| | | | | Trump staying on friendly media terrain | | | Donald Trump's reputation for being always available to reporters is way out of date. My latest CNNMoney story describes how Trump is saying "yes" to Fox News almost every day but saying "no" to most other major networks and news organizations. This is (I'm just estimating) example #629 of how Trump is not your normal presidential nominee. Rousing the base instead of reaching out to undecided voters may ultimately pay off for Trump. In the meantime, it limits his exposure to hard-hitting questions... | | | A press conference drought | | | The main point I sought to make here: Trump's surrogates continue to say that he is more accessible than Hillary Clinton, but that is no longer true. Today Newt Gingrich knocked Clinton at a Trump rally by saying "she doesn't do press conferences." The crowd booed. But she has taken Q's from reporters at half a dozen press avails in the past two weeks, including as recently as this morning. Trump has not held an equivalent presser since July... | | | Trump/Hannity town hall about "concerns surrounding African-Americans" | | Trump was on "Fox & Friends" this morning, O'Reilly tonight, and he's back on Sean Hannity's show for another town hall on Wednesday. According to TVNewser, this time will focus on "issues and concerns surrounding African-Americans this election cycle."
For the record, according to Nielsen data, only 1.5% of Hannity's 2 million nightly viewers are African American. Overall, at any given time of day, about 2% of Fox News viewers are African American... | | | Trump & Scarborough building bridges | | Dylan Byers' latest scoop: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with Donald Trump at Trump Tower last week in an effort to rekindle their once-rosy relationship. They also discussed doing an interview for "Morning Joe," though nothing was decided or finalized. The meeting, which NBC and the Trump campaign both declined to comment on, comes after a summer of barbs and insults, and weeks after Trump spread a rumor that the two co-hosts were romantically involved. Read all about it here...
-- More to read: Jason Zengerle's excellent GQ profile of Scarborough continued to get social media pick-up today... | | | Obama town hall on CNN next week | | | Today CNN announced a one-hour town hall broadcast with President Obama on September 28, two days after the first Clinton/Trump debate, with an audience "made up of active duty service members, veterans and the military community." Jake Tapper will moderate. CNN will stream it in 360 VR... | | | Comcast begins Netflix beta | | Via Engadget: "It seems odd to hear, but it's real: this week Netflix will start to become available on Comcast cable boxes across the country. Announced a couple of months ago, the partnership is rolling out slowly as a beta test," so right now X1 users can find it in the Comcast Labs section of the interface...
-- Related: Brian Roberts will be demoing the Netflix integration at Goldman Sachs' Communacopia Conference Tuesday morning... 8am sharp... | | | This music data might surprise you... | | | "After almost two decades of relentless decline caused by piracy and falling prices, the music business is enjoying a fragile recovery" thanks to Spotify, Apple Music, etc., Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw reports. He got ahold of a draft midyear report by the RIAA showing that "retail spending on recorded music grew 8.1% to $3.4 billion in the first half of 2016... That means the U.S. industry is on pace to expand for the second straight year -- the first back-to-back growth since 1998-1999..." | | "In the current atmosphere, every terror-motivated crime has come to feel like a dire assault on the homeland, exploding in the news with much more success than the actual bombs involved. Though the fear is understandable, the result has a huge distorting effect on our national psyche and politics."
--Jack Shafer's latest column... | | Will Brian Williams' "11th Hour" continue after Election Day? Here's what E.P. Pat Burkey told Variety's Brian Steinberg: "We are so focused on what we are doing between now and Election Day – some days I feel as if we can barely keep up with that. Whatever comes next, we'll figure out as we go."
-- Ratings update: "In his first two weeks on air, Fox and CNN are winning more of the viewers between 25 and 54," though "Williams is beating CNN in terms of capturing more viewers overall..." | | | Steinberg made a great point here about Williams' comeback after last year's scandal: NBCU "has never corrected the record for 'Nightly News' viewers." And "without a more detailed public disclosure resting in the ether, there's less to hurl back at Williams as he strives anew..." | | | The questions will definitely be about... America | | This afternoon the debate commission announced that Lester Holt has selected the topics for next week, "subject to possible changes because of news developments."
-- America's Direction
-- Achieving Prosperity
-- Securing America
Dylan Byers' reaction: "In other words: Absolutely anything and everything." | | | Fox's friendly interviewers have not pressed Trump on his "birther" flip-flop. Will Holt? If he doesn't, will Clinton bring it up? I'll be talking about this on "CNN Tonight" with Don Lemon at 10:40pm ET... | | | Trump reporters now have a dedicated "chase plane" | | Remember when Trump started his NH speech before the traveling press corps arrived -- and bragged about it -- last week? Well the campaign "has improved logistics for the traveling press following the candidate, putting the journalists in the motorcade and on a dedicated chase plane," Hadas Gold reports. Hope Hicks told her the move had "been in the works for weeks..."
-- New hire: Jessica Ditto is Trump's new deputy communications director... | | | Hillary Clinton taped with Jimmy Fallon on Friday. It'll air tonight... He dons a surgical mask at the start of the conversation... | | -- Trump is again hinting at legal action against the NYT... Sopan Deb transcribed what the candidate said on O'Reilly...
-- Trump also told O'Reilly that Holt is a Democrat... "They're all Democrats," he said, talking about the debate moderators... But "I'll show up..."
-- Matthew Dowd, spot on in this tweet: "The more establishment DC folks, Hollywood types, and celebrities come out against Trump, the better for Trump with many, many voters..." | | -- "ESPN is launching its first bilingual sports news show..." "Nación ESPN" will air once a week on ESPN2... Stephen Battaglio has details here... (LATimes)
-- ICYMI like I did on Friday: "Condé Nast has tapped strategic advisory firm MediaLink to help reorganize the corporation. Sources believe the restructuring could come in early October..." (WWD)
-- Meet Nicholas Quah, "podcasting's up-and-coming publisher of record..." (Politico) | | | Callie Schweitzer joins Thrive | | Tom Kludt emails: The last few weeks have provided a clearer picture of Arianna Huffington's forthcoming corporate wellness venture, Thrive Global, which is launching on November 30. Rajiv Pant is joining as CTO, Kathryn Friedrich is coming on board as CMO, and today brought another new hire: Callie Schweitzer, 27, is Time Inc. to serve as Thrive's managing editor...
-- More: Thrive's content will be published through Medium...
-- But: Most of the $$ will come from training seminars. According to Thrive's investor deck, the global corporate wellness industry is expected to be worth $10.4 billion by 2018... | | | NYT's next international editor is... | | | As Politico's Joe Pompeo reported last week, Michael Slackman is the NYT's new international editor... Succeeding Joe Kahn, who is now managing editor... The newsroom made it official today... | | | Things I'm going to read after I file this newsletter | | Maybe you want to read them too:
-- "President Trump's First Term" by Evan Osnos...
-- "The TV Cure," on how TV can be good for your mental health, by Emily Gordon...
-- "White Riot," on what's motivating Trump supporters, by Zack Beauchamp...
-- "The Death of 'He Said, She Said' Journalism," by Peter Beinart... | | | Media week ahead calendar | | (Forgot to include this last night!)
-- Tuesday night: NBC News holding "Dateline" 25th anniversary party in NYC
-- Tuesday night: First in a series of five BuzzFeed Brews events in DC
-- Wednesday night: News & Documentary Emmy Awards
-- Thursday night: Slate's 20th anniversary bash
-- Sunday morning: Special edition of "Reliable Sources" previewing the first debate... | | The Emmys "averaged 11.3 million viewers on Sunday night, according to ABC," making the broadcast the least-watched Emmys on record, Frank Pallotta reports. You might be inclined to blame "Sunday Night Football," but that's a factor every year. Read more...
-- Joe Adalian weighs in: "It might be time to consider moving the Emmys off of Sunday night..." | | | Brian Lowry's observation | | Brian Lowry emails this footnote about the ratings: Not only does it suggest some fatigue with live award shows (there are a lot of them) as well as the challenge of going up against "SNF," but CBS clocked in not far behind the Emmys with over 10 million viewers for its JonBeney Ramsey special. The major networks once had a sort-of gentlemen's agreement not to aggressively counter-program the Emmys. But with their diminished presence within the show -- CBS garnered no Emmys Sunday, and ABC, CBS and Fox totaled four, one less than streamers Netflix and Amazon -- they have less of an investment in the event.
That also could be an issue when it comes time to renew the TV deal, in which the Emmys currently rotate among the four broadcast networks. The contract expires in 2018...
-- Emmys post-gaming: Sandra Gonzalez filed this fun story about the after-party action! Featuring this Megan Thomas video... | | | Rush is "honored" by Obama's critique | | | Last night I led the letter with President Obama's remark at a Clinton/DNC fundraiser that "misinformation" fed by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and right-wing web sites partly explains why the presidential race is so close. Today Rush said he's honored: These donors "are true believers, and they want red meat. And apparently 'Fox News and Rush Limbaugh' equal red meat for these people, and Obama knows it. So he fed them the red meat." His point: "My name gets thrown out any time they want to really irritate extreme leftists and extract big bucks from them..." | | Tell us what you think... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback- to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email. See you tomorrow! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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