EXEC SUMMARY: Scroll down for the latest on the U.S, Iraq and Iran... plus a preview of a big weekend ahead... but first let's look a little bit further into the future...
Where are we going?
Smartphones, streaming and shameless lying changed everything about the media landscape in the 2010s. What will be similarly disruptive in the 2020s? I don't know, but I have a few educated guesses to share with you, starting with 2020 and then looking ahead to the rest of the decade. Plus, some resolutions for the news media in this crazed environment...
The disinformation threat
B.S. comes in many shapes, sizes and containers, and it continues to proliferate. This makes truth decay feel like an increasingly more serious threat.
As Donie O'Sullivan wrote Friday, in a story pegged to Thursday's drone strike, Iran has turned to the disinfo playbook too. "While a conventional cyber attack could potentially shut down a hospital or compromise a power grid, disinformation campaigns have the potential to sow discord and influence the American electorate," he wrote.
In the 2020s, newsrooms will need to do more to counter disinfo campaigns -- both the type run by profiteers and the type run by propagandists. Oliver Darcy raised a really interesting idea on last Sunday's "Reliable Sources." He said, "how can media organizations puncture/pierce these alternate universes to disseminate information" that's not reaching people otherwise? Could targeted ads combat online radicalization -- say, by pointing QAnon believers to rational info that disproves "Q" deceptions?
Four resolutions for the media
WaPo's Catherine Rampell has an excellent column with these four suggested resolutions for 2020. No. 1: "Make sure we're in the information business, not the disinformation business." Plus:
-- "Don't spend more time analyzing an idea that the president proposes than he spent coming up with it."
-- "Spend more time talking about the things the government actually does and less time covering what government officials say or who's ahead in the horse race."
-- "Remember that just because the president did (or proposed) it doesn't mean it's bad; inversely, just because one of the president's perceived opponents did (or proposed) it doesn't mean it's good."
Four predictions from Michael Wolf
The CEO of Activate Consulting (not to be confused with the author Michael Wolff) shared these with me:
-- Outing voter suppression: "Exposing fake news, articles, videos, deep fakes, etc., aimed at voter suppression, is going to be a major focus of news media, social networks and search engines." News outlets will be calling it out while tech platforms, he expects, "will change their algorithms to make it more difficult for this type of content to travel virally."
-- Social splinter: Wolf says we'll see "increased use of focused social networks that enable users to spend time on their specific interests. From Reddit (specific interest groups) to Twitch (gaming) to Wattpad (fan fiction), people are just going to spend more of their time on targeted social experience." And "to a large extent, this will provide more avenues for micro-targeted news discovery."
-- More subscriptions: "The average American is going to subscribe to five video streaming services," Wolf says. "That's on top of news and music services. Subscription fatigue? Not anytime soon!"
-- Data operations: In the political sphere, "data scientists will more important to campaigns than speechwriters."
The post-smartphone age?
On last Sunday's "Reliable," I asked futurist Amy Webb whether the smartphone will just be physically attached to our hands in the coming years? No, she said, "the 2020s will be the beginning of the end of this product that we all hold so dear... It's not going away, it'll start to just recede into the background. What replaces it? Smart glasses, accompanied by rings, and very likely bracelets."
Kara Swisher shared a similar vision in her most recent NYT column. "Whether we move toward more intuitively created tech that surrounds us or that incorporates into our bodies (yes, that's coming), I am going to predict that carrying around a device in our hand and staring at it will be a thing of the past by 2030," she wrote. "And like the electrical grid we rely on daily, most tech will become invisible..."
Can anyone solve the "crisis of trust?"
Much of last Sunday's "Reliable" was focused on what the next decade of news will look like. Some highlights: | | -- Marc Benioff said "we are in a crisis of trust." He hopes his TIME magazine can be a "steward of trust" in the coming years. And he said the magazine will "absolutely" still be in print in ten years. More here...
-- Regarding "fake news," meaning actually fake stories, USA Today editor Nicole Carroll said "it's got to become socially unacceptable to spread those stories..."
-- Yes, but researcher Jennifer Kavanagh pointed out that "technology changes really quickly but institutions like schools change really slowly," so there is a severe media and tech literacy gap that needs to be closed...
Coming soon...
-- Webb explained the coming rise of "synthetic media" and how it can be used for good and evil...
-- Kavanagh also said we should imagine personalized disinformation: "There's so much data about us available online, either to a tech company who wants to collect it, or any other actor, potentially one with nefarious intent. So imagine getting messages that there are threats to your family members or threats to your house, or a specific threat to your region that's intended to really cause a panic..."
-- And on the business side of things, Webb noted that in the "Streaming Olympics," the competitors aren't just Netflix and Disney and HBO: "There are games in the mix. There are digital exercise programs. There are connected mirrors." The range of $$ subscription services is incredible, and will keep expanding...
What's NOT going to change:
"We talk about voice, we talk about AI, we talk about AR -- the platforms will continue to change," Carroll said. "But here's what's not going to change: The need for independent, professional local news in a community."
-- I also loved this point she made: "We can't just take our freedoms for granted. We have to choose them and we have to defend them – and defending the First Amendment is the most important thing we can do for the health of journalism moving forward."
A workable future for local news?
Let's hope so. On this brand-new episode of my podcast, Salt Lake Tribune owner Paul Huntsman talks about paving a path forward... with the help of the IRS...
The question is, should struggling print newspapers shift into nonprofit status? That's what Huntsman's paper did. Late last year, the Salt Lake Tribune became the first metro daily in the country to go nonprofit, after receiving permission from the IRS to do so. I think we're going to hear a lot more about this in the next few years... Huntsman said "a couple dozen publishers that have already reached out" to get more info from him... So listen to our conversation via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your preferred podcast app.
FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE
-- Ahead of CES next week, Brian X. Chen predicts "the tech that will invade our lives in 2020..." (NYT)
-- "Ex-Fox News reporter Courtney Friel claims Donald Trump invited her to Trump Tower to 'kiss...'" (NYDN)
Missing the 2010s...
"Words I never thought I would say," WaPo columnist and CNN analyst Josh Rogin tweeted Friday: "I miss the relative calm and stability of 2019."
Susan Glasser shared a similar confession later in the day: "I am already exhausted by 2020."
Here's why. The lead homepage on NYTimes.com right now says "Iran Vows 'Forceful Revenge' After U.S. Kills Top Commander." On CNN.com, it's "Lawmakers question strike's timing and legality." Everyone is wondering what comes next...
Trump's abruptly televised address | | Sometimes the little details tell you a lot about the big thing. Consider these two details about the U.S. persuasion campaign after Thursday's drone strike took out the second most powerful leader of Iran.
First, the official Pentagon nighttime statement about the killing of Qasem Soleimani botched the name of the organization he led. The original statement called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps the "Iranian" Corps. Obama-era State Dept official Wendy Sherman said this was a "small but telling point."
Second, Trump's afternoon televised address about the airstrike. It was hastily arranged, nearly 24 hours after the attack took place. The speech was fully scripted, so it obviously took time to write and set up. But the press pool traveling with the president was given very little notice ahead of time. In fact, the reporters and technicians were already at the airport, ready to head to Trump's rally at an evangelical church in Miami. Then they were called back to Mar-a-Lago. Many viewers noticed that the live shot of Trump's address -- carried by all the major networks -- was blurry and choppy at times, and that's because the crews had so little time to set up the transmission. It would have been in the White House's interest to give some advanced notice. These little details raise questions about the big-picture strategy that's unfolding...
No press briefings on Friday
Also of note: The White House and the Pentagon did not hold any on-camera briefings after the strike. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did speak on Fox and CNN, and national security adviser Robert O'Brien did have a briefing call, but the typical forums for transparency and accountability went unused.
--> IAVA founder Paul Rieckhoff's reaction: "This is a terrible, outrageous and unprecedented way of freezing out the press & keeping information from the American people. And from the families of our troops. It's been the same @DeptofDefense posture throughout Trump's presidency. We all deserve the truth. Especially now."
Fox's differing views are fascinating
@Acyn tweeted what I was thinking: "It's really interesting how Fox News has competing interests, with Tucker Carlson devoting his show to remind Trump that he campaigned on getting out of endless wars and the inevitable Hannity episode tonight that will cheer his military strikes on." True -- Sean Hannity's 9pm show had a very different tone than Carlson's show at 8...
Some of Tucker's Qs
Here are three that he brought up on Friday night: "Is Iran really the greatest threat we face? Who's actually benefiting from this? Why are we continuing to ignore the decline of our own country in favor of jumping into another quagmire from which there is no obvious exit?"
Carlson added, "Nobody is thinking like that right now. Instead, chest-beaters like Sen. Ben Sasse are making the usual war-like noises, the noises they always make."
The Daily Beast's Maxwell Tani wrote, "Carlson largely avoided criticizing Trump directly. But he singled out many of the administration's current and former national security hawks, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser John Bolton..."
I'd like to see Carlson debate Dobbs
"Even now, I'm not sure we have fully grasped the impact of systematic, all-out propaganda like this," The Hill's W.H. columnist Niall Stanage tweeted. What was he talking about? Lou Dobbs' propaganda hour on Fox Business. In this clip that's going viral, Dobbs said, "He's already set a standard... for presidents that most mortals won't be able to meet. He out-works them, he out-thinks, he is remarkably resourceful, he's bright, his judgment is second to none." Dobbs' banner said "TRUMP SECURES ANOTHER MIDDLE EAST VICTORY." Contrast that to one of Carlson's banners an hour later on Fox News: "HOW WILL A NEW CONFLICT MAKE US MORE SECURE?"
Notes and quotes
-- The Atlantic's Peter Nicholas: "By virtue of his own repeated misstatements and distortions, Trump arrives at this perilous moment at a decided disadvantage: He can't assume people will accept what he says as true, because millions have concluded it never is."
-- A must-read from WaPo's David Ignatius: "War with Iran has been coming at us in slow motion since 1979. Now, ominously, it's really here, but we don't seem any better at deflecting revolutionary Iran from its destructive course than we were at the beginning."
-- NBC's Richard Engel tweeted: "This is not a moment for patriotic chest thumping or war drum beating from the media. We know where that's gotten us in the past. This will be delicate -- and this administration has struggled with subtle."
FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO
-- WaPo's "how Trump decided to kill a top Iranian general" story includes this: "Trump was also motivated to act by what he felt was negative coverage after his 2019 decision to call off the airstrike after Iran downed the U.S. surveillance drone, officials said. Trump was also frustrated that the details of his internal deliberations had leaked out and felt he looked weak..." (WaPo)
-- "The Kremlin and its state-run media are none too happy" with Trump's decision, Julia Davis reports... (Beast)
-- Read Bridget Read on what it's like to consume news about a "world historical event" through a Twitter feed that flattens everything... (The Cut)
-- All of this is happening, MSNBC's Chris Hayes says, "in the context of the administration and a president that has been documented ad nauseam every day to lie about everything all the time, even the stupidest, most trivial things. It was not even a month ago the president was impeached..." (Mediaite)
Trump's challenge summed up in 25 words | | This comes from Abigail Tracy's latest for VF, with one with added by yours truly: With "cuts at State, demoralized intelligence agencies, vulnerable embassies, and a reputation for untruth, Trump faces significant doubt on the home front for his foray abroad."
How about a warning label?
I used to think that news coverage of wars should come with a warning label – like a sticker that says "governments often lie during wartime." I guess I still do think so. This column by Reason mag's Matt Welch hit the nail on the proverbial head: "The truth, which literally hurts, is that every administration lies about war, particularly (though not only) about its reasons for initiating deadly force," he wrote, citing the Afghanistan Papers project as a recent proof point. Welch argues that "we enable the machinery of our own bamboozlement with our often partisan-based trust in the protectors of the flag."
And he flicks at the media's role in perpetuating the lies. "So no, don't trust Donald Trump," he writes. "Or Mike Pompeo. Or Mitch McConnell. And for God's sake please don't trust David Frum or Matthew Yglesias or Matt Welch either."
Lowry's take
Brian Lowry emails: There has been a lot of "wag the dog" and "war as a distraction" talk since the action in Iran. But whether or not you give any credence to that assertion, simply in terms of the available shelf space on cable news over the last 24 hours, that's been the net effect, pushing other stories off the stage...
"He is surrounded by the best people..."
If you want a good laugh or a good cry, read humorist Alexandra Petri's latest column for WaPo, titled "Whatever happens with Iran, I'm confident Donald Trump can get us through it:"
"He is surrounded by the best people, people who would tell him if something he had done or was about to do was a bad idea. He does not randomly turn on the TV and implement whatever the blondest man suggests. He is the president of the United States, with access to maximum information, and that is what he uses to guide him."
WEEKEND PLANNER
-- Mike Pompeo will be on "State of the Union" and the other major Sunday shows...
-- A solidarity march against anti-Semitism will take place in NYC on Sunday...
-- The Golden Globes will air live on NBC at 8pm ET Sunday... Keep scrolling for a preview...
This Sunday on "Reliable Sources"
Kim Ghattas will join me from Beirut, Jasmine El-Gamal from Istanbul, and Jason Rezaian from L.A. Plus: David Frum, Katie Rogers, Sam Donaldson, and the aforementioned Paul Rieckhoff. NYMag's Irin Carmon will also join me to preview her new feature – she talked with 21 of Harvey Weinstein's accusers ahead of Monday's trial start date. And Bari Weiss will join me from the anti-Semitism march. See you Sunday at 11am ET on CNN...
FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE
-- Candidates who haven't made the cut for the next Dem debate "are getting angry about relying on the results of public polling — when no polls that count have been released since the last debate, on Dec. 19." The DNC's response, basically, is to urge pollsters to do more polls, Reid J. Epstein reports... (NYT)
-- Mike Allen writes: "The media rarely treats" Bernie Sanders "with the seriousness warranted by his sustained popularity and fundraising..." (Axios)
-- Matthew Dallek in a new piece for WaPo's Outlook section: "Trump's conspiracy-based capture of the GOP has less to do with him and his perspective than with a party that sought and often won the support of people who believe those notions..." (WaPo)
The Hill's owner has shopped publication to buyers
Oliver Darcy emails: Jimmy Finkelstein, the owner of The Hill newspaper, has shopped the publication to potential buyers or investors, Politico's Daniel Lippman and Tina Nguyen reported on Friday. One of the people approached, Politico reported, was James Murdoch. Two people told Politico the asking price was $100 million, while another person said Finkelstein was hoping to get up to $300 million.
Two sources confirmed to me that Finkelstein indeed had shopped the publication in recent months, but in a statement provided to me through a spokesperson, Finkelstein said, "It is absolutely not true. It is not for sale."
>> Background reading: Stelter and I wrote back in November about Finkelstein and how he resides at the nexus of Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and John Solomon...
BuzzFeed's 2020
Kerry Flynn writes: BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti shared a memo Friday on the state of its business and its strategy for the future. He also spoke to the WSJ's Lukas Alpert. Reminder: BuzzFeed laid off more than 200 people last year. The highlights:
-- WSJ reports that BuzzFeed's 2019 revenue was $320 million, up about 7% from 2018...
-- Revenue breakdown: Native 30%, 22% Media, 21% Platform, 21% Commerce, 6% Studio. (Native made up 60% in 2017.)
-- The company ended 2019 "slightly unprofitable," but Peretti told WSJ he expects profitability this year...
-- It tried and failed to acquire Meetup from We Co (WeWork). Peretti said he hopes to "create a membership model, with an eye on creating niche social communities..."
-- Union contract negotiations are expected to start later this month...
FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR
By Kerry Flynn:
-- Four daily newspapers in Maine are discontinuing their Monday print editions to preserve newsroom jobs, according to Masthead Maine CEO Lisa DeSisto... (Portland Press Herald)
-- Shira Ovide is joining NYT later this month to start a new tech newsletter. She's been a tech columnist for Bloomberg Opinion since 2015... (NYT)
-- Pete Pachal, who I worked with at Mashable, is joining CoinDesk as executive editor, operations and strategy... (Twitter)
An all-female control room
Katie Pellico writes: Friday's episode of MSNBC's "Velshi & Ruhle" was a special one. Show EP Christina Ginn tweeted that, for the first time in her "20 years in this business," the control room was staffed entirely by women. "Beyond proud to work with these badass women," she wrote. Ali Velshi added, "Proud that this is the team that put our show to air today." | | Golden Globes: A whiff of desperation?
Brian Lowry writes: Ricky Gervais will be back to host the Golden Globes on Sunday, for the fifth time overall, and the first since 2016. Yet NBC's promos about how unpredictable the show will be -- based on the comic's tart jokes at the expense of the black-tie crowd -- give the game away, and betray a whiff of desperation around award shows in general, as they look for any way to stand out from the crowd amid a glut of such presentations and declining ratings for them...
The NFL still dominates TV
Frank Pallotta writes: As Brian Lowry pointed out in last night's newsletter, the NFL dominated TV again. Hey, remember all the stories about its ratings woes two years ago?
So -- in the 2019 season -- the league attracted 16.5 million viewers, a 5% jump from 2018. Here's a stat that explains just how much the NFL dominates TV: The league accounted for 47 of the top 50 most-watched shows this season, including the entire top 10. Why? Well, it's because the NFL is more than just a game, according to a former CBS Sports VP of programming, Jay Rosenstein: "I think the NFL has a mythology now that transcends simply just watching games on television. There's so many other elements that have an impact on viewership like fantasy football and to a limited extent, legalized gambling."
Speaking of dominating performances in 2019...
Disney dominates the box office again
Frank Pallotta writes: Stop me if you've heard this one before... Disney dominated the box office.
The global box office made over $41 billion in 2019. The domestic box office made roughly $11.3 billion. That's the third highest-grossing year ever, but was a 4% decline from 2018's record year. As for Disney, it had an unprecedented 2019. Thanks to hits like "Avengers: Endgame" and "Frozen 2," the company made over $11.1 billion worldwide last year...
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