farid, the UC Berkley professor behind the project, told me that he'll probably make the system available to the likes of CNN and the NYT...
>> 👀 We'll be covering the first congressional hearing on deepfakes Thursday morning, being held by the House Intelligence Committee...
CODE CONFERENCE
Breakup talk
Sara Ashley O'Brien emails: Recode's annual conference wrapped up Wednesday morning in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the programming was all various podcast recordings, including Kara Swisher interviewing NYU Stern School of Business' professor Scott Galloway for an upcoming episode of Recode Decode. Swisher also teased Recode's next podcast -- "Land of the Giants" -- the first season is slated to focus on Amazon.
Here's our take on this year's theme of Code Conference: Should Big Tech be broken up? Read how execs responded to the question when in the hot seat this week...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
By "Reliable Sources" intern Laney Pope:
-- A year-long study by Equality Labs found that in India, "93% of the posts it reported to Facebook that contained speech violating Facebook's own rules remained on the platform," despite a pattern of "widespread doxxing of activists and journalists..." (BuzzFeed News)
-- The China extradition bill, which continues to spark protests in Hong Kong, could mean that "democracy activists, journalists and foreign business owners could be surrendered to mainland China..." (CNN)
-- DarkMatter, a cybersecurity firm with ties to the Emirati government, considered hacking The Intercept by going after "'anyone you can to get a foothold in this organization' in order to spy on their sources..." (The Intercept)
-- Fortnite maker Epic Games is buying the video-chat social networking platform Houseparty... (CNN Business)
-- "The deal in part gives Fortnite a way to appeal to more girls," the WSJ notes. Both platforms appeal "to a much younger demographic than users on Facebook" and "provide an intimate 'third space' where small groups of true friends can gather online..." (WSJ)
Watch: Maddow's love of newspaper reporters
Following up on my Tuesday story about the NYT and MSNBC being at odds over guest bookings... Yashar Ali tweeted out a video on Wednesday...
"Battle between MSNBC and NYT continues," he wrote. "The Times still will not allow its reporters to go on the @Maddow show. In recent days this montage of @Maddow encouraging her views to subscribe to papers and praising the work of newspaper reporters has been circulating inside MSNBC."
"MSNBC Shakeup Leaves New Dayside Programming Leadership"
That's the headline from Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin. He reports that SVP of programming and development Jonathan Wald will now oversee 9 a.m. to noon ET while MSNBC executive editor Dan Arnall will oversee noon to 4 p.m. "The former head of dayside, NBC News SVP Janelle Rodriguez, will take control of NBC News Now, the network's streaming service." She will "continue to lead newsgathering and editorial." Details here...
It's harder to sue for libel in the UK now
Hadas Gold emails: It's become harder for people and companies to sue publishers for libel in the UK. A new ruling from the Supreme Court in a case between an engineer and the Independent and Evening Standard papers here ruled that claimants will have to prove they have suffered "serious harm," like financial loss, in order to bring a libel case.
The context: It's much easier to sue for libel and defamation in the UK than in the United States. But this ruling is seen as a good thing for media publishers and was part of a broader effort by the government, starting with legislation in 2013, that aims to decrease the number of trivial libel claims. More from the FT here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Spotify "mimics the radio" in a new feature that, as of Wednesday, allows US users to "listen to music they already enjoy, alongside new music recommendations, with some news podcast content sprinkled in" from WSJ, NPR and others... (The Verge)
-- Sources tell the WSJ that Nintendo is "shifting some production of its Switch videogame console to Southeast Asia from China to limit the impact of possible U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made electronics..." (WSJ)
-- So many clickable WSJ stories today! Vanessa Fuhrmans is out with a new profile of Paula Kerger who, at the helm of PBS for the last 13 years, "has steered the public broadcaster into the digital era..." (WSJ)
-- Chloe Melas reports: Mira Sorvino appeared alongside NY Governor Andrew Cuomo Wednesday at a press conference and revealed that she is a rape survivor. The actress is supporting Cuomo's push to encourage the state legislature to eliminate NY's statute of limitations on rape in the 2nd and 3rd degrees and pass additional sexual harassment protections... More here...
-- Wednesday marked 25 years since Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were killed. CNN's Stephanie Elam took a look back on the historic trial, and the coverage of it... (CNN)
Spotted at Pelley's book party
CBS threw a book party for Scott Pelley's "Truths Worth Telling" on Wednesday night at Michael's in NYC. Spotted: Susan Zirinsky, Bill Owens, Norah O'Donnell, Tony Dokoupil, Anthony Mason, Jeff Glor, Michelle Miller, Dana Jacobson, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Diana Miller, Margaret Brennan, Jim Murphy, Bill Bratton, Rikki Klieman, Ed O'Keefe, Vlad Duthiers, Anna Werner, Jericka Duncan, Peter Van Sant, Nicole Young, Christa Robinson, many more...
WarnerMedia's chief enterprise inclusion officer
Via Variety's Matt Donnelly: "WarnerMedia has appointed Christy Haubegger to the position of chief enterprise inclusion officer," reporting to John Stankey. "Haubegger joins the team from CAA, where she spent 14 years working to increase representation of women and people of color in the content space and within the corporate culture of the agency..."
Sky doubling spending on new shows
Hadas Gold emails: Sky is going all-in on original content and doubling its budget by 2024 as, like broadcasters in the United States, it aims to compete with the streaming giants Amazon, Netflix and Apple. With the backing of new owner Comcast, the broadcaster announced it was launching a new "Sky Studios," focusing on European productions, fresh off the success of "Chernobyl." First up: An HBO co-production called "The Third Day" starring Jude Law. Read on...
Speaking of "Chernobyl..."
HBO and Sky UK shared the miniseries. "Having seen an almost uninterrupted viewership climb from its May 6 debut to its soul crushing June 3 finale, the widely acclaimed Craig Mazin-created historical drama has emerged with a cumulative audience of 8 million so far" on HBO, Deadline's Dominic Patten wrote Wednesday. "That's better than the 7.3 million cumulative viewership that the Amy Adams-led Sharp Objects had over its eight-episode run last summer..."
Netflix says "When They See Us" is a sensation
Netflix tweeted on Wednesday: "'When They See Us' has been the most-watched series on Netflix in the US every day since it premiered on May 31."
>> Of course, without any third party data source, "you have to take Netflix's word for it," the aforementioned Dominic Patten noted...
| | "Men in Black" reviews are not out of this world
Frank Pallotta writes: "Men In Black International," the fourth film in the intergalactic series, hits theaters this weekend. The film has a really fun cast with "Thor" stand outs, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, but its reviews are falling back to earth. The Sony film has a lackluster 32% score on review site Rotten Tomatoes with some critics, like The Atlantic's David Sims, calling it "a lifeless piece of content." The title of Brian Lowry's review for CNN is "'Men in Black' can't catch lightning despite 'Thor' duo."
We'll see if the reviews hurt the film at the box office this weekend...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- With "Late Night" expanding to more theaters this week, Meredith Blake did the math on just "how bad it really is" for women writers in late night... (LA Times)
-- In addition to the animated series reportedly in the works at Nickelodeon, "Baby Shark" is soon to embark on a 100-date live tour... (THR)
-- Via Chloe Melas: Jennifer Aniston just can't seem to stop talking about "Friends" in recent interviews — here's the latest... (CNN)
Paramount's animation slate
Paramount Animation president Mireille Soria spoke with THR's Carolyn Giardina about the studio's senior team, "made up primarily of women with a long history in animation." Soria said, "We are all about a diverse slate of movies, but the common denominator being quality, story, heart."
Soria teased ahead to the studio's scheduled slate of projects, "eyeing two releases a year, starting in 2020," including "The Tiger's Apprentice," "The SpongeBob Movie," and a "Mighty Mouse" project.
>> Perhaps Soria's biggest reveal: After sitting out the Spice Girls revival tour, Victoria Beckham is on board for an animated feature that "will include Spice Girls classics as well as new songs."
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Lisa Respers France:
-- Ariana Grande donated her Atlanta concert proceeds to Planned Parenthood, in light of the new anti-abortion bill in Georgia...
-- Katy Perry and Taylor Swift have officially buried the hatchet, which brings to an end one of the industry's biggest feuds...
-- Irina Shayk's Instagram is being read like tea leaves in the wake of her recent split from Bradley Cooper...
-- And my favorite story of the day: Keanu Reeves not touching women is a thing. The superstar who is currently having a moment has mastered posing with women without being grabby...
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
Pitch your pooch!
Netflix's "Dogs" docuseries is coming back for a second season, and is "on the search for touching tales to tell..." (CNN)
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