| | | | | Trump vs. the media: Who really got 'played'? | | Dylan Byers here, in for Brian Stelter...
Let's start by being honest with ourselves: Donald Trump played us. He teased a major announcement about President Obama's citizenship to get the media's attention, then turned it into an infomercial for his new hotel and endorsements from Medal of Honor recipients. For more than 20 minutes, the cable networks carried it live.
BUT: If those 20 minutes represented the worst of the media, the next six hours represented the best of it.
1. Immediately after Trump falsely claimed Hillary Clinton started the birtherism issue, and falsely claimed that he ended it, the media called him out.
CNN -- John Berman: "Hillary Clinton and her campaign never, ever pushed the birther issue." ... Kate Bolduan: "Donald Trump, from 2011, he made this his signature issue. No one has gone as far as Donald Trump on the birther issue." ... John King: "[Trump] did the country a great disservice by becoming the chief cheerleader for a fraud, a birther movement trying to delegitimize the sitting United States President." ... Jake Tapper: "Those are two factually false statements.... [Hillary Clinton] and her campaign never started the birther issue. ... Donald Trump did not end the birther issue."
FOX -- Jenna Lee (to Trump surrogate Boris Epshteyn, who claimed the birther issue "was born out of the Hillary Clinton 2008 campaign"): "Ok, but it wasn't. It wasn't. No, it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't. This is not true. It's not true. It's not true. It's not true. It's not true."
NYT -- Headline 1: "Unwinding a Lie: Trump's Long Embrace of Birtherism" ... Headline 2: "Trump Drops Claim but Falsely Accuses Clinton of Starting It" ... Headline 3: "Donald Trump Clung to 'Birther' Lie for Years, and Still Isn't Apologetic"
WaPo -- Breaking News Alert: "Trump admits Obama was born in U.S. but falsely blames Hillary Clinton for starting rumors"
2. CNN and MSNBC more than matched Trump's 20 minutes with hours of airtime for his critics, including CNN's live interview with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid; a live broadcast of the Congressional Black Caucus press conference; and a live broadcast of First Lady Michelle Obama's speech. All of them hammered Trump.
3. CNN and MSNBC spent the majority of the day revisiting Trump's history of fueling the birther conspiracy theory and drawing attention to his false claims.
So, again, let's be honest with ourselves: Did Donald Trump play the media... or did Donald Trump play himself? | | | Meanwhile, at the Trump Hotel... | | Following his press conference, Trump led a tour of his new hotel in Washington D.C. ... But after letting the cameras in, his campaign blocked the reporters...
Candace Smith, the ABC News producer who was on pool duty, says she was blocked from accompanying her cameraman. "The fact is Trump didn't allow the official pool to go with him, successfully avoiding answering any questions," she tweeted.
The television pool has a longstanding policy: It does not cover campaign events unless editorial personnel is present. Without a reporter or producer in place, such footage would effectively be an infomercial.
So what did the television pool do? They pulled their cameramen.
"The Television pool members chose not to participate in a tour of the Trump Hotel in Washington DC today because our editorial team member was barred from going on the tour with a videographer," the pool said in a statement. "The TV Pool traditionally doesn't participate in events that our reporters or producers are not allowed to attend." | | | Can Trump-media relations get any worse? | | Trump's antagonism toward the media has reached troubling levels. His decision to block the TV pool came one day after he bragged about leaving the press corps stranded at the airport while he delivered a speech, and follows his months-long ban on news organizations like The Washington Post, Politico and BuzzFeed.
Here's what I told CNN's Ashleigh Banfield earlier today: "By keeping the media away, and by mocking them, Trump is raising serious questions about his own legitimacy to be Commander-in-Chief in a country that respects the freedom of the press."
| | | It's official: First debate is Trump vs. Clinton | | This afternoon the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein failed to qualify for the first presidential debate because they failed to break 15% average in the polls. (Final results: Clinton 43%; Trump 40.4%; Johnson 8.4%, Stein 3.2%.) Details via CNNPolitics here...
Guess who's not happy?
"The CPD may scoff at a ticket that enjoys 'only' 9 or 10% in their hand-selected pols, but even 9% represents 13 million voters, more than the total population of Ohio and most other states," Johnson said in a statement. "Yet, the Republicans and Democrats are choosing to silence the candidate preferred by those millions of Americans." | | | Should the commission have reconsidered its criteria? | | Dylan's response to Johnson: "What is Aleppo?" Seriously: The Presidency of the United States is the most powerful job in the world. The Presidential Debates are (arguably) the most significant events in a presidential election. It takes a lot of nerve to demand time on that stage when you haven't taken the time to verse yourself in the most basic matters of U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.
Media editor Alex Koppelman's counterpoint: There's an argument to be made that this is the year the CPD should have reconsidered its rules and at least let Johnson in. He may not have hit that 15% threshold, but the polls clearly show widespread voter frustration with the two major party choices. But it's true that Johnson and Stein have been making it too easy not to take them as seriously as the polls might warrant. "What is Aleppo?" indeed... | | | What will Gary Johnson do now? | | | "We plan to be on the debate stage in October." Really? Brian Stelter will ask Johnson about it on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" -- He was booked ahead of today's CPD announcement... | | | Also on "Reliable:" one of the breakout stars of the campaign cycle, WashPost reporter David Fahrenthold... Plus Lynn Sweet, SE Cupp, Carl Bernstein, and Jason Zengerle... Sunday at 11am ET on CNN... | | | Exclusive: About the "key man clauses" at Fox News | | For your weekend reading: Brian Stelter just published this long-gestating story about the impact of "key man clauses" at Fox News. Greta Van Susteren, Bill O'Reilly, Shep Smith and other Fox stars have these escape hatches in their contracts, allowing them to leave if the "key man" -- Roger Ailes -- left.
Van Susteren isn't the only one who thought about taking advantage of the exit strategy after Ailes resigned in July, Brian writes: Sources say Smith also expressed interest in possibly leaving. "He's sniffed around. Wouldn't you, if you had the option?" one of the sources said. Smith decided not to make a move; he is said to be happy at Fox and staying put.
But the behind-the-scenes machinations show how the key man clauses injected even more uncertainty into the already uncertain post-Ailes era at Fox. Some experts say the existence of the clauses is an example of improper corporate governance by 21st Century Fox.
"Ailes was putting his self-interest above the company and giving other people the right to escape their contracts or at least cause substantial renegotiation," said Columbia law professor John C. Coffee Jr.
Brian's sources say these clauses were Ailes' idea originally -- a "poison pill" -- and they became known as "loyalty tests" internally. Read more here... | | | Layoffs hit the Daily Dot | | | The Daily Dot "was hit by significant layoffs today, with at least 15 staff members reportedly let go," Tom Kludt reports. "It is unclear how many of the roughly 70 employees will ultimately be let go... The layoffs are said to be across the board, affecting employees in the art, editorial, business and social media departments..." | | | Shakeup at the top of the NYT | | The NYT has appointed Joe Kahn as managing editor, fueling speculation that he will be next in line to replace executive editor Dean Baquet.
Tom Kludt reports: "Kahn, 52, will now go from assistant editor for international to second-in-command to Baquet, himself a former managing editor at the Times. Baquet said Kahn will "lead our efforts to build The Times of the future, and to grapple with questions of what we cover going forward, and what our desks should look like." ... A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Kahn will become the Times' first managing editor since 2014.
Meanwhile... Susan Chira, a deputy executive editor, will leave that position to write about gender issues for the paper... | | | Dept. of Evergreen Tweets | | | | This happens All. The. Time. ... and it helps explain why many Americans don't know very much about international news. | | | #'s for Twitter's first NFL stream | | Ahiza Garcia reports: "Twitter's stream of its first NFL Thursday Night Football game was a hit with the people who watched it, but the number of viewers paled in comparison to those who tuned into the game on TV. During an average minute of the game, 243,000 people were watching the stream via Twitter. By the same TV-style measurement, 15.4 million people were watching on CBS and the NFL Network." Read more...
-- Brian adds: Kudos to the NFL, Twitter and CBS for being transparent about the TV-style average minute viewership of the live stream... | | Brian Lowry has the preview: "The Emmy Awards always involve multiple subplots, but drawing clear trends or patterns from the voting can be elusive. ... But there are several intriguing Emmy-night storylines.
Topping Lowry's list: "Once again, the major networks are likely to be largely overlooked in key categories -- and completely shut out in the best-drama nominations.
"While executives have grown grudgingly accustomed to that, they do have a bottom-line interest in ratings for the show, which rotates among ABC (this year's host), NBC, CBS and Fox. And as producer Don Mischer told the NYT, execs are concerned that awards to niche shows that viewers are unfamiliar with is helping depress tune-in." Read more... | | | Brian Lowry, Lisa France, and Sandra Gonzalez will have complete Emmys coverage on Sunday night... | | | 21st Century Fox sues Netflix... for poaching | | From the County Superior Court here in Los Angeles... 21st Century Fox has sued Netflix for poaching two of its executives. Fox calls the move a "brazen campaign to unlawfully target, recruit and poach valuable Fox executives by illegally inducing them to break their employment contracts." Chloe Melas has the statement:
"[W]e filed this lawsuit because we believe Netflix is defiantly flouting the law by soliciting and inducing employees to break their contracts. We intend to seek all available remedies to enforce our rights and hold Netflix accountable for its wrongful behavior."
The two execs at issue are Tara Flynn, VP of Creative Affairs at Fox 21, and Marcos Waltenberg, VP of Promotions at Twentieth Century Fox Film... | | -- Via WSJ's Joe Flint: Bruce Rosenblum is the new president of biz operations for the Disney-ABC TV Group... (WSJ)
-- As "Snowden" arrives in theaters, Edward Snowden says his disclosures have improved privacy for individuals in the United States... and says he's grateful for those trying to get him a presidential pardon...
-- And finally today: Sandra Gonzalez reports that Bill Murray will be bartending at his son's bar in Brooklyn this weekend... but you probably can't go. Entrance is by invitation only... | | Tell us what you think... | | | Send us your feedback about this newsletter -- the good/the bad/the ugly -- to reliablesources@cnn.com. We'll be back Sunday! | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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