| | | | | Geraldo says he is "filled with regret" | | "The man we knew as the blustering genius who invented our mighty Fox News Channel is a deceitful, selfish misogynist, if the charges against him are true. And if they are true, then his shame and banishment are well earned."
That's what Geraldo Rivera just said in a stunning Facebook post about his longtime friend and boss Roger Ailes. "Like virtually all my colleagues at Fox News, I was totally blindsided by his sexual harassment scandal," Rivera said, in an attempt to explain why he responded to Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit with "extreme skepticism."
Now he says he is "filled with regret." He is apologizing for his "skepticism." And to Gabriel Sherman, too. His Facebook post is really a must read... | | | Murdoch refusing to publish Rivera's book? | | Via FB, Rivera also revealed that another part of Rupert Murdoch's empire, HarperCollins, has snubbed his next book. He writes: "I learned Tuesday September 6th that after being enthusiastically received, because of my uninformed support of Mr. Ailes, and the relatively flattering portrayal of him in an early manuscript of my war memoir, 'Geraldo of Arabia, From Tora Bora to Trump,' as a direct result, HarperCollins has chosen not to publish."
-- No comment from the publisher at this late hour. I, for one, would like to read Rivera's book...
-- Earlier today, the NYT published this comprehensive list of which Fox hosts supported Ailes + what they said back in July...
-- Q: Will other Fox hosts make statements similar to Geraldo's?
Keep scrolling for more news from Fox... Including Greta's sharpest words yet... | | | Larry King interviews Trump... on a Russian-owned network | | On Wednesday Donald Trump gave an interview to Russia Today. On Thursday night it was released -- and the campaign said it had no idea the interview would end up on Russia Today.
Backstory: Trump and Larry King go way back -- they've known each other for decades. King has been lobbying Trump for an interview for many months. Trump finally said yes. King taped the phone call for his show "Politicking," which is carried by RT America, the U.S. arm of Russia Today. In the interview, CNN's Theodore Schleifer reports, Trump said Russia was "probably" not meddling in the presidential race.
After the interview was shown on RT America and shared on YouTube, Trump spox Jason Miller told Schleifer that "the interview was recorded as a podcast and was a favor to King, adding, 'Mr. Trump was never told it would be shared anywhere else.'"
While Trump was only on the phone for the interview, King was on camera in his usual studio. (You can see it here.) Strangely, at the ten-minute mark, King asked about Mexican immigrants and Trump went silent. Did the phone line get disconnected? King said it didn't... But it's unclear what happened...
-- Mediaite's Josh Feldman weighs in: "I dunno what's funnier: doing an interview w Russia-backed outlet or doing it by accident..." | | | Trump bashes media's "tremendous dishonesty" | | Transcript from RT America:
KING: What surprised you the most about running for office?
TRUMP: Well, I think the dishonesty of the media. The media has been unbelievably dishonest. I mean, they'll take a statement that you make, which is perfect, and they'll cut it up and chop it up and shorten it or lengthen it, or do something with it, then all of a sudden, it doesn't look like as good as it did when you actually said it. But there's tremendous dishonesty... | | The uproar over Matt Lauer's moderating at the "Commander-in-Chief Forum" isn't just about Lauer. It's about a gnawing, growing frustration with media coverage of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Multiple frustrations actually. This campaign has got people questioning the basics of reporting and interviewing. The very concepts of "fairness" and "objectivity." How much time should be spent on a controversy over emails? When should a moderator intervene when a candidate says something false? What constitutes "balance" in this election cycle? Are all lies equally egregious?
Partisans are trading barbs about Wednesday night's broadcast. Try to look past that. Ponder this: What's best for the audience? What should journalists do to help viewers and readers at home? | | | Disappointment inside NBC | | NBC News staffers know that much -- not all, but much -- of the criticism of Lauer was justified. As soon as the forum ended, I started hearing from sources who were disappointed and frustrated by what went down. One NBC exec, speaking anonymously, said it was a "disaster." Even Lauer's internal defenders who disagreed with that description acknowledged flaws in the forum's production.
TV is a team sport, after all, so the blame is shared with the producers of the broadcast. Veteran special events producer Mark Lukasiewicz was the E.P. and newsroom chief Andy Lack was intimately involved. Here's my full story...
-- Hmmm: CBS and ABC's nightly newscasts led with the Trump-Clinton war of words provoked by the forum. NBC led with the Wells Fargo news instead...
-- "Is Matt Lauer a Trump supporter?" was the #1 trending search about Trump on Google after the forum...
-- And "Lauering the bar" was a trending hashtag on Twitter today... | | | The ratings were higher than expected | | | Nearly 15 million viewers tuned into NBC and MSNBC, combined, for the forum. Internally, the predictions had been closer to 10 million... | | | Poniewozik's killer review | | | This James Poniewozik review of the forum was emailed and shared and repeated 1,000s of times in TV newsrooms today. Poniewozik said Lauer seemed "unprepared" on specifics of military and foreign policy: "He performed like a soldier sent on a mission without ammunition, beginning with a disorganized offensive, ending in a humiliating retreat." Read the rest here... | | | Scroll down for much more on this... including Dylan's look at what the outcry means for the debate moderators... | | | AP deletes tweet! And revises Twitter rules | | "BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation."
This August tweet by the Associated Press was inaccurate. It was connected to a much more thorough, nuanced story about the foundation. But the standalone tweet invited criticism -- which we covered on "Reliable Sources" a couple of weeks ago. The news org's top editor, Kathleen Carroll, admitted the tweet was "sloppy" but said the AP would not take it down.
But today the AP did delete it-- after "concluding the tweet fell short of AP standards by omitting essential context." That's what VP for standards John Daniszewski said. He also said "we are revising our practices to require removal and correction of any AP tweets found not to meet AP standards, including tweets that contain information that is incorrect, misleading, unclear or could be interpreted as unfair, or having a problem in tone." Politico's Hadas Gold has a full story about today's clean-up here... | | -- Chelsea Clinton will be on "The View" on Friday... ABC says it's her "first national television appearance since returning to the campaign trail with her mother..."
-- Melissa Harris-Perry is writing for The Undefeated... Here's her first piece... (The Undefeated)
-- NY1 and the NYPost are suing NYC mayor Bill de Blasio to obtain emails... Here's what's going on... (WSJ)
-- BTW: Happy birthday NY1! The channel celebrated its 24th birthday today... | | | Greta wants Fox to have "decency" | | | Greta Van Susteren is asking Fox News to have the "fundamental decency" to "return photos and videos that she says were taken down without her permission," The Hill's Nikita Vladimirov reports. Much of the content Greta posted to her blog, GretaWire, was personal, "from events that were not paid for" by Fox, taken with her own cameras. So she wants the photos back. Fox deleted her blog right after announcing her exit from the network on Tuesday... | | | Sherman speaks at Columbia | | Gabriel Sherman was uptown at Columbia's J School on Thursday night, speaking with Bill Grueskin, and David Uberti tweeted some of the highlights -->
-- "On the prospect of shareholder suit at 21CF: Clearly possible. At least one shareholder litigation firm is investigating..."
-- "On the one question he could ask Roger Ailes were he in the room: 'What are your regrets?'"
Read Uberti's full recap of the event here... | | | Now back to Lauer-gate... | | | IAVA wanted "tougher questions" | | Even some of the vets in the audience came away disappointed by the questions and answers at NBC's forum. "We expected a serious discussion. We left disappointed," said author Dave Cullen.
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which deserves a lot of credit for organizing the event along with NBC, wanted more questions to be asked by the vets in the audience -- "and much tougher questions," another attendee told me... | | | Who else could have moderated? | | | Lester Holt might have been in charge of Wednesday's event, but he was ruled out once the Commission on Presidential Debates tapped him to moderate the 9/26 debate. I'm told that Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell and Rachel Maddow's names all came up during the planning process. Andy Lack went with Lauer, and both campaigns supported the choice. (Let's be honest: the Trump campaign almost certainly would have objected to Maddow...) | | | Now the Clinton campaign is using Lauer to raise money | | | Dylan Byers emails: In an email to supporters Thursday, the Clinton campaign faulted Lauer, saying he "failed to fact check" Trump. It also chastised "many outlets in the press" for lacking "the wherewithal" to call Trump out. Read more here... | | | Now there's even more pressure on Lester Holt... | | The fallout from Wednesday's forum with Clinton and Trump "has drastically upped the ante for this cycle's presidential debate moderators," Dylan Byers reports.
"No question that this puts more pressure on NBC's Lester Holt," says GOP strategist Alex Conant. Holt will "be more likely to insist that Trump justify some of his more outrageous comments and claims," Obama's former chief strategist David Axelrod says.
On the other hand, National Review's Rich Lowry says "the criticism of Lauer is a transparent effort to work the refs prior to the debates." Read Dylan's story here... | | | What Clintonworld is reading right now | | | This WashPost editorial: "The Hillary Clinton email story is out of control." It says Clinton is "hardly blameless" but the story "has vastly exceeded the boundaries of the facts..." | | | On Thursday morning Gary Johnson did not know what MSNBC's Mike Barnicle was talking about when Barnicle asked, "What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo?" I have nothing to add to today's coverage of the gaffe to end all gaffes. Barnicle's follow-up column is excellent. But lemme say this: If Trump can be accused of watching too much cable news, consuming too much media, Johnson clearly hasn't been watching and reading enough... | | | Clinton unfazed at press conference | | Clinton and Trump are suddenly competing for the affections of the news media! On the same day Trump lifted his "blacklist" of the WashPost and other news outlets, Clinton stood behind a podium and took Q's from reporters on live TV. Dylan Byers says it was "her first formal press conference in more than nine months." She also fielded Q's twice earlier this week while on board her plane...
Q: So when will Trump hold another formal presser? | | | A more diverse, but more siloed, TV landscape | | Brian Lowry emails: The movie industry continues to be pilloried for a lack of diversity — including in a USC study issued this week — while TV has fared much better, with fully a quarter of this year's Emmy acting nominations going to people of color. But the growth in opportunities for minorities in TV has come at an interesting time, as the explosion of original-programming options creates a narrower, more siloed entertainment environment.
The success of "Empire," in other words, is an exception to the rule. Read Brian's full column here... It made me think differently about the state of the TV biz... | | -- Katy Perry weeped during a televised surprise for a Pulse nightclub survivor on "Ellen," Chloe Melas reports...
-- Kanye's NYC fashion show got some blistering reviews, Lisa France reports. The term "hot mess" was used more than once...
-- Joe Manganiello will play Deathstroke in the upcoming Batman film, Sandra Gonzalez reports...
-- More from Lisa: Iman had lived quietly since the death of husband David Bowie in January. But New York Fashion Week -- and good friend Tom Ford -- gave her a reason to return to public life... | | | Sunday on "Reliable Sources:" Aaron Brown | | | A few hours ago I taped an interview with Aaron Brown, the anchorman who led CNN's coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from the rooftop of the the network's old NYC bureau. There's so much from the interview that I want to share with you. Look for it on Sunday's "Reliable Sources..." I'll write up a companion story for CNNMoney.com this weekend, as well... | | | 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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