| | | | | Trump ditches the press pool again | | This is unacceptable. Donald Trump's press secretary Hope Hicks told journalists that there was a "lid" on Tuesday night -- but then Trump took his family to the 21 Club for dinner. A small group of political journalists, the "press pool," would have been ready to travel with him -- but the pool was not notified. A Bloomberg staffer dining at the restaurant spotted Trump and tweeted a picture, and that's how we all found out where he was.
Sara Murray said on CNN that this "appears to be yet another misunderstanding of exactly how much gravity his new title as president-elect holds." Journalists seem to be taking this more seriously than he is. NBC's Hallie Jackson, who made a reservation at the restaurant in order to verify he was there, said on MSNBC, the pool is a "conduit to the American people. So that everybody in the nation knows where he is." | | Per the AP, Hicks "said she was unaware that Trump planned to leave his home and had not intended to leave the press in the dark. She said the Trump team was working toward setting up a protective pool in the near future." That's what she said last week, too, when Trump traveled to DC without the pool...
-- A DC journo texts: "How do we convince people that Trump ditching press matters? Most people just think we are whining... We have to drop 'transparency' and 'lid' language and be really, really specific about what could happen..." | | | Time for a more forceful response? | | | Former Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor emails: The White House Correspondents Association has to be ready to respond much more forcefully if Trump continues to ignore long-standing traditions of press access. That's especially true for the five network bureau chiefs who hold most of the power. I'd like to see them publicly detail their expectations as well as the potential repercussions if those demands continue to be ignored. This is too important, and the Trump campaign learned all the wrong lessons during the campaign when they faced no penalty for blacklisting reporters." | | This Tuesday night tweet from Trump garnered a swift reaction. He's assembling a cabinet, he said, and "I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!"
Finalists? "As if it's an episode of 'The Apprentice,'" Oliver Darcy tweeted. During the Veepstakes, Trump tried to "stir suspense, excitement for the pick. Same now for Cabinet," Ali Vitali wrote. "It's a pageant," Jonathan Wald tweeted. | | | Happy book launch day, Megyn Kelly. I thought I'd say that since Bill O'Reilly didn't... | | | Bill O'Reilly attacks Megyn Kelly | | The cold war between O'Reilly and Kelly is now a shooting war. On Tuesday morning he suggested that Kelly is making their employer, Fox News, "look bad" by talking about alleged harassment by Roger Ailes.
O'REILLY on CBS: "I'm not interested in making my network look bad. At all. That doesn't interest me one bit."
NORAH O'DONNELL: "Is that what she's doing?"
O'REILLY: "I don't know. But I'm not going to even bother with it."
O'Reilly complimented Kelly during the segment, but he also cast some shade on whether her book will sell a large number of copies: "It's a very tough book environment. We'll see if people respond to it." Here's my full recap... | | On Tuesday night O'Reilly doubled down, devoting his "Factor tip of the day" segment to the subject of "loyalty." While he didn't mention Kelly, he said "if somebody is paying you a wage, you owe that person or company allegiance. If you don't like what's happening in the workplace, go to human resources or leave! I've done that. And then take the action you need to take afterward... But don't try to run down the concern that supports you by trying to undermine it. Factor tip of the day: loyalty is good."
My jaw was on the floor. Kelly's show started moments later. At the end of her hour, while promoting her book "Settle for More," she mentioned the chapter about Ailes and pointedly said, "I thought it was an important story to include, and I'm proud to say that our bosses here at Fox," the Murdochs, agreed. "Like me, they believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant." | | | This is outrageous. Kelly had no choice but to write about Ailes in her book. She knew she'd be asked about his conduct repeatedly during her book tour. "Loyalty is good," as O'Reilly said, but telling the truth is better. Kelly's contract is up in a little more than six months -- how can she continue to work in the same shop as O'Reilly? | | | Right now O'Reilly's new childrens book is #4 on Amazon's best sellers list. Kelly's book is #6. But both books are behind ANOTHER Fox host. Yes, Ainsley Earhardt's book for kids, "Take Heart, My Child," is #3 on the list... | | | Fox enjoying the "Trump ratings bump" the most | | | Meanwhile, Fox continues to put up yuuuuuge ratings in the days since Trump's election. O'Reilly had 925,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 on Monday night. Sean Hannity, who accused me of being a "Fox News stalker" on Monday's show, was #2 with 796,000 in the demo. Kelly was right behind with 789,000. The premiere of Tucker Carlson's 7pm show also fared well, with 750,000 in the demo, helped by his lead-in Bret Baier, who had 757,000... | | | 20 million for "60 Minutes" | | | This is an example of both the "Trump bump" AND the enduring power of the NFL as a lead-in: "60 Minutes," featuring an interview with the president-elect, had 20 million viewers on Sunday night. TVNewser has details here... | | | "Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company, has confidentially filed paperwork for an IPO, according to a person close to the company," Sara Ashley O'Brien and Laurie Segall report. It could happen as soon as March 2017... at an estimated valuation of $20 to $25 billion... "significantly higher than the $3 billion buyout offer that Facebook put on the table in 2013." Reuters broke the news on Tuesday afternoon... | | | Breitbart's "thinly veiled attempt to intimidate news organizations" | | Dylan Byers emails: Memo to The Hill's Joe Concha: A lawsuit is not a lawsuit til someone files it, and publishing a vague, ambiguous threat to sue only helps the would-be plaintiff in his effort to intimidate would-be defendants. I know, because I've made that mistake before. (Remember when Donald Trump was going to sue the NYT? He still hasn't sued.)
So this article, which says Breitbart News is planning to sue a "major media company" for describing Breitbart as a "white nationalist" web site, should be seen for what it is: a thinly veiled attempt to intimidate news organizations... | | | Who is Steve Bannon, really? | | | Torrent of stories about Trump infighting | | The drip-drip-drip of stories about infighting, backbiting and a badly delayed transition process have turned into a torrent. That's what seemed to trigger Trump's tweet swearing that all is well.
Because he hasn't spoken publicly about the transition process since his White House visit last Thursday, he's looking like "the missing player in his own transition planning," the AP's Julie Pace and Jill Colvin wrote. "He's left it to aides to explain the increasingly strained process and given space for allies jockeying for top jobs to set the tone during a crucial phase..." | | Laura Ingraham is continuing to dance around talk about a possible Trump administration press secretary job. "It's cool to be mentioned," she said on Hannity's show Tuesday night. She cautioned that "I'm not going to negotiate on the air." But she said the White House communications job "is interesting as well..."
-- BTW: Hannity told her "I think you'd do a great job." She said she would let Hannity be "co-press secretary" for a day. "I think the country would love it..."
-- More: Tom Kludt profiled Ingraham here... | | "Like other friends and fans of Gwen Ifill, I did not expect to be talking about her in the past tense. Not this soon," Clarence Page wrote on Tuesday. The tributes are continuing to pour in, one day after Ifill's death at the age of 61.
Tuesday's "NewsHour" ended with some of the remembrances. Viewers are invited to call 703-594-6727 and leave a message about Ifill, and to visit the broadcast's tribute page... | | "Earlier this year," Jelani Cobb writes, Ifill "was selected to receive the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. The awards dinner was to be held this Wednesday night. I was looking forward to seeing her and commending her on the example she had set in her four decades of journalism. Instead, we are summing up her contributions in memoriam. There is a great deal of work ahead of those of us who take democracy seriously. It's heartbreaking to consider that we will have to do it without Ifill at our side."
The dinner has been cancelled. "The John Chancellor dinner is not being held tomorrow night," Columbia University confirms. "We are hoping to have an event in the spring honoring Gwen..." | | | Kelly is concerned about Trump's chilling effect | | | As mentioned up above, Kelly's book "Settle for More" came out on Tuesday morning. On "GMA," she recounted Trump's tirades against her, saying he "came after me like a dog with a bone for nine months." And on "Dr. Phil," she said she is concerned that Trump has set a precedent that it's okay to go after journalists: "The way he targeted me was meant to send a message to other journalists out there: You come after me, I'll come after you. And I think that can lead to a change in coverage. That can endanger the way these reporters report the news." Read Jill Disis and Chloe Melas's full CNNMoney story here... | | | Trevor Noah's memoir "Born A Crime" came out Tuesday, so he's on a book tour too. Asked about the future of "The Daily Show," he told Yahoo, "I'm hoping that I'll be able to expand the variety of the show in terms of talking about more international stories, and have conversations about social issues beyond war, politics, and policy. And I think in time, we will grow with the audience. That's really what a daily show is about..." | | | My longtime mentor Lisa Napoli's book about Ray and Joan Kroc also came out on Tuesday. (Great timing -- "The Founder" film about McDonald's also comes out soon.) Napoli says media angles abound in the book: "Joan deployed McDonald's style media tactics to her campaigns against alcoholism and nukes, making films, publishing books, buying tons of newspaper ads (back when newspapers were the way to reach people) to support her beliefs... which were far more liberal than her conservative husband's..." | | Facebook's "business model, algorithms and policies entrench echo chambers and fuel the spread of misinformation. Letting this stand is not neutrality; it amplifies the dangerous currents roiling the world."
--Zeynep Tufekci writing in the NYT... | | | Four new shows, one Tuesday night | | | Brian Lowry emails: For a sign of the sheer volume of programming being produced for basic cable, look no further than Tuesday night's post-election flurry, as four new programs premiere: USA's "Shooter" (reviewed here), TNT's promising Michelle Dockery vehicle "Good Behavior," MTV's "Sweet/Vicious" – a drama about date-rape vigilantes on a college campus – and "Mars," a dreary National Geographic Channel miniseries that mixes documentary and scripted elements... | | | More from Brian Lowry: With football and the "60 Minutes" Trump interview lifting CBS' lineup, "NCIS: Los Angeles" drew more than 12 million viewers, per CBS, becoming the first scripted drama to top "The Walking Dead" (11.5 million) on a Sunday since March 2014. Still, the disparity in the amount of ink (to use an archaic term) spilled over the AMC show demonstrates just how important viewer passion/engagement is in terms of media coverage... | | Megan Thomas emails: One more reason to love Tom Hanks… and yes, maybe Dems should take Michael Moore's suggestion and beg him to run in 2020: He's off to save Cleveland.
"Hanks is returning to his acting roots in Cleveland to help out the region's film and TV industry," Deadline reports. "On December 2, the two-time Oscar winner will take part in two events in the city: the first to discuss the importance of arts education and the other to benefit northeast Ohio's film and TV production business. Both are sponsored by the Greater Cleveland Film Commission..." | | | Catch up on Sunday's show | | | 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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