| | | | Drum roll please... FAKE NEWS is the "lie of the year," according to the editors of PolitiFact.
The proliferation of made-up stories and hoaxes -- "fake news" in the most specific sense of the phrase -- is the "boldest sign of a post-truth society," EIC Angie Drobnic Holan wrote in this Tuesday column. She says "fake news found a willing enabler in Trump, who at times uttered outrageous falsehoods and legitimized made-up reports."
The takeaway from her piece: "For those who care about accuracy and evidence, it's time to recognize that something really has gone off course."
-- More: PolitiFact also ran a reader poll for "lie of the year," and the most popular result was "The entire 2016 election, when the falsehoods overran the facts." #2 was Trump's claim about "large scale voter fraud..."
-- In case you're counting down: 18 days til 2017... | | | Who's going to be Trump's press secretary? | | | Only a small number of insiders know who's really in contention to become Trump's White House press secretary. Kellyanne Conway has said she declined. Is Laura Ingraham still in the mix? What about Sean Spicer? He expertly dodged the question when I asked him the other day. (Practice?) On Tuesday two more names surfaced: one of Trump's most frequent defenders on TV, Katrina Pierson, and a mainstay from the Trump campaign trail, David Martosko. | | | Pierson 'looking at a lot of opportunities' | | | Dylan Byers and Jim Acosta report that Pierson "is seeking a role in his administration." When she was at Trump Tower for meetings on Tuesday, "one source said she was there to make her pitch for the role of press secretary, while another said she was 'looking at a lot of opportunities.'" She responded to the buzz by saying in an email: "I'm at Trump Tower because I work here. I'm a Senior Advisor for the Trump Transition team. Our meetings are confidential." | | | Daily Mail reporter heading up the elevators | | | Speaking of Trump Tower... Martosko, the Daily Mail correspondent long seen as one of the Trump-friendliest reporters on the campaign trail, was seen heading up the elevators on Tuesday. When I asked on Tuesday evening, declined to comment on any meetings. A source familiar with the matter said Martosko is in the mix for a job in the WH communications office, be it press secretary, comms director or something related... Separately, a source told Dylan that Martosko is NOT under consideration for press secretary... So the intrigue and tea-leaf-reading continues... | | | Via CNN's Judy Oehling: Actor Alan Thicke died Tuesday evening, his agent Tracy Mapes confirms. Thicke was 69. He was best known for his role on "Growing Pains." LATimes: "A songwriter and producer during his career in addition to being an actor and presenter, the Canadian-born Thicke had continued to appear in TV roles up through this year, including recent appearances on NBC's drama 'This Is Us' and Netflix's 'Fuller House...'" | | | The aforementioned Jim Acosta at Trump's Wisconsin "thank you tour" rally: "More than one month after he was elected, Trump attacking news media, saying 'they were devastated on Nov 8.'" | | | Trump's parade of celebrities | | Tom Kludt emails about Tuesday's scene: Reporters were still getting caffeinated when an unexpected visitor stopped by Trump Tower. Striding into the lobby of the Manhattan skyscraper shortly before 9:30 a.m. was Kanye West because... well, that wasn't really clear.
Hope Hicks said that it was Kanye who requested the 15-minute meeting with the president-elect. (Flashback to last month: Kanye said he'd have voted for Trump -- if he'd made it to the polls.) Following their meeting, Trump and Kanye emerged from the elevators a little before 10 a.m. on the east coast, leaving cable news personalities visibly stunned on-air. "Oh my goodness," said Carol Costello on CNN. Over on MSNBC, Ali Velshi was also caught off guard by the sight. "Look at that!" Velshi exclaimed.
Trump and Kanye moseyed over to the assembled pool reporters for a brief, impromptu gaggle. What did the two discuss? "Life," Trump said, calling the rapper a friend and a "good man."
Kanye, for his part, stood awkwardly next to the president-elect, eventually telling reporters he was "just here to take a picture right now." And then they embraced and parted ways, bringing to an end the latest surreal moment in Trump's presidential transition... | | In the afternoon, Kanye took to Twitter to explain the meeting, saying he met with Trump "to discuss multicultural issues," which he said included "bullying, supporting teachers modernizing curriculums, and violence in Chicago."
"I feel it is important to have a direct line of communication with our future President if we truly want change," Kanye tweeted, firing off one more than simply contained the hashtag #2024. (Remember, he previously foreshadowed a 2020 presidential run.) | | Tom Kludt notes that Kanye's tweets came hours after the meeting, but the press wouldn't have to wait long for another celebrity sighting at Trump Tower...
After getting a visit from a recording icon, Trump was visited by a pair of NFL legends: Jim Brown and Ray Lewis. The two went to discuss issues related to the black community. "We're not here because of politics," Brown later told reporters. "We are here to help the president of the United States help the people who need help."
In the afternoon, Trump met with Anna Wintour. No word on what that was about, but the meeting came a day after reports emerged indicating that Wintour, a Hillary Clinton supporter, had apologized after she was overheard trashing Trump on a train. | | | Beware of the "shiny object" | | ABC led "World News Tonight" with the Kanye meeting. That's right, let that sink in. NBC and CBS led with the naming of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State while ABC led with Kanye.
ThinkProgress EIC Judd Legum thinks Trump knows exactly what he's doing: "This is the shiny object strategy," Legum said. "No reason for Trump to appear with Kanye. But he wants the visual to eat up space on TV."
A similar observation was offered up by former NBC correspondent Luke Russert, who returned to Twitter after a nearly month-long hiatus Tuesday morning to vent about Trump/Kanye. "Kanye will get through because it cuts across racial, gender, age etc.," tweeted Russert, still enjoying his cable news detox. "Too easy for clicks, cable & local news. Brilliant Trump." | | | Three Ailes stories today: | | | Lidia Curanaj, a reporter for Fox's local station in NYC, filed a discrimination suit against Roger Ailes on Tuesday, alleging that the former Fox News chief asked her to stand up and turn around during an interview, then called her boyfriend to ask about their sex life. Details here via NYT's Emily Steel... | | | Ailes sells his NY papers | | | Gabriel Sherman reports that Ailes and his wife Elizabeth "have sold the Putnam County News and Recorder, the local newspaper Ailes bought in 2008 in Cold Spring, New York, not far from his 9,000-square-foot weekend compound. The buyer for the paper is the editor Doug Cunningham. According to a well-placed source, Elizabeth Ailes began trying to sell the money-losing paper not long after her husband was forced out of Fox this summer... Cunningham is also taking possession of the Putnam County Courier, another local paper owned by the Ailes. 'They just want out,' the source said." Seems like Ailes will be spending less time in NY and more time in FL... | | | (Nope, no State Department job in the works) | | | Al Jazeera's Mehdi Hasan tweeted Tuesday afternoon: "State Department source tells me Trump considering disgraced ex-Fox News boss Roger Ailes for Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy." This job was most recently held by former Time editor Richard Stengel. Hope Hicks quickly shot this down, saying there's "not a shred" of truth to it, and Ailes' lawyer Susan Estrich weighed in with this quip: "Roger told me he was holding out for Secretary of State but now he'll have to settle for Super Bowl guest." | | "Donald Trump intimidated the press and bullied the press. I'm not saying you have to intimidate and bully, but you have to be tough. The press are animals and they need to be treated that way."
--Media Matters founder and high-level Hillary Clinton supporter David Brock, in this interview with Glenn Thrush... | | | Trump press conference watch | | Tom Kludt emails: Frustration was still running high among journalists Tuesday after Trump's abrupt decision to postpone a press conference that had been scheduled for Thursday to address his business operations. Trump's team called for patience. "We're going to do it right after Christmas after the first of the year," White House chief of staff-to be Reince Priebus said on Fox News.
But I'm worried -- if not resigned -- about the distinct possibility that few people outside the news media really care about this issue. Trump's most loyal supporters, as disdainful of the media as the president-elect himself, don't mind if he tweets rather than takes questions from reporters. The public in general doesn't have much regard for the press either; it isn't hard to find a poll showing that trust in the media has never been lower.
I fear that if journalists continue to press Trump for a news conference, they might get the same answer they were given when they questioned him about his tax returns. "As far as my taxes are concerned, the only one that cares is the press, I will tell you," he said in September. I took a stab at the subject earlier today... | | -- Important: "Oscar-winning filmmaker Mark Boal said Tuesday that he has agreed on a settlement with the U.S. government that scuttles an Army plan to subpoena 25 hours of recorded interviews with Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl..." (NYT)
-- Ben Terris has a profile of Joe Scarborough, who says "if you want to know what he tells Trump in private, listen to what he says in public when Trump's not there..." (WashPost)
-- Amid all the chatter about "fake news," The New Yorker is making one thing clear: Andy Borowitz is "not the news..." (WWD)
-- What Bill Kristol's decision to step down as editor of The Weekly Standard really means... (Poynter) | | | The final bell rings in #HulkVsGawk | | Tom Kludt emails: A bankruptcy judge in Manhattan approved Gawker's $31 million settlement with Hulk Hogan (real name: Terry Bollea) earlier today, bringing to an end a legal dispute that spanned more than four years.
The parties agreed to the settlement last month, making today's outcome something of a formality. But the outcome was notable in what it will entail for A.J. Daulerio, the former Gawker editor who published the footage from Hogan's sex tape in 2012, and who had been flirting with the idea of appealing the decision that handed Hogan a $140.1 million judgment earlier this year.
That won't be happening now. I asked Daulerio's attorney, David Marburger, to break it down for me. He emailed:
"Under A.J.'s settlement with Bollea, A.J. gives up his right to proceed with his already-filed appeal of the big judgment; in exchange, Bollea gives up his right to collect any money from A.J. on that judgment and drops various motions that Bollea has pending in the Florida trial court against A.J. That's the crux of it."
Marburger also reached an agreement with Gawker's bankruptcy lawyer, Greg Galardi, on a $500,000 reserve to cover the legal bills Daulerio racked up since June 10, when Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as well as other expenses. The settlement will take effect when Hogan gets the $31 million under the plan.
Daulerio told Forbes that his paramount consideration was having the freedom to talk about the case.
"They did everything possible to tie up my life as a means of exerting more pressure to shut me up," Daulerio said. "So it didn't make any sense to me, logically or on principle, to agree to keep quiet about a case that is going to be discussed and dissected for many years to come just because it hurts their client's feelings or the legacy of his fictional character. I suffered enough consequences--publicly, personally, professionally--before and after the trial, so scapegoating for his shitty behavior for all eternity wasn't negotiable, despite the cumbersome personal outcomes and their legal threats." | | | 'Rogue One': Thumbs up for 'darker, grittier' Star Wars movie | | A certain movie hits theaters this week and Brian Lowry has the review:
"'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' answers the question of whether that galaxy far, far away is big enough to sustain multiple offshoots with an emphatic yes, delivering an extremely muscular and satisfying expansion of what had been, under George Lucas, a rather underdeveloped universe.
"And 'Rogue One' does feel different from the main movies, darker, grittier -- much closer in tone to an old war movie. Indeed, the production notes draw appropriate comparisons to the 1961 World War II classic 'The Guns of Navarone,' another film about a team of strong-willed individuals thrown together to undertake a secret mission against a malevolent empire.
"Still, this is essentially the real long-lost prequel to "Star Wars," just 39 years later, and director Gareth Edwards has the advantage of being able to incorporate plenty of crowd-pleasing callbacks to the original."
Read the rest of Brian's review.... | | Frank Pallotta spoke to Alan Tudyk, who plays K-2SO -- the latest in a long line of Star Wars robot heroes -- in "Rogue One."
"K-2SO is a droid... He used to be with the Empire, which is a little different, and now he is with the Rebel Alliance...K-2SO has an honesty in situations that is at times not as appreciated as you might expect, but can be funny to watch and entertaining anyway," Tudyk said.
Read the rest of Frank's interview here... | | Via Lisa France:
-- The sneak peek of Bruno Mars on "Carpool Karaoke" with James Corden is pretty damn delightful...
-- For the second year in a row, Adele won big at the BBC Music Awards. But she wasn't there to enjoy it...
-- Lee Daniels wants you to know that despite the fact he is the creator of both "Empire" and the new show "Star," they are not the same...
-- Could we please just get a reality show with Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt? The two of them are everywhere these days promoting their new film 'Passengers' -- and they are hilarious... | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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