| | | | Why is it that so many journalists privately fear a Donald Trump presidency? Why all the gallows humor and pessimistic predictions about what Trump will do? Because of days like Friday.
First the president-elect blamed the "dishonest media" for not reporting his talking point about the "Great Wall." Then he bragged about beating Arnold Schwarzenegger's ratings. Then he called for a leak investigation into an NBC News report about Russian hacking. That was all before noon. So you can understand why journalists look at the way he lashes out at the media and worry about what he'll do once he has real power, not just his Twitter account... | | | Trump's first leak investigation? | | Trump said on Twitter that he wants a Congressional probe into NBC's Thursday evening report because it "used information provided by an unnamed senior intelligence official who discussed a report detailing alleged Russian hacking of top Democratic officials," Tom Kludt reports. Trump tweeted that the info was "shared with NBC prior to me seeing it."
NBC's report aired after the WashPost published an article with very similar info, but Trump only seems interested in NBC. More... | | | "We're pretty much in new territory here" | | Lucy Dalglish, dean of the University of Maryland's journalism school, told Bloomberg that "she couldn't recall a time when a president or president-elect publicly called on Congress to investigate a leak. Normally, when a president wants such an investigation, he'll refer the case to the Justice Department, and certainly wouldn't announce it publicly, she said. 'We're pretty much in new territory here,' Dalglish said..."
Worth noting: Maybe Trump is just tweeting another empty threat... Maybe there won't be an investigation... But the mere threat has a chilling effect. | | | Wikileaks and Trump singing from the same sheet music | | | A few hours before Trump said he wanted an investigation, the official Twitter account of WikiLeaks weighed in this way: "The Obama admin/CIA is illegally funneling TOP SECRET//COMINT information to NBC for political reasons before PEOTUS even gets to read it." NBC is declining to comment on all of this... | | | Ari Fleischer's tweet alert about FLL shooting | | | Newsrooms were alerted to the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting on Friday afternoon when former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer tweeted a short message saying he was at the airport, "shots have been fired," and "everyone is running." The message caused scores of journalists to call sources and race to the airport. Here's his account of what happened... | | | Alt-right web spreads lie about CNN coverage | | The Daily Beast's Ben Collins continues to do great work documenting and debunking Internet smears. Friday's: "Far rightwing figureheads immediately invented an elaborate and racist conspiracy theory that CNN had lightened a photo of alleged Fort Lauderdale airport shooter Esteban Santiago shortly after the Friday attack. In reality, CNN had yet to air a picture of Santiago, let alone lightened a picture of him. The conspiracy also used a picture of an entirely different man named Esteban Santiago—not the alleged shooter. Still, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft published a blog post about it: "Look How CNN Doctored Photo of Ft. Lauderdale Shooter." And former GOP congressman Allen West put it up on his web site... Details here...
-- CNN PR's Matt Dornic tweets: "A completely fabricated story by @gatewaypundit. Still no retraction. #fakenews" | | | Hannity says Scarborough has been asking Fox for a job | | Dylan Byers emails: Sean Hannity went on a Twitter tirade against Joe Scarborough on Friday, even suggesting that the MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host was seeking a job at Fox News. At issue: Scarborough's assertion that it was "repulsive" to see Hannity and other Republicans supporting WikiLeaks after they had criticized it in the past. "Joe, what's really repulsive is the pathetically low ratings you have on network that colluded with Hillary Clinton," Hannity wrote in one tweet. "Joe, Is it a betrayal and repulsive that you keep asking Fox to hire you without telling your current employer?" he wrote in another.
Scarborough, who can be quite vocal on Twitter himself, chose not to engage.
Oh, and by the way, this isn't Scarborough and Hannity's first rodeo.... Flashback to 2013: "War of words: Scarborough, Hannity." | | | Campbell Brown joining Facebook | | More from Dylan: Facebook on Friday hired Campbell Brown, a former NBC correspondent and CNN host who went on to become an advocate for school reform, to be "head of news partnerships."
What it means: Brown will be the liaison between Facebook and news organizations... The role is not editorial, however, and Brown will not make any decisions about what news content appears on the site...
Here's her Facebook post about the move... And here's Dylan's full story... | | | Set your DVR for Sunday's "Reliable Sources" | | | Our first live "Reliable Sources" of 2017 will be lively: David Sanger, Glenn Greenwald, Kayleigh McEnany, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Merrill Brown, Sarah Ellison, and Jim Rutenberg will join me… Sunday, 11am ET, CNN… | | | WEEKEND READING: Oral history of election night coverage | | | Think back to November 8. What happened behind the scenes in newsrooms, control rooms and the campaign parties? I wrote this oral history of election night coverage because I had lots of questions. Featured voices: John Harwood, Judy Woodruff, John Dickerson, Maria Elena Salinas, David Chalian, Hugh Hewitt, Sopan Deb, Chris Wallace, Abby Phillip, Ryan Grim, Sam Feist, Dana Bash, Amanda Carpenter, Annie Linskey, Nate Cohn, Michael Scherer, Susan Swain, Steve Scully, Van Jones, Kathleen Carroll, Carolyn Ryan, and David Hume Kennerly… Read it here... | | "The 2016 campaign challenged me to figure out how to do my job as a journalist while remaining unbiased -- even as my own people were regularly berated by the candidate who ultimately won. It tested the very core of who I am and what kind of legacy I want to leave as the American-born daughter of two hardworking and humble Mexican immigrants."
--CNNPolitics reporter Daniella Diaz in this column, "A Clash of Identities..." | | | Obama says he's concerned about right-wing TV pundits siding with Putin | | "I'll be honest with you, George," President Obama told George Stephanopoulos in an interview taped Friday for ABC's "This Week." Obama was talking about "Russian meddling" in the election, shortly after the declassified intel report on the subject was released.
"One of the things I am concerned about is the degree to which we've seen a lot of commentary lately where there are Republicans or pundits or cable commentators who seem to have more confidence in Vladimir Putin than fellow Americans because those fellow Americans are Democrats. That cannot be," Obama said.
His message to the unnamed pundits: "We're on the same team. Vladimir Putin is not on our team..." | | | Adrian Chen, whose work on Russian hacking and trolling was cited in the DNI report, tweeted on Friday, "Don't lose sight of the real function of Russian propaganda -- sowing paranoia and fear." | | | Donald "Ratings Machine" Trump slams his successor's ratings | | "Apprentice" executive producer Donald Trump mocked the new host of the show, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for having lower ratings than he used to have. The ratings came in several days ago, but for some reason Trump didn't opine on them until Friday. Schwarzenegger "got 'swamped' (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine DJT," Trump wrote on Twitter.
Lisa France explains: "What Trump left out in his tweet… is that by the time his run as host ended, ratings had fallen precipitously. 6.5 million viewers tuned in two years ago to Trump's final season premiere as host -- 1.6 million more than for Schwarzenegger's premiere, true, but 12 million less than the first season."
That's just the reality of the TV business. Vulture's Joe Adalian has a must-read about Trump trying to "gaslight the country" about the "Apprentice…" | | | Schwarzenegger takes the high road | | | Schwarzenegger responded pretty quickly on Twitter, saying "There's nothing more important than the people's work" and telling Trump, "I wish you the best of luck and I hope you'll work for ALL of the American people as aggressively as you worked for your ratings." | | | Trump has uneventful meeting at Conde Nast | | Trump had a cordial off-the-record meeting with the top editors at Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and other Condé Nast magazines on Friday morning. Dylan Byers says it was a "a wide-ranging discussion on policy matters..." CEO Robert Sauerberg was there but chairman Charles Townsend and chairman emeritus Si Newhouse were not...
-- More: According to WWD's Alexandra Steigrad, the 42nd floor meeting "drew what insiders described as a 'small grassroots' protest by some women at Condé, who chose to wear white instead of the fashion uniform of black... Employees at the company also complained about having to endure security checks from the Secret Service, with some posting photos of the ordeal via social media with the hashtag #NotMyPresident..." | | | Hearst says Trump is welcome there, too | | | In response to Q's from journalists on Friday, Conde's uptown rival Hearst said: "Most every modern-day president has visited Hearst and we welcome the president-elect now or after Jan. 20..." | | | Exploring the Trump/Murdoch dynamic | | Gabriel Sherman, citing Fox insiders, says Tucker Carlson's promotion "is one sign of just how much Rupert Murdoch wants to appease Trump."
Sherman writes: "Murdoch has been intent on forging a tight relationship with Trump since his victory, sources close to both men tell me. One longtime Murdoch confidante told me the two speak by phone at least three times per week. As I reported Tuesday, at Mar-a-Lago over the holidays Trump criticized Roger Ailes and lavished praise on Murdoch."
Sherman's sources also say that Trump asked Murdoch to submit potential names for FCC commissioners, though a Trump spokesperson denied that... | | | The door is slammed shut? | | In yesterday's newsletter I listed all the reasons why Tucker's promotion makes sense. There's a lot of potential upside for Fox. But the WashPost's Jennifer Rubin says there are downsides too -- for civic discourse.
Kelly "is a journalist, someone who wants to get out the truth as best as she is able," while Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Carlson "create a narrative," she writes.
"Now that the Fox Non-News nighttime lineup has shed the last element of real journalism, the door between Fox Non-News world and the world is slammed shut..." | | | Streaming surpassed disc sales in 2016 | | | Sandra Gonzalez emails: I thought Variety's write-up about home entertainment's rough 2016 was really interesting. According to the story, streaming surpassed disc sales for the first time, with $5.4 billion in disc sales falling short of the $6.2 billion made from SVOD providers like Netflix. Andrew Wallenstein writes: "The declining home entertainment industry has been cited by studio chiefs recently as an impetus to reconfigure how quickly theatrical movies segue to availability in U.S. homes via streaming." | | | Weekend recommendation: "One Day at a Time" | | | More from Sandra: This one's for weekend binge watchers: Netflix debuted its "One Day at a Time" reboot on Friday, and it's charming, smart and wonderful. I spoke to the executive producer about how her background influenced the timely reboot... | | By Lisa France:
-- Kim Kardashian West has finally broken her silence about her terrifying robbery in Paris. E! has released a promo for the new season of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and it features the sobbing reality star talking about the incident...
-- Serena Williams may have been super private about her relationship, but she's now happy to shows off her engagement ring...
-- Fans have been waiting two years for new music from Ed Sheeran and he obliged Friday with two new singles. We are still waiting on an album but Sheeran says he's played his new music for the cast of "Game of Thrones..." | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. See you Sunday! | |  | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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