| | | | | The conservative media crack-up | | Every day brings new examples of the earthquake within conservative media ranks. We knew about some of the fault lines before Donald Trump ran for president. But now we're all feeling the shaking. Yesterday it happened on Rush Limbaugh's radio show. "I never took him seriously on this!" Limbaugh said when confronted by a caller about Trump's shift on deportations. "10 million people did," the caller said. Conor Friedersdorf says this back-and-forth is "the quintessential illustration" of how Limbaugh betrayed his listeners.
Today the crack-up was evident on Sean Hannity's show. He named names: "You own Hillary Clinton. National Review, you own it. Glenn Beck, you own it. Ted Cruz, you own it... She wins, I'm blaming all of you." Oliver Darcy, who's been doing great work documenting the intramural spats, says Hannity's tirade is "likely to deepen an already-existing rift inside the conservative news media. Hannity, Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, and the website Breitbart have found themselves at odds with Beck and more traditional conservative news outlets over their support for Trump." Read more...
-- Early programming note: Glenn Beck will be on this Sunday's "Reliable Sources..."
-- Bill Kristol tweets: "Hannity has become Lady Macbeth: Gradually becoming more unhinged as the man in whom he believes falters..."
-- Two good reasons: Nicole Hemmer's "How Conservative Media Learned to Play Politics" and Noah Rothman's "Conservatism Unbound" | | | "It's time to leave the cocoon" | | More along these same lines: This afternoon NRO's David French declared that Fox News is "killing the conservative movement." Check out his essay here, it is outstanding.
A highlight: "The conservative movement is a victim of Fox's success. The network is so strong that conservatives who ignore it risk obscurity and irrelevance, even as it remains far too weak to truly transform the landscape... It will be up to conservative leaders to wean themselves off the cheap high... Appearing on Fox can create an alluring but illusory fame, and in seeking it above all else, some of our best minds inadvertently limit their own influence. I don't resent Fox's existence, but I lament its effect on our movement. It's time to leave the cocoon."
-- Kevin Drum's response in Mother Jones: "All this is true. And yet, ever since the Limbaugh/Gingrich/Ailes revolution of the 90s, conservatives have been immensely successful at literally every level of government other than the presidency..." | | | Trump beat reporters, pack your passports | | Is this Steve Bannon's idea? Less than two hours after Robert Costa and Karen DeYoung broke the news that Trump was "considering" a Wednesday trip to Mexico City, Trump himself confirmed it on Twitter: "I have accepted the invitation of President Enrique Pena Nieto, of Mexico, and look very much forward to meeting him tomorrow..." | | | Gabe Sherman working on a NYMag feature about Ailes | | | New York mag's Gabriel Sherman has been posting many of his scoops about Roger Ailes and Fox straight to Twitter. But he has also been working on a big end-of-the-summer story about the scandal for the magazine. I'm told the piece is now being fact-checked, and it is set to appear in the next print edition... | | | Now, with that in mind, check this out... | | "In what seemed timed as a preemptive strike, two of Ailes's attorneys" blasted Sherman today, according to The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove.
Susan Estrich emailed Grove this statement out of the blue: "This is Gabe Sherman's last stand, and it falls flat." (This is apparently a reference to Sherman's coverage of Andrea Tantaros.) "Sherman has made clear that nothing will stand in the way of his vendetta against Roger Ailes, and he will use any woman he can find—no matter how clearly and deeply troubled she is—to try to concoct allegations against Mr. Ailes." (That's a reference to both Laurie Luhn and Tantaros.) "But Gabe is running out of women he can use and abuse. Ultimately, it will be clear that the real enemy of women is Gabe Sherman." | | | Mark Mukasey, "helping" Ailes, calls Sherman a "virus" | | According to Grove, "Mark Mukasey, a top litigator in the well-connected New York firm Greenberg, Traurig," is now also working with Ailes. "Mukasey, the son of former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey," emailed Grove to offer up comments for today's story. He told Grove "he began helping Ailes in mid-July, as Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit was making headlines, 'as a personal friend and counselor to the family.'"
Mukasey's quote: "Gabe Sherman is a virus, and is too small to exist on his own, and has obviously attached himself to the Ailes family to try to suck the life out of them... Roger is fine and doing well, and is not going to allow a virus like that to poison the atmosphere."
Pay attention to the reference to "the Ailes family..."
And to Mukasey's comment that Roger Ailes "is not going to allow" this... | | | To answer your next question... | | | No, I don't know exactly when Sherman's story will be posted on NYMag.com. Sometime between Friday and Monday... | | | Reaction to the viciousness from Ailes' attorneys | | -- Jacob Weisberg (who will be on Sunday's "Reliable Sources") tweets: "Sherman single-handedly exposed both Ailes and the endemic culture of sexual harassment at FNC. That's not obsession. It's great journalism..."
-- Josh Barro: "Such a hilarious Streisand effect case, how these outlandish attacks on Sherman will draw more attention to his latest Ailes story..." | | | No more Tribune in Tribune Tower | | Tribune Media (the TV station half of the old Tribune) is selling the iconic Tribune Tower to the L.A.-based developer CIM Group for ~$240 million.
TribCo has been shedding its real estate assets all year long. Now the company "is planning to move out of its namesake building, but will remain in Chicago," the Chicago Tribune reports.
The newspaper half of Tribune, now a separate company called Tronc, has a lease for space in the tower through 2018. A spokeswoman says there are "no immediate plans to leave early..." | | | Farewell party for Arianna | | Arianna Huffington's final day as editor in chief of HuffPost is this Thursday. Tim Armstrong feted her tonight with a farewell party at Catch in NYC -- a real party, a "premium open bar party," according to an attendee -- where staffers snapped selfies with the outgoing editor.
During his toast, Armstrong asked the room, "How many of you have had sex in the nap rooms? Be honest!" He said "this is a safe space" and the crowd roared. Armstrong gave Huffington a mural of the lunar cycles and talked about sleep...
-- The spy says "it was truly a celebration of Arianna... Say what you want, she changed the game..."
-- Speaking of that: Erik Wemple just published this look at one of Huffington's many legacies: editorial conflicts of interest... (HuffPost) | | | Fellow journo nerds, here's the best story you'll read today | | | CJR's David Uberti introduces you to Suzanne Ashe, the woman who writes, edits, formats, and delivers the biweekly Skagway News in Skagway, an Alaskan town with fewer than 1,000 full-time residents. She even lives right beside the newsroom. This story is so much fun to read. It'll have you wanting to move to Skagway and intern for her... | | -- Peter Kafka has penned the perfect letter to Mark Zuckerberg. "Yes, Facebook is a media company..." (Recode)
-- BI's Ben Gilbert wrote about this today too, quoting me and Margaret Sullivan... (BI)
-- Tonight Megyn Kelly humorously reacted to yesterday's totally fake Facebook "trend" about her... (Mediaite)
-- "Mariana Atencio, an anchor and correspondent at Univision and Fusion, will join MSNBC as a Miami-based correspondent..." (TVNewser)
-- "A K-9 officer with the Norfolk Police Department has been named for CNN's Anderson Cooper..." (WAVY) | | | August #'s: MSNBC gaining ground | | The Nielsen month is over, and "while Fox News finished No. 1 among all of cable news networks for August, MSNBC gained significantly on CNN to claim second place in major audience categories," TheWrap's Brian Flood reports.
It is clear that MSNBC has had a resurgence in recent months, driven by election coverage by Matthews, Hayes, Maddow, O'Donnell in prime time. Who's #2 depends on how you count the numbers. Looking at prime time seven days a week, including weekend evenings, CNN is #2 for the month, with 274,000 in the 25-54 demo versus MSNBC's 269,000.
But if you slice it another way, prime time Monday through Friday, MSNBC is #2, with 320,000 in the demo versus CNN's 312,000. (In total viewers, MS wins both ways, but the bosses care about the demo.) In today's press release, MS called this its "first across-the-board win over CNN in over two years."
Meantime, Fox's #1 status is unchallenged. The demo gap between Fox and the other two channels is much closer than it was a year ago, though. Here's more analysis via TheWrap and THR...
-- THR: Rachel Maddow "saw her best month since November 2012..." | | | Obama guest-editing Wired | | "What else can you possibly add to your resume after serving as POTUS? Magazine editor, apparently," CNNMoney's Seth Fiegerman writes. "President Obama will guest edit the November issue of Wired, which the magazine is touting as the first time a magazine has been edited by a sitting president..."
The issue is all about "the next hurdles that humanity will need to overcome to move forward..." A fitting subject as Obama wraps up his presidency...
-- Remember, FLOTUS guest-edited an issue of More magazine last year... | | | Ingraham to Trump: "You do need to practice" | | | Laura Ingraham's message for Trump via Greta Van Susteren's show tonight: "Even Reagan had to practice… You have to do it… You do need to practice." Van Susteren did not ask about the WashPost report that Ingraham has been at Trump's debate meetings... | | | Trump's "Art of the Deal" co-author helping Clinton | | | Gloria Borger confirmed this intriguing bit of intel from the NYT: "In compiling research to help" Hillary Clinton prepare for the debates, "her advisers have cast a wide net. They contacted Tony Schwartz, the 'Art of the Deal' co-author, to give them advice about Mr. Trump this summer..." Because Schwartz "had observed Mr. Trump up close..." | | | No Trump "blacklist" for pool duty | | Dylan Byers reports: Four of the news outlets that Trump has blacklisted from covering his campaign events -- The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico and Huffington Post -- are all listed on the September rotation for a new print press pool that will cover Trump.
"We are pleased to announce that after some start-and-stop negotiations with the Trump campaign, we are debuting our full print pool this week, starting with BuzzFeed today in Washington," read an email to the pool, first obtained by Politico... | | | It's official, Rick Perry will be a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" this fall. Kyle Blaine said it best: "Trump leaves reality TV for presidential politics. Perry leaves presidential politics for TV. Beautiful symmetry..." | | "It's easy to terrorize... You can make some noise... Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn't cover it quite as much. People wouldn't know what's going on." --Secretary of State John Kerry, discussing terrorism in Bangladesh on Monday. There was applause when he said it. Now, however, there's a lot of outrage on right-wing web sites... | | Chloe Melas emails: Chris Brown was arrested by the LAPD this afternoon on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. Officers responded to a call early this morning and Brown refused them entry into his Tarzana, CA home. Brown took to Instagram while inside his home and slammed the police and said he was being targeted because he's a black man. Police eventually obtained a search warrant several hours later and entered his home. He was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Story developing... Here's our main write... -- NBC's Josh Mankiewicz tweets: "We just killed the #2 guy in ISIS and the #1 topic trending on Twitter is Chris Brown..." | | Brian Lowry sums up his latest must-read:
"Star Trek" hits 50 next month, which should make everyone who watched it on NBC -- or even discovered it after its cancellation in syndication -- feel old. But the franchise's most enduring aspect might be the manner in which its passionate fan base established a template that has been adopted by other "pop-culture obsessives," as the WSJ recently put it. Those fans, moreover, have a strong sense of ownership over the property, a source of tension through the years for those who make and seek to profit from the series. That's one more thing to consider as CBS prepares to launch the next incarnation, "Star Trek: Discovery," to inaugurate its CBS All Access service next year. Read more... | | -- Nick Viall is the next "Bachelor..." (EW)
-- Flagged by Brian Lowry: Critics risk sounding fusty when they gripe about sequels and remakes. But the LATimes' Justin Chang made a pretty compelling case about what has been disappointing about this summer creatively speaking... (LATimes)
-- As mentioned up above: Miss the Olympics? You can still watch a pair of Olympians (and others) compete on the new season of "Dancing With the Stars..."
-- Variety's Elizabeth Wagmeister scoops: Kerry Washington "is on board to executive produce 'Patrol,' a workplace drama" in development for ABC "about four female LAPD officers..." (Variety)
-- Via Lisa France: Barbra Streisand had a few things to say recently on fame, power and the need for good girlfriends when she sat down with HLN's Michaela Pereira... | | | What do you like about today's newsletter -- and what do you think we should improve? Email your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We'll be back tomorrow... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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