| | | | Journalism is facing "an existential crisis," Christiane Amanpour said at Tuesday night's Committee to Protect Journalists dinner. She warned of mortal threats to the profession posed by politicians denying the media's legitimacy; fake stories passing as real news; and journalists failing to rise to the occasion. "Let's resolve not to be turkeys voting for Thanksgiving!" she said.
Donald Trump was top of mind all night long during CPJ's annual fundraising dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. Normally the committee focuses on threats to journalists in repressive regimes. But "this year the threats to press freedom are quite close to home. It's right here," New Yorker editor David Remnick said at the beginning of the evening.
CNN president Jeff Zucker, this year's dinner chairman, spoke after Remnick and said "we will hold the new administration's feet to the fire, and they should respect that, even if they don't welcome it." Here's my dispatch from the dinner... | | | What happens here affects journalists everywhere | | The dinner highlighted troubling cases of journalists threatened and imprisoned in Egypt, El Salvador, India and Turkey. Their stories were a sort of reality check for the Americans in the audience. But Sandra Mims Rowe, the chairman of the committee, eloquently spoke about why any erosion of journalistic norms here "would further imperil journalists everywhere."
"The United States simply cannot provide ammunition to anyone whose goal it is to silence a critical press," she said. Scroll down for much more from the dinner... | | In a show of respect, Trump travels to NYT HQ | | | By now you've heard all about Trump's drive over to the NYT building. The paper he called "failing" in the morning was a "world jewel," in his words, by the afternoon... | | | I asked NYT's senior editor for politics Carolyn Ryan if the meeting was a positive sign for Trump-press relations. She replied: "We thought it was a good sign that he came. We thought it was a good sign that he agreed to go on the record. And we thought it was a good sign that he didn't shrink from some pretty challenging questions..." | | | I agree -- I think Trump deserves some credit for sitting around the table with NYT reporters for a full hour. I was ridiculed for saying that on Twitter, but I mean it. A lengthy group interview with expert journalists without cameras is arguably even more difficult than a televised press conference. After all, pressers lend themselves to speechifying and limit the opportunities for probing followups. This sit-down spurred a ton of news... | | Did Priebus try to block the meeting? | | ...But the backstory was needlessly dramatic, demonstrating Trump's impulsiveness and combativeness. Trump originally asked for the meeting... NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger insisted that any off-the-record talk be paired by an on-the-record interview... There was an agreement... But then on Monday, Trump tried to scrap the interview portion. Sulzberger said no... Hope Hicks called back and said okay... and everyone went to bed believing the visit was still on.
Overnight, something happened. At 6:16 a.m., Trump tweeted that the meeting was cancelled. His excuse? He claimed that the "terms and conditions" had changed at the last minute. Sulzberger was alerted to the tweet by an NYT exec. Around 8:45, Hicks called him. She said there'd been a misunderstanding, and Trump still wanted to meet. Sulzberger reiterated that he had to agree to an interview. Around 9:15, Hicks called back and confirmed: They'd be there for lunch.
So... what happened? According to the NYT's own sources -- "three people with knowledge of Mr. Trump's deliberations" -- Reince Priebus "had tried to scuttle the meeting at The Times by telling Mr. Trump, erroneously, that the newspaper was shifting its terms." Apparently Priebus didn't think Trump would be able to field all the Q's. Tuesday night on Fox, host Eric Bolling could have asked Priebus about this, but Bolling didn't bring it up during the interview. Priebus volunteered that Trump "did really really well" at the meeting, "he did a fantastic job..." | | Breitbart calls out Trump's "BROKEN PROMISE" | | Tom Kludt emails: Trump is dialing back one of his most oft-invoked campaign promises, and he isn't getting any cover from the outlet that has covered him the most favorably. After Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBC that Trump "doesn't wish to pursue" charges against Hillary Clinton – as he pledged to do on the campaign trail – Breitbart described the change as a "broken promise." Breitbart editor Alex Marlow insisted to anyone who would listen that the site won't become Trump's own personal version of Pravda – despite the outsized role that will be played by Steve Bannon in the incoming administration.
"Our loyalty is not going to be to Donald Trump; our loyalty is to our readers and to our values," Marlow told the NYT earlier this month. (He told me something similar when I interviewed him a couple months ago.)
Trump gave voice to many of those values, of course, and many Breitbart readers were Trump voters. The site was the most forcefully pro-Trump media outlet throughout the campaign. But today, at least, Marlow's promise of editorial independence appeared to have legs. Crucial caveat: No president has the authority to demand the prosecution of anyone, meaning that Trump's oft-repeated vow was always an empty threat. That also makes it a pretty easy issue for Breitbart to challenge Trump on, but credit where it's due... | | | Trump press conference watch | | | Two weeks have passed since election day. Most presidents-elect hold a news conference within days of being elected. But Trump still hasn't held a presser... | | | What David Frum said on "AC360" Tuesday night should be said over... and over... and over again: "Anything he says must be independently verified." This is true for all presidents, but doubly (triply?) true for Trump. Frum: "Trump has a bad habit of saying things that aren't true..." | | Editor at Politico resigns -- here's why | | | Dylan Byers reports: Michael Hirsh, an editor with Politico, resigned on Tuesday after publishing the home addresses of white supremacist leader Richard Spencer and encouraging people to go to Spencer's home. Hirsh's actions "were clearly outside the bounds of acceptable discourse, and Politico editors regard them as a serious lapse of newsroom standards," the news org said. "They crossed a line in ways that the publication will not defend, and editors are taking steps to ensure that such a lapse does not occur again..." | | | "Tonight," David Remnick said during the Committee to Protect Journalists dinner, "there are more than 240 journalists held behind bars globally," the highest number ever recorded by the committee... | | Amanpour urges journalists to "stand up together" | | "I never in a million years thought I would be up here on stage appealing for the freedom and safety of American journalists at home," Christiane Amanpour said as she accepted CPJ's Burton Benjamin Memorial Award. Please read her full speech here. Some of the highlights:
— "A great America requires a great and free and safe press. So this above all is an appeal to protect journalism itself. Recommit to robust fact-based reporting without fear or favor -- on the issues…"
— "Do stand up together--for divided we will all fall…"
— "I believe in being truthful, not neutral. And I believe we must stop banalizing the truth…"
— "Since when were American values elitist values? They are not left or right values… Like many foreigners I have learned they are universal…"
— "We must fights against normalization of the unacceptable…"
— "We, the media, can either contribute to a more functional system or to deepening the political dysfunction. Which world do we want to leave our children?" | | "It is about access for all Americans" | | At the dinner, Jeff Zucker brought up his attendance at Monday's meeting between Trump and reps from five major TV networks. There were knowing looks around the room. "I want to use this occasion to reiterate what I said directly to the president elect yesterday," Zucker said. "As the new leader of the free world, we expect that he will preserve longstanding traditions that ensure coverage of his presidency."
Zucker specifically cited the importance of the "press pool" and said, "This is not about access for the press itself. It is about access for all Americans."
Zucker cautioned that "it is still too early to draw conclusions about how this administration will work with the media," but "I think it is fair to say that based on some of what we saw during the campaign, we have some reason for concern." Here's my full story... | | | Spotted in the ballroom... | | | CPJ chief Joel Simon, Jason Rezaian, Marty Baron, Andrea Mitchell, Katie Couric, Jennifer Preston, Sarah Bartlett, Alisyn Camerota, Dafna Lizner, Lizzie O'Leary, Geneva Overholser, Tina Brown, Susan Zirinsky, Mark Whitaker, Richard Stengel, Richard Siklos, Andrew Morse, Amy Entelis, Tim O'Brien, Jake Goldman, Michael Wolff, Cynthia McFadden, Errol Cockfield, Lindsey Hilsum, Holly Bailey, Gianna Toboni, Tony Maciulis, Seth Rogin, and many more... | | "From an economist's viewpoint, fake news is mostly a demand side problem. If readers weren't so determined to click sexy headlines that lead them to websites of dubious or unknown reputation, and do it again and again, and often sharing the link, fake news would soon be extinct. But its prevalence indicates that the market is only providing the cheap and stupid thrill some readers desire. Rather than tweaking its algorithms, Facebook might be better off trying to change human nature..."
—Jack Shafer taking on the "fake news" problem... | | | I'll be talking about this distressing study on CNN's "New Day" Wednesday at 6:50 a.m.: "Most Students Don't Know When News Is Fake, Stanford Study Finds" | | | James Corden is hosting the 2017 Grammys | | | Chloe Melas writes: From Adele and Michelle Obama to Lady Gaga and Madonna, it seems everyone loves singing along with James Corden. So much so that the king of karaoke has been tapped to host the 2017 Grammy Awards. CBS announced Tuesday that Corden will take over Grammy duties for LL Cool J, who has hosted the awards show since 2012. Read more... | | | Brian Lowry emails: No, it probably won't be another "Frozen," but Disney should nevertheless have a lot to be thankful for with its latest animated movie, "Moana," which features a Broadway-ready score thanks to, among others, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Read the full review here... | | -- Brian Lowry emails: It's probably too early to talk about momentum, but the gap between "The Tonight Show" and "Late Show" has narrowed in terms of total viewers (although Jimmy Fallon still leads pretty handily in ad-friendly younger demos). For the week of Nov. 14, Fallon averaged 3 million viewers, to Stephen Colbert's 2.7 million, per Nielsen data...
-- More from Brian: The warmth that permeated Obama's Medal of Freedom ceremony — and the upcoming Knnedy Center Honors — could be a sort of last hurrah, at least for a while, in terms of the cozy relationship between the arts and the White House...
-- Chloe Melas emails: Chloe Sevigny spoke to me about how being labeled an indie actress "hurt" her from getting more mainstream roles... | | | 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... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
Post a Comment