| | | | If retired Gen. Michael Flynn becomes Donald Trump's National Security Advisor, will he continue to be fooled by "fake news?"
This is not an idle question. Flynn has promoted lies before, as Jake Tapper pointed out on "The Lead" Thursday afternoon. A few days before the election, Flynn shared a "false and rather unhinged" TruePundit.com story about Anthony Weiner. "You decide," Flynn wrote, garnering 7,000 retweets. As Tapper said: "General Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, wouldn't tweet it if it weren't true, right? False."
The tweet is still up on Flynn's account.
On Thursday evening, sources told CNN and other news outlets that Trump has offered Flynn the job of National Security Advisor... | | | Related: In August the WashPost reported that "former subordinates at the DIA said Flynn was so prone to dubious pronouncements that senior aides coined a term — 'Flynn facts' — for assertions that seemed questionable or inaccurate." | | | This is "information warfare" | | | And so the descent into "post-truth" politics continues. There is a lot of blame to go around. So let me highlight a few great stories and perspectives for this ongoing "fake news" debate. I've come to think of it a little bit differently — as a form of "information warfare." That's really what we are talking about: Weaponized disinformation. These problems are not new, but they're becoming more and more visible… harder and harder to ignore… spurring some desperately-needed conversations… | | | Did "fake news" swing the election? Who knows? | | | Some Democrats are asserting that the plague of pro-Trump, anti-Clinton hoaxes on Facebook swung the election in Trump's favor. I have no idea how that can be proven. Jay Rosen makes a strong argument that fictional anti-Clinton stories helped give hesitant Trump voters more reason to vote for him/against her... And The Daily Beast's Gideon Resnick has a new story about how "automated networks of social media bots spread erroneous information," often to Trump's benefit... But (correct me if I'm wrong) right now, we have no way of knowing how this swayed voters... | | | Obama: "Everything is true and nothing is true" | | On Thursday President Obama framed the "fake news" issue this way: "If we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems." Well, Mr. President, we have problems. Honest Democrats and Republicans can agree on that.
Later in the day, David Remnick's profile of Obama was published on NewYorker.com, and it elaborated on this very problem. Remnick described Obama and his political director Davis Simas on the way to a Clinton rally in Charlotte, talking "almost obsessively about an article in BuzzFeed that described how the Macedonian town of Veles had experienced a 'digital gold rush' when a small group of young people there published more than a hundred pro-Trump Web sites, with hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers." (Craig Silverman's impact in action!)
Obama later told Remnick: The new media ecosystem "means everything is true and nothing is true. An explanation of climate change from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist looks exactly the same on your Facebook page as the denial of climate change by somebody on the Koch brothers' payroll. And the capacity to disseminate misinformation, wild conspiracy theories, to paint the opposition in wildly negative light without any rebuttal—that has accelerated in ways that much more sharply polarize the electorate and make it very difficult to have a common conversation." | | -- ICYMI: This story went viral on Thursday: WashPost's Caitlin Dewey interviewed a "fake-news writer" who said "it's real scary..."
-- Eli Pariser has a Google Doc going with ideas about how to identify/reduce the impact of false news... Check it out...
-- Alex Griswold, writing for Mediaite, hones in on a huge challenge: "Who decides what's fake?"
-- Snopes founder David Mikkelson is out with a column saying "We Have a Bad News Problem, Not a Fake News Problem..."
-- Right now I'm most interested in learning how malicious stories have infected politics in other countries. The NYT's Paul Mozur and Mark Scott have a great piece about that in Friday's paper...
-- On a related note, Christina Xu has this must-read about what passes for "reality" in China. "In a system where no source is deemed fully trustworthy, research and citations are diminished to just another set of opinions..."
-- Zeynep Tufekci adds: "Misinformation functions often as a means of paralysis & inducing confusion, not to persuade." That's the word I keep coming back to: confusion... | | | The next editor of The AP is... | | Sally Buzbee. She will succeed Kathleen Carroll as executive editor in January. "I'm going to focus on keeping AP's mission and our standards as strong as they have been," she told the WashPost's Erik Wemple on Thursday...
-- Programming note: Buzbee will join me on "Reliable Sources" after Thanksgiving... | | Bloomberg axes "With All Due Respect" | | Dylan Byers emails his latest: Bloomberg has cancelled Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's "With All Due Respect," a move that had been anticipated by many industry insiders. The two are in talks to remain as columnists/contributors, but all signs point to them moving on to other news outlets...
-- More: Thursday's memo from John Micklethwait and Justin Smith said it was a "mutual decision that WADR will reach its natural conclusion with the inauguration of President-Elect Trump..." | | | What will Halperin and Heilemann do next? | | | Dylan adds: The inside gossip has Halperin going to MSNBC, where he is already a fixture on "Morning Joe," and Heilemann heading elsewhere -- some say CBS. Bloomberg plans to launch another political show in February, "focused on global politics," without them. No word from MSNBC on what will replace its 6pm rebroadcast of "WADR..." | | | New editor at Bloomberg BusinessWeek | | | NYT's Sydney Ember says the moves "are part of a broader reshuffling at Bloomberg, which said in a separate memo on Thursday that it was revamping its magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, to focus more on business and finance. Megan Murphy, who was Bloomberg's Washington bureau chief, was named editor of the magazine, which is expected to begin publishing in its new form in the second quarter of next year... The memo also said the editorial team at the magazine 'may well be smaller...'" | | | NYT subscriptions surge post-Trump win | | Dylan Byers emails: The NYT has added 41,000 paid subscriptions across its print and digital platforms in the week since Trump won the election, representing the largest subscription increase since it introduced its pay-wall in 2011. The surge, undoubtedly influenced by anxieties surrounding Trump's historic victory, is a boon to the financially challenged organization and a rebuke to Trump, who frequently criticized the paper throughout the campaign and even after his election. Dean Baquet, the Times' exec editor, attributed the surge to the paper's "strong aggressive coverage and scoops."
"It pays to do real news at a time when there is so much fake news around," he told Dylan... Read the full story here... | | | "Stop whining," Chuck Scarborough says | | | Chloe Melas emails: I spoke with WNBC's Chuck Scarborough, who has a message for all the journos who are worried about Trump upending precedents governing the press-president relationship. "I think everyone should stop whining," he said... "The Nixon White House had both an overt and covert campaign against the press and they genuinely were trying to figure out if they could deny licenses to television stations pended by news outlets they didn't like... This is nothing compared to those days. I would advise my colleagues in the press to toughen up a little bit and do their jobs despite whatever obstacles confront them." | | | Jon Stewart's reassuring words for Trump opponents | | | Frank Pallotta emails: Jon Stewart has a message following the election of Trump: America is not a different place than it was before the election. "The same country, with all its grace, and flaws, and volatility, and insecurity, and strength, and resilience exists today as it existed two weeks ago," Stewart told Charlie Rose in an interview on Thursday's "CBS This Morning." More here... | | | How comedies are addressing complex post-election feelings | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: I interviewed "blackish" creator Kenya Barris for a story about how TV comedies are in a unique position post-election to address some of the complex feelings people are having. Barris was a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and he says that writing scripts that address the aftermath of the election has been "cathartic..."
Read Sandra's story here -- it's excellent... | | | Megyn Kelly's book tour continues | | | I've been refreshing the Amazon Best Sellers page all week... And on Thursday Megyn Kelly's memoir (which came out on Tuesday) moved ahead of Bill O'Reilly's new childrens book (which comes out next week)... That means Kelly is now #2, O'Reilly is #3, both behind Fox colleague Ainsley Earhardt's childrens book "Take Heart, My Child." Yep, the top three books are all by Fox personalities... and Bernie Sanders (!!!) is #4... | | | Michael Cohen denies Kelly claim, renews attacks against her | | | On Wednesday night Trump lawyer Michael Cohen denied Kelly's claim that Cohen "didn't much care" when a Fox News exec confronted him about threats against her life. On Twitter Cohen called her description of the conversation "a total lie to promote her book." Cohen said "I resolved the dispute that she started." Then he retweeted more than a dozen users who called her names like "desperate," "arrogant," a "snake," and a "psycho." Here's my story... | | -- Chloe Melas interviewed Bob Dole today! (CNN)
-- Headline of the day: "Trump camp claims he never called for Muslim registry despite video evidence" (The Guardian)
-- Yesterday we previewed Jason Zengerle's profile of Charles Harder in GQ. Here it is... (GQ)
-- Brian Lowry writes: "Bill Maher and Glenn Beck are unlikely bedfellows. But both have issued remarkable mea culpas about the stridency of their past language in the context of Trump..." (CNN) | | | What is "entertainment industry" coverage and what isn't? | | Dylan Byers emails: So on Wednesday Mediaite hired famed Hollywood scoop-machine Nikki Finke as a columnist, with the caveat that she can't write about the entertainment industry because she has a non-compete with Penske, her former employer, that bars her from "entertainment industry" coverage. But now Penske doesn't want her writing about media or politics either, on the grounds that media and politics have increasingly become entertainment!
"We view coverage of the media as entertainment reporting," a Penske attorney said. "This is particularly the case as the country has just elected a reality star as its President-elect. The intersection between entertainment and politics has never been more porous."
I'm not sure that argument has any leg to stand on, but Penske says it will aggressively pursue damages in the event of a violation. THR has the full story here... | | -- AOL is firing "as many as 500 employees as part of a restructuring plan to focus on mobile, video and data..." (Bloomberg)
-- Kate Kelly is leaving CNBC after six and a half years... (Talking Biz News)
-- Via Frank Pallotta: Jim Maiella and Georgia Juvelis are taking over for the retiring Ellen Kroner... As SVPs and co-heads of corporate communications at AMC Networks... (Variety)
-- Megan Thomas emails: This new ABC comedy sounds a bit like Carville and Maitlin… (THR) | | Brian Lowry emails: There are a flurry of movies opening this weekend. The biggest pre-Thanksgiving offering — and certainly the fattest boxoffice attraction — is Warner Bros' "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," which the studio is using to kick off a series built around the Harry Potter spinoff. Meanwhile, "Manchester by the Sea" should garner serious consideration in the Oscar race, especially for its star, Casey Affleck...
--> Read Brian's reviews of "Fantastic" and "Manchester" here... | | | Falling in love with "The Edge of Seventeen" | | Megan Thomas emails this rave for "The Edge of Seventeen:"
Much has been made of comparing "The Edge of Seventeen" to a John Hughes movie. It certainly has the timeless quality of his work, but it also has its own voice. Hailee Steinfeld gives a beautiful, poignant performance that perfectly portrays the angst we all felt at times in our teens. Beyond the idea of escaping to the theater, the value in movies like "The Edge of Seventeen" – especially now – is that they channel our shared emotions and experiences. It will make you laugh and allow you space to cry. Steinfeld's work here -- and the story by writer and first-time director Kelly Fremon Craig -- are worth seeing and celebrating.
And Megan is not alone! Apparently everyone in Hollywood is feeling all the feelings for this film... Here's what Lowry wrote... Vanity Fair... Rolling Stone... cc: my wife... | | | 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. | | | | | |
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