| | | | | Tonight's letter is arriving usually late -- my apologies -- but it's because this was a busy media news day. Let's start with the day's many Fox News developments: | | | Shades of the phone hacking scandal | | Ten years ago, the News Corp. phone hacking scandal in London was just beginning to snowball. Now the Murdochs are facing a different sort of scandal here in New York. The questions about Roger Ailes' tenure at Fox News are piling up even though he resigned nearly three weeks ago. Who else knew about the harassment claims and Ailes' creepy behavior and unusual payments to "consultants?"
There were half a dozen new developments on Monday: | | | Tantaros alleges harassment | | Andrea Tantaros, the 12pm hour co-host who was benched by Fox News execs in April, now says through a lawyer that she was repeatedly harassed by Ailes.
Her attorney Judd Burstein -- the same attorney who represented ex-PR chief/Ailes confidante Brian Lewis -- told Gabriel Sherman that Ailes' harassment began in 2014, and that Tantaros rebuffed him. He said he believes Ailes retaliated against her. In a followup interview with me, Burstein said he's speaking out now to "vindicate" his client, who has been the subject of repeated rumors about her sudden disappearance from Fox.
Here's the key detail: Burstein charges that Tantaros went to Ailes' #2, Bill Shine, with a formal complaint about Ailes' harassment in April 2015, and that she followed up later. Burstein says the complaints were essentially ignored.
Shine has been by Rupert Murdoch's side throughout the transition period. He is seen as the internal favorite to become the channel's next CEO. But there's been a drip, drip, drip of questions about Shine's knowledge of allegations against Ailes. How could the Murdochs possibly promote him if it is confirmed that Tantaros -- or any other Fox employee -- came to him and tried to blow the whistle about harassment?
Late Monday, through an FNC spokesperson, Shine said, "Andrea never made any complaints to me about Roger Ailes sexually harassing her." I'll have more about this on CNNMoney on Tuesday... | | | In a letter, Tantaros said four other men at Fox News acted inappropriately | | A "source with direct knowledge of the legal proceedings" (sorry -- I tried to get the person on the record -- they refused) is telling a very different story than Burstein. According to the source, Tantaros had a different lawyer send a letter to Fox in March that claimed "certain males had sexually harassed her," but never invoked Ailes' name.
BuzzFeed's Kyle Blaine got ahold of the letter: "Tantaros through her lawyer accused by name four Fox News male personalities — two on-air contributors, a correspondent, and a host — of inappropriate behavior." | | | Carlson settlement talks underway | | Meanwhile, Sarah Ellison dropped this big scoop at 8:30pm: "21st Century Fox has begun discussing a settlement in the Gretchen Carlson lawsuit against Ailes, according to two people familiar with the negotiations. The company is requesting that Ailes, who has denied all Carlson's allegations, fund at least a portion of the settlement, which is expected to reach eight figures, these people said."
Why settle? So that the public never hears what's on the tapes. Yes, tapes. Ellison: "At issue in the settlement talks is the existence of audio tapes recorded by multiple women in conversation with Ailes, two people familiar with the tapes said..." | | | "Arguably" worse than phone hacking | | | Carlson's suit staying in NJ | | NYT's John Koblin has more on the Carlson suit: Lawyers for Ailes "have agreed to keep" Carlson's suit "in New Jersey, according to a court filing on Monday. Mr. Ailes's lawyers had previously tried to move the case out of federal court in NJ and into Manhattan..."
-- If there's not a settlement, here's what comes next: "With the jurisdiction settled, it will be up to the NJ federal court to decide whether the case will go to trial or to arbitration." I'm told the judge in the case will rule in the next month or so... Don't expect a decision right away... | | | Liabilities for 21st Century Fox? | | What about NYMag's description of Ailes using Fox News funds for his own "black ops" investigations? It could pose a serious liability for the Murdochs, Dylan Byers reports in this must read story.
Legal experts tell him that, if Sherman's report is true, such actions could pose shareholder and even legal troubles for 21st Century Fox. "As a general rule it is an actionable breach of the fiduciary duty of loyalty for a corporate executive to use company funds for personal purposes," Cornell prof Lynn Stout says... | | | Why Fox sources have always been so skittish | | Up above, I was talking about phone hacking. Dylan's second story today is a reality check about phone TAPPING, which was a pervasive fear inside Ailes' network. He writes: "Many Fox News hosts, on-air personalities and producers have long feared that Ailes tapped their phones and was monitoring their conversations."
"We all believe our phones are tapped and that we are monitored," one Fox News personality told Dylan, echoing the fears of others who asked not to be quoted. "People definitely felt that the clicks on the line were coming from the inside," said another... | | | A Truth and Reconciliation Commission for workplaces? | | | In this column for The Daily Beast, Shelley Ross recounts how Ailes proposed a "sexual alliance" in 1981 and says "sexual harassment in network (and cable) television has prevailed for decades. It has many faces, genders, and legions of enablers." She proposes: "Fox News should take the lead in a kind of sexual harassment Truth and Reconciliation project. I'll help organize it..." | | | I think those are all of Monday's Ailes updates... | | | This TV segment: not rigged | | | On "CNN Tonight," I picked up where I left off on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," arguing that journalists and interviewers must probe and push back when Donald Trump and his allies talk about the potential for a "rigged election." This is dangerous stuff, not normal political rhetoric. Jeffrey Lord and I got into it... And you can see for yourself here... | | | Clinton putting Trump on the defensive about debates | | Hillary Clinton is issuing a challenge to Donald Trump: I'm ready to debate. Are you? On Monday night, seemingly out of the blue, Clinton campaign chair John Podesta released a statement saying that Clinton "will accept" invites to all three debates, and "the only issue now is whether Donald Trump is going to show up."
The statement wasn't a response to any new remark by Trump or any official invitation by the Commission on Presidential Debates. In fact, the invites haven't gone out yet. So what caused it? The Clinton campaign had no further comment. Politico's Hadas Gold says she has a story on this subject coming out Tuesday morning, so maybe that'll clear things up. In the meantime, here's my story... | | | Stephens rips into Hannity | | | Will Rupert referee this one? WSJ's Bret Stephens has weighed in on his battle with Fox's Sean Hannity... And it's a doozy... | | | Trump supporters spotting bias in media coverage | | | In case you missed it on Sunday, check out our "Reliable Sources" panel of pro-Trump commentators -- Scottie Nell Hughes, Amy Kremer, Kristin Tate, and John Phillips -- talking about media bias and other campaign coverage issues. Here are the videos: Part 1 and part 2... | | | Pharoah and Killam leaving "SNL" | | Michael Ausiello broke this news just after 10pm: Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah are leaving "SNL" to "pursue other opportunities. Both had been with the show for six seasons..."
-- Killam told Uproxx's Mike Ryan that he doesn't really know what happened. "You sign for seven years, so I had one more year. I had sort of had it in my head I would make this upcoming year my last year, but then heard they weren't going to pick up my contract. I was never given a reason why, really. I can assume until the cows come home. But I do know I'm directing this movie [Why We're Killing Gunther with Arnold Schwarzenegger] and I'll have two months of post-production that would have bled into the 'SNL' production schedule, so we kind of communicated that." Sounds like "SNL" didn't want to share him... | | | No more free version of Hulu | | Hulu has come so far that it has lost its original shape -- you know, as a free ad-supported site for network TV shows. "Hulu is moving to a subscription-only model," Lisa France reports. Users are being notified this week. Hulu's owners will still allow free access to some TV shows... But on an eight-days-after-broadcast basis on a separate web site, a new corner of Yahoo called Yahoo View. Details here...
-- Peter Kafka's hed: "The free TV on the internet experiment died years ago. Now Hulu is burying it." | | -- Really disappointing news: Reported.ly is "suspending its operations" at the end of the month... (Medium)
-- Ron Fournier is heading home to Detroit... (The Atlantic)
-- Alex Weprin spotted this in an SEC filing: News Corp. book publishing revenues were up in Q4, thanks in part to sales of Anderson Cooper's memoir. The company is bullish about Megyn Kelly's book coming this fall...
-- Ben Mullin interviews Josh Topolsky about The Outline... (Poynter)
-- I took my item from last night's letter about The Drudge Report and turned it into a full story. It's about how easily a photo can be distorted, not with Photoshop, but with misleading captions and tweets... (CNN) | | | John Oliver destroys... the destruction of journalism? | | (That hed is a nod to John Oliver's well-documented destructive powers.) On Sunday night Oliver showed how "the media is a food chain which would fall apart without local newspapers." You can watch it here.
Almost unbelievably, the Newspaper Association of America CEO came out with a statement criticizing Oliver's segment, saying "papers need solutions, not petty insults and stating the obvious." The statement was rightly ridiculed. Marty Baron said it "could not be more clueless..."
-- Also: Poynter's Rick Edmonds was interviewed by one of Oliver's researchers in preparation for the segment. Check out his account: "I was interviewed by 'Last Week Tonight.' Here's why the show is journalism..." | | | Dylan Byers emails: After months of high-level departures, Politico has hired Poppy MacDonald, the publisher and president of National Journal, to serve as its president. The news follows a wave of executive departures from the company that began when former CEO Jim VandeHei and other top executives left the company in April... | | | Leslie Jones en route to Rio | | | "Leslie Jones is going from her couch to Copacabana Beach," Frank Pallotta reports. She's been hilariously live-tweeting the Olympics for several days... So NBC Sports is adding the "SNL" cast member as a contributor... She'll be in Rio by Friday... | | | Rio ratings much lower than London | | Okay, the addition of Leslie Jones is the good news. Now here's the bad news:
"Sunday was NBC's third straight prime-time in Rio with lower viewership (29.8 million) than London (36.0 million)," NYT's Rich Sandomir tweets.
While the Sunday #'s were higher than Friday or Saturday, the data still "looked dismal" compared to 2012, Frank writes: "Among viewers aged 18 to 49, NBC averaged a 9.0 rating Sunday. That is lower than all the third nights of the Summer Olympics going back to 2000..." | | | Reality check about the ads | | WSJ dropping knowledge: "So much for all the complaining about commercial overload during the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics. Surprise: The number of advertisements was actually down from the 2012 London Olympics."
As we mentioned in yesterday's letter, NBC thinks shifting viewer expectations -- a/k/a lower tolerance for ads in this time-shifting, binge-watching era -- explain the outsized reaction to the opening ceremony ads... | | | "Senior week" for Gawker staff | | | With Gawker and Hulk Hogan reportedly in settlement talks, again, Tom Kludt took a closer look at what it means for both sides. His story notes that next week's auction of Gawker Media's assets "carries a sense of finality that has not been lost on Nick Denton or his staff. Gawker Media writers have declared the next five days to be 'senior week,' and will celebrate the company's run with special stories and reminiscences. On Wednesday, Denton will host 'a celebration of 14 years of independent journalism' at Gawker's HQ." Check out the full story here... | | | Happy birthday, "The Situation Room" | | | Wolf Blitzer's "The Situation Room" turned 11 years old on Monday! | | -- Tuesday is pub day for Jim Miller's "Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency..." (Amazon)
-- "Core Media Group, the rights-holder of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, has had enough with Simon Fuller and is now attempting to escape its agreements" with him... (THR)
-- What's Amazon's TV pilot strategy? Sandra Gonzalez wrote about Roy Price's remarks at TCA... (CNN)
-- Lisa France sends this along: She says it's best story you will read today: The Muppet band played their first music festival... (CNN) | | | Catch up on Sunday's show | | | 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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