EXEC SUMMARY: Hey, welcome to October... I wonder where we'll be by Halloween... In the meantime, here's the latest on the impeachment inquiry, extreme rhetoric, and some excellent counter-programming...
Notes on a scandal | | No one knows how this impeachment inquiry is going to end. But here are a few things I think I can confidently say about the news media, the president, and the impeachment inquiry that's going to unfold:
-- Scoops beget more scoops. It's a virtuous cycle, except when the stories are about you... then it can feel like a vicious cycle.
-- Cover-ups generate more stories. They are like jet fuel for a scandal. The mystery, the feeling that there's still so much more to learn, gives the scandal forward momentum.
-- With all that in mind, Trump's attacks against the whistleblower, the Democrats, and the media will get worse.
-- Pro-Trump media's rhetoric will get even more extreme. The blizzard of disinformation will cause some people to tune out altogether.
-- Readers and viewers will continue to need explainers, annotations, fact-checks, and other background for the story.
-- The notion of "whistleblowing" will need defending.
-- One additional item via Susan Glasser: "The facts will not get better for the White House here. Expect the disclosures to keep coming."
-- And finally, back to what I said up top, no one knows how this is going to end, so don't believe the people who pretend to know.
Monday's notes and quotes
For the very latest developments, check the CNN.com home page... Whatever I write here will be out of date in a few hours...
-- NBC's Jon Allen: "Someday, Watergate may be relegated to the historical status of a sleepy mixed-use complex along the Potomac."
-- With Trump asking about arresting Adam Schiff and saying he's trying to "find out" the whistleblower's identity, Matt Lewis asks, "Can my fellow conservatives honestly support this kind of behavior?" He said Trump's Monday conduct, "alone, could justify impeachment."
-- Trump's words DO matter, "and when, as is so often the case, they're irresponsible, irresponsible actions can and will follow," David French writes.
-- Susan Hennessey, reacting to WaPo's reporting about William Barr personally asking "foreign officials to aid inquiry into CIA, FBI activities in 2016," says "among the more alarming implications of this story is that the Attorney General is a fully-committed Fox News conspiracy theorist."
-- NBC's Richard Engel: "The wheels have come off the bus."
-- Dan Rather: "I've seen a lot in my lifetime. But I've never seen anything like this."
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Right-wing media's favorite word
Oliver Darcy emails: There is one word that has overtaken right-wing media over the last few days: "coup." Trump's media allies have begun referring to the impeachment inquiry as a "coup" attempt by Democrats and their supposed "deep state" allies. Rush Limbaugh said on his Monday program that he believes "there is a coup going on" and a "Cold Civil War taking place." Hugh Hewitt called it a "coup attempt." And Fox's Newt Gingrich bluntly said, "This is not an impeachment process. This is a coup d'etat."
I could cite more examples, but the point is clear. The right-wing media machine is already working to delegitimize the impeachment process and make it seem like an anti-democratic process...
Trump isn't the only one losing control
Oliver Darcy emails: As was widely pointed out on Monday, Trump's Twitter feed has been even more over-the-top than normal. But it's not just him. The hosts of Trump's favorite shows -- i.e. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc. -- have also been noticeably more unhinged than normal, peddling misinformation aimed at muddying the Ukraine waters at an extraordinarily high rate. Hannity said Monday night that this "non-story" is just about "a perfectly normal telephone call." And he said the whistleblower is "not a whistleblower."
It's hard to know which came first, the chicken or the egg. It's possible Trump is agitated watching the coverage and tweeting his rage. It's also possible the hosts are reflecting Trump's outrage. Or perhaps it's a mixture of both. But, regardless, Trump isn't the only figure losing their composure in plain sight. Several major media figures are right there with him.
Harris says Twitter should suspend Trump
Trump's "Twitter account should be suspended," Kamala Harris said on "AC360" Monday night. "There's plenty of…evidence to suggest that he is irresponsible with his words in a way that could result in harm…so the privilege of using those words in that way should probably be taken from him."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Mark Blumenthal explains how "a big enough news story -- like impeachment -- could warp the polls..." (538)
-- Related? CNN's newest poll is out, showing support for impeaching Trump rising "among independents and Republicans..." (CNN)
-- Lou Dobbs said Monday night that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are "behaving as an enemy of the state..." (Mediaite)
-- Meantime, former Fox military analyst Ralph Peters said on CNN that Trump's tweet invoking a "Civil-War like fracture" made him think about sedition: "Trump is inciting violence against the legitimate government of the United States and the constitutional order..." (Mediaite)
-- BTW, Sean Spicer survived week two elimination round on "Dancing with the Stars..."
The loneliest men at Fox News?
Brian Lowry writes: MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace praised Fox's Chris Wallace (no relation) and Shepard Smith during her show Monday, after playing a clip of the former's interview with Stephen Miller. Guest Rick Wilson commented that Wallace and Smith "must be pretty lonely over at Fox these days."
"Why Trump Tweeted About Civil War"
That's the title of Charlie Warzel's latest piece for the NYT. He says that "what began as trollish shorthand for political polarization has gone mainstream..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- Yesterday I included the CT Post's editorial calling on Trump to step down, believing it was the first sizable paper to do so. It turns out the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote this last Wednesday: "The time has come for Republicans to stand up for the Constitution, stand up for America, and tell Trump to step down." Five days later, it is the No. 1 most-read story on the paper's website... (Post-Dispatch)
-- Former Trump transition staffer J.W. Verret, who called for Trump's impeachment earlier this year, says this situation "is a lot worse" than Nixon. Here's what he told Brianna Keilar... (CNN)
-- "Trump's lies and obfuscation, coupled with the level of polarization in the country today, give him the ability to inflict long-term damage on American democracy as impeachment unfolds," Michael Luo writes... (New Yorker)
-- "Trump's allies on TV are having trouble relying on reality to defend him," Philip Bump writes... (WaPo)
-- Meghan McCain's reaction to the behavior of Stephen Miller and other male guests on the Sunday morning shows: "If any of the women on this show behaved the way some of the men were behaving, we would be hysterical, maniac, crazy bitches all over the Internet, and these guys get away with it!" (Mediaite)
-- David Cay Johnston's latest column: "Why The Future Of Trump's Presidency Belongs To Fox News..." (DC Report)
-- Sebastian Gorka is traveling with Mike Pompeo on this week's trip to Europe. He's on board as a member of the media, through his radio show... (Examiner)
Key quotes from Sunday's "Reliable"
-- Amanda Carpenter: "Hillary Clinton once talked about a vast right-wing conspiracy that was out to get her husband. President Trump plays with a vast DEEP-STATE conspiracy."
-- Susan Glasser: "I believe that President Trump is attempting to deploy the Clinton strategy for this impeachment -- to wait it out, to brazen it out -- have the shocking truth fade into the confusion of partisanship and name-calling."
-- Suzanne Nossel: The whistleblower protection system "is broken. It's filled with holes and that's going to be intimidating and daunting for anybody who has important information, you know, and is afraid to come forward. They don't know what protection they'll get."
Collins resigns
"New York Rep. Chris Collins submitted his resignation from Congress on Monday, one day ahead of his expected guilty plea to federal charges in an insider trading case," CNN's Erica Orden reports.
--> Here's the media angle: "Well, well," former Buffalo News editor Margaret Sullivan tweeted. "When this insider-trading story first broke, Collins repeatedly and harshly accused Jerry Zremski and The Buffalo News of digging up 'fake news.'" Sullivan called this case "another reminder of the importance of regional reporting, including that reporting which is based in DC or in statehouses..."
TUESDAY PLANNER
-- Chris Collins will be in court in Manhattan...
-- Rachel Maddow's book "Blowout" hits bookstores...
-- Gayle King's interview with Lil Nas X airs on CBS...
"The Great Society" opens Tuesday
Robert Schenkkan's "The Great Society" opens at Lincoln Center on Tuesday for a twelve-week engagement. "The play, a sequel to Schenkkan's Tony Award-winning "All the Way," focuses on President Lyndon Johnson's tumultuous years between 1965 and 1968, when his decision to escalate the war in Vietnam came to devastate his presidency," CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer writes. Here's how he connects it to the present day...
The Clintons on Colbert | | "The whistleblower has a depth of understanding that needs to be taken seriously about what happened," Hillary Clinton said on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Monday night. Here's a preview. Hillary and Chelsea were on the show to promote their new book... The pair will be on "GMA" on Tuesday and "The View" on Wednesday...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
By Kerry Flynn:
-- "More than 1,800 ads on Trump's Facebook page mentioning 'impeachment' have run in the past seven days. The ads have been viewed between 16 and 18 million times on Facebook," Donie O'Sullivan and David Wright reports... (CNN)
-- Apple News+ has launched in the UK and Australia with more than 150 publishers, including News Corp's The Times and Sunday Times and Hearst UK titles on board... (Digiday)
-- Journalists are stars of some of this fall's films, including "Hustlers," "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" and "The Friends." Amy Kaufman spoke with the actual journalists, Jessica Pressler, Tom Junod and Matthew Teague, about their portrayals... (LAT)
Facebook still negotiating with publishers over News section terms
Lukas Alpert and Sahil Patel's latest for the WSJ: Facebook "is planning to pay only a minority of publishers whose headlines will be featured in its coming news section, according to people familiar with the matter... The plan is similar to what Facebook has done with its Watch section..."
FB's news tab will launch in the coming weeks. The company "is still negotiating with several big publishers, and in most cases talks have centered around how much of their reporting publishers would allow to be posted on the Facebook tab," per the WSJ...
FB hiring more curators
Another notable detail in the story: "Facebook is looking to expand its team of curators to about 25 people, with some based in London, to work under Anne Kornblut..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
-- As a student journalist at Towson University in MD, running a twice-weekly student paper, I always admired The Diamondback down the road at University of Maryland College Park because it was a daily paper. Now it's the latest in a string of college publications to go online-only... (The Diamondback)
-- The NPR Politics Podcast is expanding to five days a week through the 2020 election... (NPR)
-- Here's the NYMag cover story I previewed last night, titled "The Toll of Me Too." A vital read... (NYMag)
-- Marie Harf has returned to Fox News after leaving to work on Seth Moulton's campaign... (Mediaite)
Saudi Arabia under the spotlight in Frontline and HBO documentaries
Brian Lowry writes: One year after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Norah O'Donnell asked all the right questions in her "60 Minutes" interview with Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman, but the Crown Prince greeted the questions with a series of denials.
There's considerably more context in two documentaries airing this month, beginning with Frontline's "The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia," a deep dive by correspondent Martin Smith that draws on his wealth of reporting in the region. It includes, notably, an interview with Khashoggi, and the observation by former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel that "the grooming and wooing of Donald Trump" is high among Bin Salman's list of accomplishments. That doc dovetails with HBO's "Saudi Women's Driving School," which looks more narrowly at reforms within the kingdom, balanced against continued human-rights abuses. More...
Look out for "Citizen K"
"'Citizen K,' Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney's acclaimed new documentary feature about post-Soviet Russia from the perspective of oligarch-turned-political dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been acquired for North American distribution by Greenwich Entertainment and will receive a theatrical release alongside a concerted Oscar push this season," THR's Scott Feinberg reports...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE
-- Page Six says NBC News execs "have been huddling to figure out how to deal with the fallout" from Ronan Farrow's forthcoming book... It comes out on October 15... (Page Six)
-- "WeWork and Adam Neumann "will be subjects of an upcoming book by WSJ reporters Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell..." (Axios)
-- VF creative director Chris Dixon is leaving the magazine... He is staying on until a successor is identified... (THR)
| | FIRST LOOK
De Niro and Pacino on the cover of this week's "Variety"
"The Irishman" stars are fronting Variety's annual New Power of New York issue, coming out Tuesday, "naming the 50 movers and shakers who are changing the face of the five boroughs and beyond," the mag says. Here's the cover: | | Each person on the list "is profiled by another power player," the mag says, so Janet Mock is profiled by Billy Porter, Craig Melvin by Al Roker, Amy Entelis by Jake Tapper, Natasha Lyonne by Rosie O'Donnell and more. The feature will be up on Variety.com in the morning...
Huge Netflix deal for Duffer Brothers
Frank Pallotta writes: We're heading down to the upside down once again. Netflix has renewed "Stranger Things" for season 4 and signed the Duffer Brothers to an overall deal worth a reported nine figures...
Brian Lowry adds: If you need further evidence that now is a good time to be high-profile talent (and by extension their agents), look to the $$$ deal that Netflix extended the Duffer Brothers, announced in concert, oddly, with a seemingly fore-ordained fourth-season renewal. Deadline suggests the deal "would be comparable to the five-year, nine-figure overall pact Netflix recently signed with 'Game of Thrones' creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX
By Frank Pallotta:
-- Here's how Billie Eilish pulled off her "gravity-defying" performance on "SNL" the other day... (BuzzFeed)
-- Joe Flint's latest is about the return of the wrestling wars... (WSJ)
-- Wesley Morris misses Gwyneth Paltrow being a big star in films. So do I... (NYT)
Bob Iger's climb to the top of the House of Mouse
Frank Pallotta emails: Disney CEO Bob Iger's book tour took him to a sit-down interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour... he spoke about his family, his mentors and his long career in media...
>> "It's an extraordinary experience to have to work for people who are considered the best in the business," Iger said. "It wasn't planned, it's just good luck." Read or watch here...
FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN
By Lisa Respers France:
-- See some of what's streaming in October...
-- "Cantstandya!" Jerry Seinfeld for teasing a 'Seinfeld' reboot...
-- An Adele and Beyoncé duet? Not so fast. We got the real story...
-- We get it Miley Cyrus, you are super single. The recently split wife of Liam Hemsworth has posted cryptically about "goodbyes..."
-- Bindi Irwin said yes to the dress and we got a sneak peek...
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