| | | | Donald Trump keeps saying he's "winning," despite a preponderance of polls showing he's far behind Hillary Clinton. "We are winning and the press refuses to report it," he tweeted Monday morning. He said it all day long at rallies. At the same time, he's blasting "phony" and "dark" polls that show him behind, denying their legitimacy while promoting the polls he prefers.
We're seeing the emergence of "poll truthers," this season's version of "unskewed polls." We're seeing heated confrontations of reporters at Trump rallies. We're seeing news anchors remind campaign aides that the First Amendment is "sacred." And we're seeing Trump avoid hard-hitting interviews while promoting a nightly show on his own Facebook page.
What does this all add up to? It adds up to... two separate realities about what's going on. About the "truth." | | | Covering the closing arguments | | | Dylan Byers emails: With the debates over and Trump's chances of winning at an all-time-low, the air seems to be coming out of the balloon. The year-and-a-half campaign isn't officially over for another two weeks (and trust us, we'll be covering it) but it finally feels like we're reaching the end. The conversation has shifted from "who will win?" to "by how much?" Not to say we know exactly what's going to happen -- we don't -- but it's out of our hands now. The voters who haven't made up their minds after 18 months of 24-hour news coverage and three high-profile debates aren't going to be swayed by whatever is in tomorrow's Washington Post or New York Times. Barring a drastic unforeseen event, at this point we're just covering the closing arguments. | | | Trump's nightly show on Facebook | | Monday at 6:30pm (nightly news time!) Trump's campaign went live on Facebook with the first of what will be two weeks of live shows to encourage supporters. At times the campaign conflated the election ad with an actual newscast. "Welcome in to Trump Tower live," senior adviser Cliff Sims said at the start of the webcast. "We're excited to be bypassing the left-wing media," Boris Epshteyn said.
-- Key stat: The stream averaged 40,000 to 60,000 viewers on Facebook in the first half hour — which is high by Facebook Live standards but very low by TV ratings standards.
-- Tomi Lahren of Glenn Beck's The Blaze network also delivered a monologue during the show...
-- Sims said the nightly pro-Trump chats would lead into Trump's prime time rallies. Here's my full story...
-- Mark McKinnon on "CNN Tonight:" "It's a channel directed at the supporters he's already got," not designed to create new supporters...
-- Poynter's Ben Mullin tweets: "It's not news. But it has all the visual cues of broadcast news, and it's turning up in peoples' FB feeds. Will people know the difference?" | | | Meantime: On Monday night, radio host Mark Levin announced a streaming service called Conservative Review TV... He'll be joined by Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn... He says it's for "liberty lovers who know cable TV content doesn't square with their world-view... It will cost $12/month or $99/year... | | | What can print do that digital can't? This: | | | Monday's NYT printed "a full two-page spread of all the insults the Republican presidential nominee has slung on Twitter," CNNMoney's Jill Disis writes. She measured it -- "including nearly 6 inches of putdowns he has lobbed at CNN." The paper published this feature on NYTimes.com a while ago, but it was so much more effective in print... And that's the point... | | Tom Kludt reports: For about $30 million, the NYT is acquiring a digital consumer guide -- and a potential new revenue stream. It is buying The Wirecutter and The Sweethome, a pair of sister sites founded by Brian Lam that dole out recommendations for various gadgets, tech products and home goods...
-- More: The sites are all about affiliate links... Earning commissions off the links on their site that lead to purchases. Lam will remain on board in an "advisory role..."
-- Nick Denton tweets: "The good guys won this time. An excellent product. Focus. And a much-deserved reward..."
-- Salon's Aram Zucker-Scharff: This is a "big signal NYT is willing to play acquisition games in upcoming collapse of VC-funded media…" | | | Layoffs announced at Gannett | | | More retrenchment as print ad revenue declines and declines: "Gannett, the largest U.S newspaper company, is cutting another 2% of its workforce," Ken Doctor reports for Politico. It will total "350 or more positions throughout the company..." | | | Layoffs looming at Twitter | | | And it's not just print advertising: "Twitter is planning widespread job cuts, to be announced as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter," Bloomberg's Sarah Frier reports. "The company may cut about 8% of the workforce, or about 300 people... Twitter, which loses money, is trying to control spending as sales growth slows..." | | After interviewing the CEOs and hearing all of the other interviews, here's my takeaway:
It's about speed. Being a leader, not a follower. AT&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner is premised on speed -- a need to keep up with consumer expectations and media industry changes. With the addition of Time Warner, "we can move much, much faster to bring our customers unique experiences in the world of mobility and the world of TV," AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson says. Other key quotes:
-- "Ultimately, we think we'll be competing head to head with the cable companies with a wireless offer," Stephenson told Christine Romans on "New Day." "We can hit those kind of price points, combine it with this kind of content, we think this is exciting..."
-- Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes: "What it allows us to do is just move faster, with more innovation, better consumer offerings..."
-- On CNBC, Stephenson called the idea of withholding channels from competitors like Comcast "nonsensical" and "crazy," because Time Warner depends on the subscriber fees from other distributors... | | | Stephenson's message for DC | | | This is a "true vertical integration," Stephenson said on CNN. AT&T's failed bid for T-Mobile, on the other hand, was a "horizontal integration" because it would have merged two competitors. "This transaction is not horizontal. We don't compete," Stephenson said, adding, "There's not a competitor being taken out. And, in fact, you're hard-pressed to find, in either one of our industries, a time when a vertical integration was shot down by regulators." True, but the sheer "bigness" of the deal is going to attract scrutiny. Read my full story here... | | | Variety's Ted Johnson asks: "Will the FCC review the deal?" White House press secretary Josh Earnest says "any decision to review the deal would be made by regulatory officials at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. It's possible that there's a role for the FCC, as well..." | | | Speaking at WSJDLive Monday night, Reed Hastings said he will support the deal "as long as HBO's bits and Netflix's bits are treated the same..." He also says Netflix is ignoring calls from bankers and lawyers this week, feeling no need to do a deal... | | In Tuesday's NYT, Michael de la Merced and Emily Steel have the deal tick-tock, including an October 11 meeting in a hanger at Dallas Love Field. The two sides "moved quietly to construct AT&T's takeover of Time Warner, relying only on top management teams and trusted advisers." The announcement happened just one day ahead of schedule due to last week's leaks...
-- THE CODE NAMES: The project was BOBTAIL; AT&T was LILY, named "after the cheery sales representative in the company's latest ad campaign;" and Time Warner was RABBIT, "a nod to Warner Bros.' Bugs Bunny..." | | Brian Lowry emails: One of the immediate reactions to the deal has been that this is another case of an outsider making an ill-advised foray into Hollywood — and, presumably, getting fleeced. Writing in THR, Michael Wolff outlined the long history of such misbegotten acquisitions.
The possible difference now is that media consumption and delivery have changed -- and continue to change -- so dramatically even old pros are essentially playing a game of educated guesses. Yes, owning a studio has made fools out of a lot of corporate carpetbaggers in the past. But given how rapidly the business is evolving, the one monopoly that no one can claim right now is any certainty about what the future holds... | | -- David Zaslav to Maria Bartiromo on Fox Biz: "I think in some ways it's expected... I think it's a reinforcement that great I.P. and content is going to be the ultimate winner here..."
-- Shalini Ramachandran tweets: "Buying Time Warner will make AT&T among the most heavily indebted companies on earth, w/ $170 billion load..."
-- Farhad Manjoo's take: "If all this sounds a bit speculative, that's because it is. What this deal actually symbolizes is that the future of TV is increasingly going to be built on lots of bold, possibly speculative experiments..."
-- Mashable's Kerry Flynn imagines a world where Apple, not AT&T, bought Time Warner...
-- Watch our deal explainer here... Produced by Logan Whiteside, Jon Sarlin, and Abby Brooks... | | -- A troubling headline: "Fearing Trump, Bar Association Stifles Report Calling Him a 'Libel Bully'" (NYT)
-- "A tie turned to a loss for NBC on Sunday night," Frank Pallotta writes. The Cardinals-Seahawks' 6-6 tie in overtime resulted in "overnight ratings that were down 15% from last year..." (CNNMoney)
-- MTV president Sean Atkins is leaving after only one year... VH1 and Logo prez Chris McCarthy will oversee MTV and continue to report to Doug Herzog... (WSJ)
-- Kim Kardashian has officially dropped her defamation lawsuit against MediaTakeOut... The site published a RETRACTION of the disputed story... (Reuters)
-- Tom Hanks led "SNL" to season high ratings on Saturday night... (Deadline) | | | Via NBC's Ali Vitali: "Trump Keeps Criticizing the Media While Citing it to Attack Clinton." Her lede: "In a span of 10 minutes, Donald Trump both blamed the media for working against him and used their reporting to bolster his attacks on Hillary Clinton during a rally here Monday..." | | | "A minute-to-minute fight" | | | Dr. Gail Saltz on Sunday's "Reliable Sources:" During this election, "people are arguing with people in their circle, with people at work and arguing via social media. It feels like we're having a minute-to-minute fight. And that raises people's anxiety levels tremendously." She advises taking Twitter breaks... Easier said than done... | | | Check out our focus group | | FishbowlDC's Corinne Grinapol summing up the focus group we featured on Sunday's "Reliable Sources:"
"Like the polls showing growing mistrust of media that Stelter references, more hands go up for 'distrust the media' than 'trust the media' in his focus group. The reasons? 'Not enough honesty.' 'Where is the truth? There's absolutely no substance.' 'I think a lot of things are taken out of context.' 'Just stick with the facts,' were what some of the respondents came up with." Read more/watch here... | | -- A bipartisan new study of persuadable voters in five swing states finds that "voters have stepped away from the television and are digesting the presidential and Senate races through the internet," Maggie Haberman reports... Caveat: the study was commissioned by Google... (NYT)
-- Oliver Darcy's latest: "The GOP must do something about the conservative media industrial complex if it wants to survive..." (BI)
-- On Monday's "O'Reilly Factor," WashPost's Jennifer Rubin did battle against Bill O'Reilly... The topic was whether O'Reilly is a "parrot" of Trump... (Mediaite)
-- Via Frank Pallotta: John Oliver says that if Trump loses the election in November, Oliver will give Trump his Emmy... (CNNMoney)
-- Chelsea Handler gets political -- here's Poppy Harlow's interview with the Netflix host... (CNNMoney) | | | What we need right now: "Loving" | | | Entertainment editor Megan Thomas emails: I attended the premiere of "Loving" in Los Angeles last week -- the story of the couple at the center of the landmark Loving Vs. Virginia Supreme Court case. If there's a movie that will reinstate your faith in our nation's ability to overcome division -- this is it. Powerful film with inspiring performances and tons of Oscar buzz for good reason. Releases nationwide just before the election on November 4... | | | For the record, part three | | | -- Brian Lowry emails: "The Walking Dead" returned on Sunday night, with an episode that was surely polarizing. To me, it just branded the show as a franchise that's gone from near-great to gimmicky... (CNN)
-- Check out Sandra Gonzalez's report about the actress front runners for the Oscars... (CNN)
-- By Chloe Melas: Drake dropped four new songs ahead of his 30th birthday. He says he's releasing even more music in December but he wants to make one thing clear -- it's not an album, it's a playlist... (CNN)
-- More from Chloe: Kings of Leon's latest album "Walls" landed them their first number one album. It took them 13 years, but like they say -- good things come to those who wait... (CNN)
-- Lisa France emails: Bill Murray received the Mark Twain Prize over the weekend, and as far as we are concerned, he IS our Mark Twain... (CNN) | | | Catch up on "Reliable Sources" | | | A few highlights from the show... | | -- Sean Spicer: The media playing field is "tilted" in favor of Clinton...
-- Jane Hall: In Gettysburg, Trump "wasn't off message. That IS his message..."
-- Dan Rather: "This election is not over... It's still possible he could win, and all this talk about sweep for Hillary Clinton and a so-called mandate is way premature. I'm reminded of the old saying in Texas and Louisiana, 'Don't taunt the alligator until after you cross the creek.' I think the Clinton people may be making that mistake..."
-- MZ Hemingway: "It's not bad to scrutinize Donald Trump, he's gotten that. That's great. We have also a historically problematic candidate for the Democratic Party, and she's just getting a pass left and right..." | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email... And we'll be back tomorrow with more... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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