EXEC SUMMARY: Welcome to the start of a brand new week. Scroll down for a first look at The Atlantic's new cover story about the Trump children, plus an exclusive excerpt from "She Said," a preview of Kelly Clarkson's new talk show, and much more...
Six big books out this week
Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale" sequel "The Testaments" hits bookshelves on Tuesday. So do five nonfiction books that are generating lots of reporting and reviews, deservedly so:
-- Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's "She Said," about Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo
-- James Poniewozik's "Audience of One," about Trump and television
-- Garrett Graff's "The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11"
-- Neil Gorsuch's "A Republic, If You Can Keep It"
-- Malcolm Gladwell's "Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know"
Weinstein revealed
Reviewers are saying you should run, not walk, to read "She Said." The book is coming out ahead of the two-year anniversary of Twohey and Kantor's original story about Harvey Weinstein's abuses. By documenting "the obstacles that Weinstein, his attorneys, corporate culture and the legal system threw in their way," the book becomes "an instant classic of investigative journalism," WaPo book critic Carlos Lozada writes. "The book is packed with reluctant sources, emotional interviews, clandestine meetings, impatient editors, secret documents, late-night door knocks, toady lawyers and showdowns with Weinstein himself. The cumulative effect is almost cinematic, a sort of 'All the President's Men' for the Me Too era, except the men are women, and they don't protect the boss, they take him down."
>> There's a lot of news in this book. Even a new interview with Christine Blasey Ford. The NYT's Alexandra Alter has a recap here...
>> Kantor and Twohey were on "CBS Sunday Morning:" | | Here's an exclusive excerpt from "She Said"
The book details all of the ways Weinstein tried to derail and delay the NYT's investigation. Here's an example, quoting from the book:
Weinstein's voice surged through the speaker again. "If the timing isn't good, then we will cooperate with someone else," he threatened, reading the journalists' fears that he would hang up from the call and go straight to another outlet with a softened, distorted version of the story.
"I'm not a saint," Weinstein said, "but I'm not the sinner you think I am."
Weinstein launched into a lecture about journalism.
"Get the facts right," he said. "We'll help you get the facts right. If I wasn't making movies, I would've been a journalist. I read every book on the New York Times, every book about journalism, and I read every newspaper and magazine. The journalists that impress me the most are the ones who go out of their way to be fair."
Weinstein went on. "When you were kids you grew up to tell the right story, to tell the truth," he continued. "You weren't about deadlines. You wanted to tell the truth. If you mess up and you don't tell the truth, and you write just to write, how do you look yourself in the eye?"
Trump and TV: "It's irresistible"
In "Audience of One," TV critic James Poniewozik imagines what it's like for Trump, a TV junkie, to be the star of a 24/7 TV drama. If you ask me, this dynamic is key to understanding what's happened in the past few years.
Poniewozik joined me on Sunday for his first TV interview about the book... He pointed out that Trump has always been an "avid consumer" of media, and through the election, he became both consumer and star. "People are always talking about you and what you are doing, what you're thinking, how you're feeling and what you just tweeted and what people said about the tweet and what you tweeted in response to the tweet. It's you you you you you. All the time. Why would you ever do anything else?" In other words, why would you ever turn off the TV? "It's irresistible," Poniewozik said. And, I would add, harmful to his presidency...
>> Here are some other takeaways from the interview, via Katie Pellico...
Six months since...
The White House press secretary has not held an on-camera briefing since March 11. This Wednesday will be the six-month mark of the drought. Stephanie Grisham, who became press secretary in late June, has signaled that the resumption of briefings is really Trump's call. In the meantime, Julie Roginsky commented on "Reliable Sources," Grisham has been putting out "propaganda pieces" via social media. The lack of briefings is "unacceptable," Roginsky said...
FIRST LOOK
The Atlantic's new cover
This has all the makings of a must-read: The Atlantic's October cover story, titled "Succession," is a "deeply reported inside look by politics writer McKay Coppins at the fight among the Trump children -- namely Ivanka and Don Jr. -- to succeed their father," the magazine says. "Through dozens of interviews with White House officials, campaign staffers, and sources close to the Trump family, McKay reports on the internal power struggle..." And it will be online Monday morning... Here's the cover: | |
Week ahead calendar
Monday: "The Kelly Clarkson Show" and "Tamron Hall" have their series premieres and Billy Bush debuts as the new host of "Extra..."
Monday evening: Trump holds a rally in North Carolina...
Tuesday: Apple's product launch event in Cupertino... Here's what to expect...
Thursday: The Online News Association kicks off its 20th anniversary conference...
Thursday night: The next #DemDebate...
Friday: "Hustlers" and "The Goldfinch" open wide...
Lowry recommends these two new documentaries
Brian Lowry writes: Two notable documentaries to put on the radar this week, both premiering on Tuesday: "Flint's Deadly Water," a "Frontline" examination about the roots and impact of the city's water crisis; and "Rodman: For Better or Worse," a look at how colorful former NBA star Dennis Rodman transformed himself into a media superstar (and improbable advocate for Kim Jong Un), the latest entry under ESPN's "30 for 30" banner...
ABC's turn
ABC and Univision will host the cycle's third Dem presidential primary debate on Thursday evening. This will be the first time that all the top-tier candidates debate on stage together, since only ten candidates qualified. However, it looks like the fourth debate... coming up in October, host TBA... will return to the two-night format, now that Tom Steyer has qualified for October.
Per Axios, "11 candidates have now qualified for the October debates, meaning they will likely take place over the course of 2 nights. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is one poll away from qualifying..."
Fox's hypocrisy while covering Biden's flubs and falsehoods | | Hosts and guests on Fox News have been questioning Joe Biden's "senility" and capacity for the job of president. Biden certainly has been making many missteps... and I think his flubs and falsehoods are inherently newsworthy... but it's striking to see Tucker Carlson and Brit Hume talking about Biden's screw-ups while side-stepping Trump's.
On "Reliable," I showed a montage of the comments on Fox, and former Fox contributor Julie Roginsky observed that "everything that Sean Hannity and everyone else has said about Biden applies to Trump times a thousand. And yet, that's never pointed out..."
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- You heard it here first: On Monday Yahoo Finance is announcing the hiring of award-winning journalist Janna Herron to lead its personal finance coverage...
-- Marc Tracy's latest is about the outstanding U.S.C. Beacon Project: "Students at the University of Southern California got a crash course in investigative journalism this summer by reporting on a powerful, scandal-ridden institution: their own school..." (NYT)
-- Sarah Ellison is out with a new profile of Lester Holt... (WaPo)
Sixteen hours
That's how much time elapsed between Ronan Farrow's Friday night story, "How an Élite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," and the resignation of the MIT Media Lab's director, Joi Ito. MIT announced that an outside law firm will oversee an investigation. Four notes:
>> By Saturday evening, Ito had also resigned from the boards of the NYT, MacArthur Foundation and Knight Foundation. Here is the NYT's front page story...
>> NYU's Jay Rosen wrongly tweeted out that the NYT had access to the same info that Farrow had, but "didn't publish a story until after the New Yorker did," and suggested it was due to the board connection. He later corrected it and apologized...
>> Laura Ly's followup for CNN: "Former MIT media lab staffer says leadership made it clear Epstein's donations were to be kept secret..."
>> Farrow tweeted, "Our reporting was possible because of the courage of whistleblowers, most notably Signe Swenson, and because of long hours from the team at the New Yorker..."
What this Forbes list is missing
Kerry Flynn writes: On Sunday Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane responded to criticism about the site's decision to publish a list of the 100 most innovative leaders that featured just one woman.
Background: Last Thursday, Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar tweeted her initial thought that there were two lists. Ad consultant Cindy Gallop called it "un-bloody-believable." On Friday investor Katie Jacobs Stanton created her own list of 100 women.
Lane's response: He did not apologize. Instead, he blamed the lack of gender diversity on the data, writing "for all our carefully-calibrated methodology, women never had much of a chance here." Lane said he's adding rethinking the innovative leaders list to his "task list." Moira Forbes, EVP and publisher of Forbes Media, tweeted, "Forbes learned a painful lesson and we recognize that we can and will do better in achieving our mission of opportunity for all."
What Steve Kroft is doing next
CBS celebrated Steve Kroft's 30-year career at "60 Minutes" in a special edition of the broadcast on Sunday night. Earlier in the day on "Reliable Sources," Kroft told me he's entering semi-retirement -- he said he is starting a production company to make documentaries. "Nonfiction television." Two CBS vets, Frank Devine and Warren Lustig, are working with him...
>> In part one of our interview, Kroft explained why he "took a pass" on interviewing Trump...
>> In part two, he offered advice for journalism students...
| | Don't call it "Sharpie-gate"
The words we use and the frames we choose matter a lot. On Sunday's "Reliable," I argued that the media's framing of Trump's Alabama errors actually let the president off easy. This past week wasn't "Sharpie-gate," it was "lying about a hurricane-gate."
I suggested framing the Alabama mess this way: It was about Trump failing a basic geography test. He wasn't "doubling down" all week, as many people (myself included) said, he was "digging a deeper hole." He wasn't stirring a "controversy," he was politicizing the weather and providing more evidence of his instability.
Sunday's must-read
The Washington Post captured all of this in a front page story on Sunday. If you haven't read it yet, click here...
>> Speaking of the Post, check out this Avi Selk dispatch from Mobile: "Trump warned Alabama about Dorian. So we sent someone to cover the 'hurricane.'"
>> On "Reliable," Bianna Golodryga and Joan Walsh expressed concern that federal agencies are under pressure to support Trump's falsehoods, in this case about Dorian. This is "something we see in banana republics... it's something you expect out of Russia, it's something you expect out of China, not here in the United States," Golodryga said...
The big question
Scientists are appalled. Some NOAA staffers are up in arms about the agency's unsigned statement that supported the president. But here's the thing -- by the time the damage is done and known and quantified, most people have moved on to the next storm -- in this case, Afghan peace talks.
I'm left wondering: Trump proves every day that his words can't be believed. So how are we supposed to evaluate his claims about, say, negotiating with the Taliban, when his comments about a hurricane emergency imply that he couldn't read a map correctly?
How the summit fell apart
This NYT story is on Page One of Monday's paper: "How Trump's Plan to Secretly Meet With the Taliban Came Together, and Fell Apart."
The takeaway: "What would have been one of the biggest headline-grabbing moments of his tenure was put together on the spur of the moment and then canceled on the spur of the moment..."
The kicker: "American officials stressed that the peace drive was not over and the deal had been neither rejected nor accepted. With Mr. Trump especially, anything can happen. But for the moment, at least, all sides seemed certain of one thing: Violence will now intensify. The war will go on."
Trump parrots Nixon while trashing The Post
On Saturday, while complaining about a nearly-week-old story about his "lost summer," Trump tweeted that Post reporters Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker "shouldn't even be allowed on the grounds of the White House." Marty Baron responded forcefully.
Trump's timing was notable, seeing as how he just lost a second court case over the suspension of press access. The tweet also had a historical echo... | | In 1972, Richard Nixon told Ron Ziegler, "I want it clearly understood that from now on, ever, no reporter from the Washington Post is ever to be in the White House. Is that clear?" Ziegler answered: "Absolutely." We played the tape on Sunday's show...
How Mark Sanford chose to announce his GOP primary bid against Trump...
He did it on Fox News, specifically on "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace." Sanford said "I am here to tell you now that I am going to get in." Then he explained his decision in more detail in this Twitter thread...
Hey, here's a chance for Trump to apologize to Baltimore
I'm kidding... sort of.
CNN's Chandelis Duster writes: "President Donald Trump is heading to Baltimore -- the same city he recently called 'a rat and rodent infested mess' -- on Thursday to speak at the 2019 House Republican Conference member retreat dinner, according to a White House schedule released Sunday."
During Trump's trip to Maryland's 7th congressional district, maybe he'll see why his words -- including the claim that "no human being would want to live there" -- were so hurtful and untrue...
How online harassment threatens press freedom
As I mentioned a few days ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists is out with a new report showing the pervasiveness of online harassment, and the unique risks facing female reporters. Courtney Radsch discussed the issue with me on Sunday's show. "If journalists feel that they're going to get retaliated against, or attacked or threatened, because of the reporting they're doing, that could have a silencing and a chilling effect," Radsch pointed out. Certainly could, and, I believe, does have a chilling effect.
Over on CNN Business, Clare Duffy has a recap...
How to catch up on Sunday's "Reliable"
Watch the video clips on CNN.com or listen to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your preferred app...
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- The world premiere of Marielle Heller's film "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," starring Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers, had Toronto International Film Festival audiences "swooning..." (IndieWire)
-- "Disney has struck a long-term agreement with British studio Pinewood. The Hollywood studio will take all the stages, backlots and other production accommodation at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire..." (Deadline)
-- There were Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Woody Allen jokes "aplenty" at Comedy Central's roast of Alec Baldwin... The special airs next Sunday... (THR)
| | How "IT" fared at the box office
Frank Pallotta writes: "It: Chapter Two" had a monster weekend, but it came up short of the record-setting success of its predecessor. The follow-up to 2017's "It" brought in an estimated $91 million this weekend -- the highest-grossing opening for an R-rated film this year and the second biggest debut in the history of September. But the film brought in $32 million less than the opening of the original film, which made a record $123 million two years ago. Still, it exceeded industry expectations...
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>> Two more stats: According to Warner Bros., "Chapter Two" is also the second largest opening for a horror movie ever behind the original "It." The film made $185 million globally this weekend. Read on...
Strong long-term prospects
Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian's take: "This is a really great opening for a September film, and it could have a lot of long term success. That's exactly what the box office needs to see right now," he said. "The running time of the film may have been a bit scary for the ticket booth this weekend, but its long-term prospects are not."
High hopes for Kelly Clarkson's new talk show | | Sandra Gonzalez spoke with Kelly Clarkson about the vision for the daytime talk show that starts on Monday. "It's a very divisive time right now, unfortunately," Clarkson said. "I mean, the social climate is very intense right now and I want it to be the hour of television that's a bit of escapism for everyone. Like, I want everyone to enjoy the show." More here...
'Joker' wins Best Film at the Venice Film Festival
Brian Lowry writes: The joke might be on them. Lots of the excitement generated out of the September film festivals tends to look silly with the benefit of hindsight, when early jockeying and breathless coverage gives way to actual awards voting. Here's an early guess that the hubbub about "Joker" unexpectedly winning the top prize in Venice will fall into that category...
| | | Thanks for reading! Send me your feedback anytime... See you tomorrow... | | | |
