EXEC SUMMARY: Oliver Darcy here with a preview of Friday's big stories... POTUS is heading to France for the weekend... Taylor Swift's "Lover" is coming out... Disney's D23 is getting underway in Anaheim... and News Corp is launching its own aggregator?!
Trump's toughest branding exercise yet
Can President Trump smooth-talk his way out of a recession?
Brian Stelter writes: On Thursday the bond market "once again flashed warning lights that a recession could be coming," Anneken Tappe writes for CNN Business. And investors are "eagerly awaiting Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's speech in Jackson Hole on Friday, as they search for direction about the future of US monetary policy."
The president seems to be banking on the power of positive thinking. All week long his Twitter feed has been filled with claims that "our Economy is very strong" (Monday) and "the Economy is doing really well" (Thursday) even as administration officials reach for options to shore up that very same economy.
WaPo is out with a big new story about this subject, based on interviews with 25+ sources, and it's on Friday's front page. The main finding: "Faced with internal warnings about a slowdown, President Trump pursued chaotic, contradictory responses." | | Here's the part that stood out to me: Throughout this week, "White House officials became increasingly agitated that the public sentiment about the economy seemed to be tipping. Trump, aides said, is obsessed with media coverage of the economy, and thinks Americans will believe negative news and stop spending money. This exasperation began several months earlier."
The story also says "Republicans on Capitol Hill have sensed the White House's stress and said the goal is to beat back negative public opinion." Larry Kudlow basically said as much on NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday: "Let's not be afraid of optimism." Trump believes he's a master brander -- can he "make America optimistic again?"
Blame "the media!"
Stelter adds: This is, of course, directly related to the administration's coordinated attempt to blame the media for any economic downturn. I can't believe I just typed those words, but there you go. Oliver has been pointing this out for the past week. Trump and his boosters are accusing media elites of cheering for a recession -- when news outlets are really just trying to report on what's going on. Sure, some lefties on social media are arguing that a recession would get rid of Trump, but it's B.S. to extrapolate random tweets to "the media" writ large.
The B.S. is happening anyway... Trump claimed on Wednesday that the "LameStream Media is doing everything possible the 'create' a U.S. recession, even though the numbers & facts are working totally in the opposite direction..." And this leads me to believe that in the event of an economic slump, some Trump loyalists really will blame "the media..."
But, uh, what about Drudge?
| | Darcy back here: Matt Drudge isn't exactly a member of the "lamestream media." But on Thursday, for the second consecutive day, The Drudge Report featured a brutal front page (pictured above) targeting Trump on the economy. The banner headline was about job growth being reduced.
The accompanying headlines featured "shock" polling data showing Trump with a high disapproval, a warning about the "deficit soaring," and a poll about some Republicans who would be UNHAPPY to see him reelected. Has Drudge finally turned on Trump? It's hard to tell, but his latest coverage is certainly worth taking note of...
The big picture
"We are almost daily being offered a portrait of a President who is routinely untethered from reality," John Avlon writes in his latest column for CNN.com...
IN OTHER NEWS...
Folkenflik's must-read / must-listen
It's titled "A Dead Cat, A Lawyer's Call And A 5-Figure Donation: How Media Fell Short On Epstein." David Folkenflik's story for NPR features case studies on the NYT, ABC and Vanity Fair. He describes "the tools the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is said to have used to try to soften news coverage and at times stave off journalistic scrutiny altogether." Click here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Facebook has banned The Epoch Times from advertising on its platform. The move came after Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins requested comment about the outlet's advertising behavior which prompted Facebook to conduct a review... (NBC News)
-- Elizabeth Williamson is out with a detailed new look at Stephanie Grisham's "turbulent ascent" to the job of White House press secretary... (NYT)
-- HuffPost's Jesselyn Cook published a deep dive into those sites that "rip and repost stories from legitimate media outlets after running them through some sort of automated synonym generator in a laughable attempt to sidestep outright plagiarism..." (HuffPost)
-- Federal officials have "expressed serious concerns about a draft Trump administration executive order seeking to regulate tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter," CNN's Brian Fung scooped... (CNN)
Day turns to night... clocks strike noon... and Sanders joins Fox
Surprising almost no one, Fox News said Wednesday that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is joining the network as a contributor. Sanders left the W.H. earlier this summer. She is set to make her debut before a live studio audience episode of "Fox & Friends" on September 6. My full story here...
>> It is, of course, not unusual for former White House press secretaries to score gigs at TV networks. But Sanders has far, far less credibility than previous press secretaries. She eliminated the daily briefing; lobbed insults at journalists; and even admitted to providing reporters with baseless information about the firing of James Comey. What is Fox gaining by hiring her?
>> Sanders is the third former top W.H. comms official to join Fox: Hope Hicks joined Fox Corp last year and Raj Shah joined in July...
Stelter's question
Last night, while writing about Sean Spicer's gig on "Dancing," Stelter raised a question: How should former W.H. officials who consistently misled the public be treated when they seek positions of fame and privilege? Given Sanders' new role, the question is more relevant than ever.
>> NYT's Michael Barbaro weighs in: "With enormous skepticism..."
NAHJ rescinds invite to Fox to sponsor conference
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists announced on Thursday that it had made "the decision to rescind the invitation" of Fox News as a sponsor of its conference in Texas next month. In a letter announcing the decision, NAHJ president Hugo Balta cited comments made by Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes. Starnes recently invoked the Nazi invasion of Europe when talking about people crossing over the southern border.
"Starnes brazen language is symptomatic of a culture that provides a megaphone for disinformation by those in power with agendas, including the Trump administration at the cost of the most vulnerable – immigrant communities," Balta, who is also an MSNBC analyst, wrote. Balta said "the situation with Starnes is not an isolated incident" and it followed years of conservations and meeting with Fox management.
"The line between commentary and journalism was crossed long ago by Fox News and is no longer even in sight," Balta said, adding, "To sit silently by is, in essence to be complicit in the act itself." NAHJ said the total amount of money being returned was $16,666.
Fox: Situation is "unfortunate"
In a statement, Marsheila Hayes, Fox's VP of diversity & inclusion, called the decision "unfortunate." Hayes said Fox is "committed to fostering a diverse and collaborative workplace environment, and have been recognized in the industry for our advancement in this area, most notably with our multimedia reporter program." She added, "We are proud of our inclusive team and their achievements in journalism."
News Corp to launch its own news aggregator?!
| | Kerry Flynn writes: News Corp has been building its own news aggregator. The product's current name is Knewz.com (with a silent "K") and will link to articles from around the web. WSJ, which is owned by News Corp, first reported the news.
Noah Kotch, most recently editor-in-chief of The Daily Mail, is leading the effort, according to WSJ. Kotch joined News Corp last month, a source told me. Kotch worked at News Corp from 2015 to 2017 and then moved to Fox News, where he was editor-in-chief and VP of digital.
Project would send traffic to conservative sites
Flynn adds: According to the WSJ, Knewz will "give exposure to smaller outlets that News Corp executives believe are often demoted in Google's search results and Facebook Inc.'s social feed." Included among those smaller outlets? The Daily Wire, the Daily Caller, the Free Beacon and the Washington Examiner.
>> James Kennedy, spokesperson for News Corp: "We are exploring this with the goal of recognizing and rewarding the provenance of journalism, and to drive traffic and data to publishers — including subscription sites — so their original work is respected. We want people to see a wide spectrum of news and views, from local, niche and national sources, without bent or bias."
NBC: We have no idea what "Knewz" is and "do not plan on participating in a platform with that name"
It doesn't appear that Knewz executives have done any outreach to major news orgs -- at least, not yet. Chris Berend, EVP of digital at NBC News, told Dylan Byers, "We have never heard of 'Knewz' and do not plan on participating in a platform with that name."
>> WSJ's Ben Mullin points out: "You don't need a company's participation to send them traffic..."
Any consumer demand?
A good point from NiemanLab's Joshua Benton, who tweeted, "There is zero consumer demand for this, with the possible exception of if they go all-in on the conservative-grievance angle and promote the hell out of it on Fox News."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Rolling Stone's new "Useful Idiots" podcast hosted by Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper debuted Thursday... (Rolling Stone)
-- M.I.T. will investigate Jeffrey Epstein's donations to the university and its Media Lab... (NYT)
-- A special episode of "Vice News Tonight" will air on Friday. Correspondent Seb Walker spent months "following a Miami man's quest to find his children, who are believed to be in the hands of ISIS supporters in Syria..." (Vice)
NYT editor deletes "offensive" tweets after Breitbart article
Tom Piersanti, a night editor on NYT's politics desk, said on Thursday that he had "deleted tweets from a decade ago" that were "offensive." Piersanti apologized, saying, "I am deeply sorry." The statement came after Breitbart published a story unearthing old anti-Semitic tweets he had posted.
After Breitbart published its story, the tweets were circulated on social media by right-wing media figures and politicians to -- ridiculously -- suggest the entire newspaper is anti-Semitic. "Disgusting," wrote Donald Trump Jr. "But we shouldn't expect any better from the New York Times. This is who they are." White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham even got in on the action, telling Breitbart she was "not surprised by this latest revelation" from NYT....
NYT: "Clear violation of our standards"
In a brief statement, a NYT spokesperson said, "We are aware of these tweets, which are a clear violation of our standards. We are reviewing next steps." I'm also told by a person familiar with the matter that Piersanti will be on leave until NYT's probe is completed...
Cenk Uygur: I would have pulled host's "offensive joke" about Dan Crenshaw if it was made on TYT
The Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur spoke with one of his hosts, Hasan Piker, on Thursday evening about a "crass and offensive joke" Piker recently made about Rep. Dan Crenshaw. Speaking on the live-streaming platform Twitch, Piker asked about Crenshaw, "What the f--k is wrong with this dude? Didn't he go to war and literally lose his eye because some Mujahideen -- a brave f-----g solider -- f---ed his eyehole with their d--k?"
Uygur said that if Piker had made the same comments on the TYT network, he would have "pulled" the video. "I think it's offensive," Uygur said, "It's over the top -- and I understand you were trying to do satire, but I thought it was a terrible job and I get why people are offended by it." Uygur added, "Saying, 'I disagree with Dan Crenshaw's policies' is one thing -- I mean how did you not see that it's counterproductive? Did you think Americans would say, 'Oh my god that joke is so funny'?"
Piker responded saying he "would rather be uncivil and advocate for the morally righteous cause" than "be incredibly polite and be incredibly civil and talk about ongoing genocide and refuse to acknowledge it."
Crenshaw, for his part, tweeted on Thursday that Piker "seems to confuse 'Improvised Explosive Device' with some weird terrorist fantasy. Lol sorry for triggering you Hasan. You're no Pete Davidson, stop trying so hard."
YouTube disables channels posting about Hong Kong
| | "Google announced Thursday that it had disabled 210 YouTube channels that were uploading videos 'in a coordinated manner' about the ongoing protests in Hong Kong," CNN's Donie O'Sullivan and Kevin Collier reported Thursday.
Shane Huntley from Google's security team said in a blog post that the company discovered behavior from those channels "consistent with recent observations and actions" noticed earlier this week by Facebook and Twitter. "We found use of VPNs and other methods to disguise the origin of these accounts and other activity commonly associated with coordinated influence operations," Huntley explained.
>> Of note: Google "provided no details on how popular the YouTube channels were or how many videos had been posted to the channels..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
By Katie Pellico:
-- Since former Facebook exec Adam Mosseri took the helm at Instagram nearly a year ago, a slew of changes may signal "that the days of independence at Instagram, whose employees had grown accustomed to their autonomy inside Facebook, are over," The Information's Alex Heath reports... (The Information)
-- The Australian Broadcasting Corporation checks in a little over seven months after becoming a partner in the 50:50 Project, a gender diversity initiative spearheaded by BBC... (ABC)
-- Claire Wardle's latest from the September issue of Scientific American: "Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder..." (Scientific American)
Google News creator rejoins Google
Kerry Flynn writes: Founder of Google News Krishna Bharat is back at the tech giant, CNBC reported. A Google spokesperson said he's working on search and news at Google. Bharat was at Google from 1999 to 2015. The idea from Google News sparked after September 11, when Bharat thought the search engine could be better at providing information during breaking news events.
But the product has recently faced controversy for elevating misinformation and biased sources. In fact, Bharat criticized Google News in an Oct. 2017 Facebook post after the site surfaced results from 4Chan that misidentified the Las Vegas shooter. Before returning to Google last month, Bharat was an advisor at machine learning startup Laserlike, which Apple acquired in 2018.
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- Attorney and former federal prosecutor Ken White itemizes "foolhardy" free speech arguments. "Watch for them, and recognize how they distort the debate over speech..." (The Atlantic)
-- "Three years into nonprofit ownership, The Philadelphia Inquirer is still trying to chart its future..." (NiemanLab)
| | D23 kicks off
Frank Pallotta writes: D23, the all-things-Disney convention, kicks off in Anaheim on Friday. Disney+ will be center stage in Hall D23 on Friday from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. PT. What will we see? I think we'll get an even better look at the service and much of its programming including its flagship "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian" (a trailer perhaps?). This will be one of Disney's last chances at really showcasing the service before it's launched in November, so I think they'll go all out.
There will also be presentations regarding Disney's studio (10 a.m. Saturday) and its parks (10:30 a.m. Sunday) as well as content, both new ("The Simpsons") and old (Marvel)...
Taylor time | | Taylor Swift's new album is out at midnight ET... She released a music video for "Lover" on Thursday after her concert on "GMA." Much more to come...
>> ICYMI: Swift says she plans to re-record her earlier songs to circumvent Scooter Braun now owning the rights to them. Her full interview airs on "CBS Sunday Morning" this weekend...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
By Katie Pellico:
-- WWE is entering the podcasting ring, THR's Natalie Jarvey reports. The new podcast network, a partnership with Endeavor Audio, "is expected to produce multiple series with WWE's superstar wrestlers..." (THR)
-- The Verge's Julia Alexander explains why "Martin Scorsese's 'The Irishman' is a perfect example of Netflix's big screening dilemma..." (The Verge)
Why Disney and Sony got a divorce over Spider-Man
Frank Pallotta writes: THR's Borys Kit has a great explainer over how Disney and Sony's Spider-Man standoff came about, and what it means for our favorite web slinger. Kit reports that Disney had been seeking a co-financing split on upcoming movies of "at least a 30 percent stake." Sony wasn't having that and when "Spider-Man: Far From Home" grossed more than $1 billion at the box office this summer it "reinforced both sides' thinking."
"Sony executives believed they didn't need Disney anymore, and Disney was in no way leaving money, and Peter Parker, behind," sources told Kit.
But can there be a reunion? Maybe. Kit writes "Because there's so much money to be made, the parties could also eventually come back to the table."
Dispute draws fans into the crossfire
Brian Lowry emails: The only winners in the dispute between Sony and Marvel over the future of Spider-Man, as far as I can tell, are the websites publishing hot takes about it. But it fits with a pattern of fans being drawn into serving as foot soldiers in matters where their passion for the material actually makes their complaints appear pretty toothless...
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Frank Pallotta:
-- "Ready or Not" makes $2 million on opening day. With a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes, will the horror flick be the final surprise of the summer movie season? (Variety)
-- Taylor Swift will rerecord her old albums. NYT's Joe Coscarelli explains how... (NYT)
-- "Why podcasts are the new self-help books for stressed Americans..." (WSJ)
-- Here's a great headline: "Gary Busey, Set to Play God, Believes 'There Is No Death'..." (THR)
-- How "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X "gamed the system and won the summer..." (WaPo)
| | | Thank you for reading. Email your feedback anytime -- the good, the bad, the ugly, etc. See you tomorrow! | | | |
